This night we slept very good and without interruption. Breakfast was already there when we came down, and we chatted a little with Erika, our lovely landlady. When I told her I’m vegetarian she brought me her selfmade apricot jam which none of the other guests got. 😁
After filling our stomaches we packed our stuff and off we hiked into the crisp morning air. Erika told us that it had had only 4 degrees in the morning at 6 a.m. and right now it wasn’t much warmer. But the air was good, there was no rain and even sunshine – best hiking weather!
The path led a bit through Bad Kleinkirchheim, through the pretty park and along some houses before the descent started. At first it was an asphalt road which then led onto a 4×4 road.
Then the path led steeply through the forest, shortening the 4×4 road. It was quite an ascent in 5 km (1000m up!) but really nice in the cool beneath the trees. And nobody else around.
When we finally stepped out of the wood we had a great view down:
Suddenly there were quite some people, and we soon figured why. There was a cable car going up nearly to the top of the peak, and of course there was nobody else but us hiking up there! 😂
After a short way up (1-2 km, 150m up) to the Kaiserburg, we reached the first peak on our tour. There were so many people because of the cable car but we nonetheless stopped for pictures. The view was fantastic!
Then it was just 20 minutes of hiking to the next peak, the Wöllaner Nock. There were still too many people for my taste, but, man, the view was great, too:
After taking the pictures we hiked down a bit in the direction of the Vordere Wöllaner Nock. There the cable car was already quite a bit off route so there were significantly fewer people. We decided to make a break before hiking to the third and last peak.
At the Vordere Wöllaner Nock we already could see from up above the destination of today’s hike, Arriach:
The way down was quite ok though a long descent of 1300m and not very exciting. It mainly led through the forest and again on winding roads until we reached civilisation again. There were some very beautiful old farm houses and shortly before Laastadt the coolest resting place:
It was enclosing a huge spruce called the Kandelaber-Fichte because of its form similiar to a candelabrum. The spruce is likely 500-600 years old and put under nature conservancy. There were nice sunbeds made of wood, drinking water and Kneipp cures.
The rest of the way was unexciting and we made it to our accomodation, the Alte Point, in 30-40 minutes.
There we got our room and after showering we ate Apfelstrudel with another guest hiking the Austrian part of the AAT. We talked quite a while and soon it was time for dinner which was really very tasty. There we also met the 3 girls from the Lärchenhütte again who happened to be from Oberösterreich and not Salzburg. 😉 And it was also there when we found out why there were such a lot of bathroom visits at the Lärchenhütte. One of the girls was sick that night!
Some figures for today:
- 20,7km
- 1200m up
- 1340m down
- Hiking time: 4h 57m