St. Wolfgang to Weissenbach

StrandHotel Margaretha - our 2 night stay in St. Wolfgang.

We had a little more leisurely departure this morning because the Headwater reps were not picking us up until 10. We were all ready when they arrived to drive us to the start of our hike just before Schwarzensee Lake. We could have walked from the hotel up and over the hill to this spot, 5.7km, but Jill said it was a slog uphill through the woods so we decided to skip it and start a little further on. 

Our hike today was quite pleasant, a different landscape than we have had for the other hike days in the last week. The instructions say we hiked 11.5km so we figure 12ish. The bush and land was dryer, the creeks mostly dried up, and the hills covered in deciduous trees starting to change color. The weather report mentioned thunder showers but we had none of that, just some blue sky and sunshine. (Must be the new rain pants we both bought in Bad Ischl on Day 2!)  We passed a few hikers and a few cyclists but no tourists. It was very quiet up in the hills. We heard birds but did not see any squirrels or chipmunks which made us wonder if there are any here. The only wildlife we have seen in Austria have been four deer, a couple of days ago. They are avid hunters here so I think the deer have all been shot and their heads and antlers hanging at the end of someone's barn or in the hallway of their house. Wendy saw a cardboard box of deer heads at the end of a barn as we were hiking past but I wouldn't let her take a picture. 

Schwarzensee Lake

Attersee Lake - our first glimpse

Arriving at Hotel Post in Weissenbach on the shores of Attersee. 

And the end of our Headwater Hike in the Austrian Lakes Area. We found hiking today we had a much clearer idea of the lay on the land after being up at the top of Schafberg yesterday when we were looking down on many of the lakes we have hiked to or gone past or just heard about in the past week.

The other thing we found interesting is all the modes of transportation (besides our own two feet) we have used in the last seven days: van, bus, funicular, train, gondola, & cog train. Tomorrow Colin and Jill will pick us up at this hotel and drive us to a train station to catch our train to Vienna and we become tourists again.

Just before starting out this morning.