A beautiful if slightly Kafka-ish day. Lovely radweg Lienz to Matrei 30 odd ks beside the Isel. Up 200 meters a gradual ascent mixed with the odd paved but very steep forest diversion. Signed without fail. Cloudy with a foggy start after rain in the night.
Then reaching Matrei the path ends and I must catch a bus through a 3k tunnel. I'm told to catch it at the tunnel mouth or that there is a number to ring for a shuttle bus. I ride up 900 meters over as many ks and no one at the top. Simply to prove I'm healthy again after Brixensnott.
After some inward debate (90 minutes ride up is to my mind a slog I was a sweatball with the traffic up my butt) I speedily return down to Matrei.
Not speedily enough . Tourism info is closed for lunch so I try to find the postbus which I miss by 5 minutes because I'm searching for the bus station. The streets in this town are very steep and I'm at the bottom of the town in granny gears only to see three buses zoom by on a road a half k above me. Finally I find the bus station only to have to wait 3 hours for the next.
So blog gets written before the end of the day for a change at a friendly cafe "kuckuck" where my faith in it all is restored with a free powerpoint and wifi being provided in very good english. That's holidays in Thailand for you...I gave em €5 for treating me so well and we parted laughing.
After a cold buspark wait I'm treated to a very friendly driver who chats the whole way explaining an avalanche has reduced the only road to Mittersill to single lane meaning delays in the tunnel bike shuttle bus attendance.
I'm actually glad because I know I rode the mountain all but the 3.7ks tunnell and the 14ks down to Mittersill don't really count. With full baggage I'm too slow for real roads and hence my passion for the radweg which greatly enhances my cycling joy and safety.
Todays sojourn was brought about by a 26k joining stretch of real road over an enormius mountain pass between the Drau and Isel radwegs and the Tauern radweg which will become the Salzach and thence take me comfortably 160 odd ks mostly down to Salzburg.
The rivers, mountains and roaring rivers are the main attraction along with the art. In 5 weeks I've had to train or bus it for max 80ks to link up the paths . Not bad when the pista cyclable have bourne me so gloriously for many more hundreds.
For the next section I've a bikeline book which will mean I just can't get lost. For very long...and pleasantly so in the spirit of the unplanned adventure.
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