Bad Gastein

Austria here we come! We journey back west towards Austria... Feeling extremely posh as we have upgraded ourselves to taking the train instead of bus! We arrive in Salzburg and encounter our first experience with the Syrian refugee crisis- there are police everywhere and a medical tent set up outside the station.

Bad Gastein is a beautiful little ski village about 1.5 hours south of Salzburg. It is not ski season but we are heading there to visit Sukis friends Thijs and Elke- Thijs owns an 8 apartment chalet there and Suki worked for him for a ski season 5 years ago... Such great times and memories!

Thijs is away the night we arrive so he sends Edwin, his new helper, to pick us up from the station. Edwin is Dutch and has been at the chalet for 3 months- very interesting guy! Its currently off season and Edwin hasn't had any guests for a few weeks- you can tell because he's very eager to have a chat! Several bottles of oversized wine later its 1am and Travis declares its time to go to bed :-P

The evening sets the precedent for our next 5 nights here, as we spend the days going on walks around the beautiful mountainside (including a trip up to Sportgastein) and the nights drinking lots and lots of wine.

We make a camp fire out the front of the chalet on night 2 (Trav has got his fire mojo back!), Thijs turns up and we spend an amazing evening catching up, drinking wine and cooking meat on the fire. We burn a book at one point (long story!).

Night 3 is a much needed night off so we have a quiet night in.

Day 4 we head to Thijs and Elkes place to test out the Laser Tag equipment!!! We set up a game of capture the flag in the front and back yard.. lots of fun! The technology has really improved since we were kids... The guns have scopes and everything! A few games of this and we are puffed and in need of a drink. We head out for dinner at the new pizzeria in town which Elke has part ownership of. The evening ends in us dancing in the restaurant after all the other customers have left, then having a jam session at Thijs and Elkes place afterwards on the drums and bongos- Travis shows some impressive skills on the drums while Suki displays her tone deafness on the bongos. All in all another great night!

We end our stay at Chalet Gastein with a quiet camp fire on Day 5, a bit more wine and learning about Edwins interesting life. Its been a great stay and we hope everyone will visit us in Oz next :-)Read more