On Thursday, the 21st, we rode into town and caught a train out to Hadersdorf, an hour upstream of Vienna on the Danube. We then caught a much smaller, single carriage diesel up the Kamp river valley and got off at at a small village called Plank half an hour later.
We ride into Gars am Kamp for a very nice lunch of Hungarian Gulasch and Mohn nudeln (poppy seed noddles, dessert) at the Gold Eagle Cafe before continuing upstream.
Reusing horse troughs carved out solid granite as flower pots and traffic bollards.
A crossing of the Kamp river.
After a particularly big hill, we arrived at Altenberg Stift (monastery) and had coffee. The dark clouds turned to heavy rain so we spent an hour wandering around the place.
A small renaissance castle at Greillenstein on route, in need of more love.
And where all the poppy seeds come from.
We got a bit off track crossing one valley, riding deep in the woods. Most of the route was on rarely used sealed single lane through farm fields of wheat, corn, barley and numerous other crops.
A bit lost in the woods . . .
We rode down one big hillside into Krumau right on the Kamp and just downstream of a series of dams. After topup of food and drink, we continued along side the river which became a long thin lake of still water once behind a dam wall. Heavily forested and very beautiful.
Andrew, apple juice and the road along the river,Purzelkamp.
The main dam wall was built in 1956 at Ottenstein and is 69m high. The cycleway past it was a get off and walk job. Once at the carpark at the top, we continued along to Rastenfeld where we had booked a room at a nice old farmhouse where the bedroom windows at the front were a metre from the road and the back fencing a few hundred metres away in the other direction. The ride there may have only been 67km but we had gained 450m in height with around 980m of vertical distance in all. In other words, we were exhausted.
They had put in a special structure over the chimney and storks had made a large nest there with two sizable youngsters already. It had been decades since Susanna has seen storks.
Storks on their nest and where we stayed the night . . .
. . . and the youngsters closer up.
The return on Friday
Given that we were going to be riding mostly downhill, we set out to ride all the way back to Hadersdorf. But first a visit to the local castle, Rastenberg where we had planned to stay the night, initially.
The castle ahead, downhill and over dale.
Maybe next time. It was downhill and so we decided to continue along the river, Purzelkamp, on a rough, unsealed access track. The water backed up behind the dam wall was of course, flat, the track not so much.
Suz and quite a drop to the water . . .
The village of Rostenfeld
After some very mountain bike like track, we eventually hit bituman again and returned to the route proper, popping out just before Rostenfeld. A lot of downhill and we arrived just behind the Ottenstein Dam wall where we had a quick swim, circling a rocky outcrop.
Suz at the foot of the dam wall.
One of a number of castle ruins along the waterway.
We continued along the dammed waterway until we return to Krumau and stock up on Marille Knodels before tackling the big now uphill and it's switchbacks. Yet another big downhill before we return to the Kamp river.
Andrew and the Rosenburg castle - not a ruin and in excellent condition.
Rosenburg also has a whitewater canoe school - another time?
Suz a few metres further along.
Some of the path just upstream of Plank.
We are now past Plank, and wineries start to appear before the landscape becomes totally devoted to the growing of grapes and the production of wine. Wine cellars and wine processing buildings line the road.
Suz at a solarfarm we come across just before the train station at Haderdorf.
The land is quite flat as we return to Hadersdorf. By the time, we get back up the hill home, we have ridden a total of 162km and climbed vertical 1100 metres. Dinner was after 9pm . . .