Section 2: Ebensee to Waidhoven

We're having a day off in Waidhoven, it's raining and it's COLD. It rained all day yesterday too. We've got over the excitement of realising that we can do this thing, and are now in the actual doing of it. These images were added in London, as the local hotel reception PC wouldn't recognize my camera. (It proved quite difficult to get to a computer in rural Austria.)

The big lakes have gone now, small ones only. (Still beautiful, though.) There are still mountains always to the South, but when we take a more northerly route, which we do when the clouds are low, they get smaller, and sometimes have rounded tops with cows on them. There is lots of walking through woods, some lovely with wooded glades, some a bit dull, like Forestry Commission.

The Gasthofs are lovely - big houses with lots of flowers, balconies, etc - but sometimes they are hard to find, and we have had to take a taxi or bus down the road off the trail. Then next morning back to the trail. Same place of course - purists that we are - but it was hard one morning explaining to a non english-speaking driver why we didn't want him to drive us any further, but preferred to walk!

They are also puzzled about the sponsorship aspect. That word isn't in our Lonely Planet phrasebook, though we do have the German for 'I want to see a lawyer' should that be necessary. Also, I don't think they have so much sponsored events as we do.

Talking of sponsorship - the money for the Microscope has already been raised. The extra is for ancillary equipment such as a pupil measuring instrument. Diana's surgeon (who has incidentally contributed to the Fund) has said that on consulting with the nurses, they said that what they really wanted was a Bladder Scanner, so they could avoid catheterizing patients unnecessarily. Not as glamorous as looking in Pupils! But I imagine that you are, like me, happy for the money to go where the professionals want it. The only stipulation I would make is that the decision should be made by people on the front line, i.e. Doctors and Nurses, rather than by people sitting behind a desk.

Di here - I saw the word for sponsorship on a poster: Co-operationpartner! However, I've been thinking more about Mozart, partly as we listened to our version of the Concerto No 21 (K467), so I sing bits to myself as we walk. Also, he wrote about what a sore bum he got, travelling on coaches for hours on end. My bum isn't sore, but at the end of each day my feet are - I don't think I'm thumping my steps, but the sheer number of steps each day just is a lot for my soles to cope with. Once I've showered and given them a bit of a massage they're usually OK. And, as I struggle with very primitive German, I wonder if it's the language he spoke. Having taken the sun for granted to begin with, this cold is a bit of a shock to the system; however they still call it summer here.

Back to Jeremy, and back to our walk. We will succeed, as long as we don't fall ill, over, or something gives way. Always a possibility! Later this week we have to decide whether to take a low or high route, which will depend on the weather and our taste for adventure! Next planned rest day is Lilienfeld in about a week.