2019 Adlerweg Austria

Thirsday 27th June:  Weather: 19°C to 38°C: Blue skies sunny and very hot hot

St Anton circuit: 9k: 8.30am to 11am: 2hrs  30 mins: Train from St Anton to Innsbruck

Accommodation: Air BnB 2 Leopold Strasse Innsbruck Kathrin and Bjorn’s place under Triumphal Arch 

Today we start the process of going home.  First a circuit walk around At Anton, then train to Innsbruck.  We’re glad we’ve finished our walk because today is a stinker of a hot day.  38°C when we arrived in Innsbruck.  

We’re wake at 6am, but in no hurry today.  It’s a pleasant 19°C outside, but the haze over St Anton is an ominous sign of a very hot day. After a cup of tea, breakfast of bread and jam, Ian has Muesli, and packing, we take a short walk of 9k around the Sonnenweg path above St Anton, through the village of Moos, over the other side to the waterfall, and back to Simone's apartment. Back at 11am for a quick cup of coffee and the last of our apple strudel from the Steeg Backerei, with cream that’s been jiggled around in a back pack fridge for 3 days and is now almost butter.  Very nice.  Leaving Simone’s at 11.30am, it’s a very hot walk down to the station to get the 1.03pm crowded train to Innsbruck.  

At 2.11pm the train arrives at Innsbruck, and when we step out it’s like and oven.  Hot as Hades, but it’s only 500 metres to Kathrin’s Air BnB where we stayed 3 weeks ago at teh start of our walk.  She’s having a fundraising party to night for her mission in Gambia.  

Private teams in small groups travel in trucks, saloons, and 4WD vehicles over a 7,000 km route from Germany through France, Spain then through the Sahara Desert countries of Morocco, Mauritania and onto Dakar in Senegal and terminating in The Gambia. Drivers are expected to manage an average for stages of 800km per day excluding border crossings, rests and waiting times. All the lorries and other vehicles are filled with products that are urgently required with a particular emphasis on teaching books, desks, chairs, medical monitoring & diagnostic equipment and ambulances.

It’s for a good cause and we give her 100 euro, part for the room and part for mining our bags for 3 weeks, and the rest for the charity.  We spend the afternoon inside where it’s only 28°C, not 38°C outside, shower and wait for her “party” to start at 6pm.  Kathrin has moved all the furniture out of her little flat at the end of the corridor and collected 20 chairs for the paying guests who come and go according to the particular entertainer they want to hear. It’s a strange series of entertainment items beginning with a reading of poems, a musical trio of guitar, clarinet and cello, and a solo hip hop act.  

The first act was in German, but it was more interesting watching the audience of mostly mid 30’s guys and gals who had signed up on line as a contribution to Kathrin’s charity for Gambia.  Next was the musical trio who were amazingly talented and very entertaining.  The final act of a soloist hip hop artist was a bit of a flop as after one dance she wanted to sit and chat to the audience.  Weird!  So there were people coming and going all night and in between acts, beer and muffins was available.

We really enjoyed the night but went to bed at 10pm when the last few hangers on went to the student bar for more drinks.  But Ian lingered on chatting to Kathrin’s partner Bjorn who is a marketing manager from Munich.