G & J away from home

Monday, 20 June 2016

Morning

We started the morning ticking off one of the must-do items from our list of things to do in Pertisau; visit the library in the tourist information office and see the plaque to Elinor Brent-Dyer and her chalet books.  Evidential photo:

With Chalet books under the EBD plaque (Photo: Gary)

Each stop is neatly labelled

On advice from others who had done the walk they opted to take the boat to Gaisalm, and I opted to wave them goodbye and carry on onboard to Achenseehof and Scholastika before returning to Gaisalm and then (hopefully) take photos of our walkers on the lake-side path as the boat sailed between Gaisalm and Pertisau.

Disembarking at Gaisalm

Milling aimlessly

All went to plan until the three of them disembarked whereupon they started to mill around aimlessly and it was obvious that the finding the path was going to be the first order of business.  (P.S. This uncertain seeking for directional clues has now become known as the Gaisalm Dance.)

Hoping they would eventually find their way I continued on with the Tirol, and once we were on the Gaisalm to Pertisau leg I positioned myself on the correct side of the boat to take photos. Immediately I could tell that being able to see them at all was going to be part of the challenge:

Trying to spot the walkers from the boat

They are in that photo but were even a little hard to spot with zoom:

Beth and Marianne on the left, Gary on the right on the high point

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

I have suggested to them that I was probably easier to spot - the boat was a pretty big clue and I was wearing my orange raincoat, whereas I had kilometres of path to check.  Nevertheless contact was made by way of lots of waving and photos were taken.  The Tirol and I sailed on and the walkers kept walking.


The Tirol has a rather nice feature in the central staircase which has water running along underneath it and the metal plate over which the water runs is inscribed with the names of the earlier boats that served on the Achensee.

The Tirol's stairs with waterfall and inscriptions

I was also quite taken with the decorative light panels:

Light fittings with an Achensee view in the background

While I was wafting around taking photos of the boat's interior the walkers were carrying on along the narrow path with Gary happily seeing 'dripping rocks' in every waterfall they came across.

On the path from Gaisalm to Pertisau (Photo: Gary)

In parts the path was very narrow sometimes with steep drops directly down to the lake.  (A little push here and Beth would have had her swim in the Achensee sooner than she expected.)

Steps on the path (Photo: Gary)

Marianne and Beth under the dripping rock (Photo: Gary)

There were a few complaints from the advance party (Beth and Marianne) about the amount of time they had to stand under this famous 'dripping rock' - getting drenched - while the photos were being taken but Gary was recording the moment with all three cameras (and also standing far enough back that he wasn't getting wet).

Finally it was time to go under the dripping rock and from the other side Beth took a photo of Gary making his way under:

Gary, the well-equipped dripping rock visitor (Photo: Beth)

The walk took abut 2 hours and as they arrived back in Pertisau they stopped to take photos of one of the boats we had discussed as possible early steamers (i.e., those that the Chalet School girls might have used ... had they not been fictional):

The St Josef  (Photo: Gary)

And so the tried walkers arrived home for a lunch break and a rest before the afternoon's activities (which will be related in another post).

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