Now we came to Lyndon’s favourite part of the holiday, setting up tent (yuk, yuk, yuk). I hate camping, I despise it in fact but made a promise to Lyndon that I try it one more time during a summer holiday, seeing that he always caved in to what I wanted to do on holidays.
After a long a tiring train ride, and a 45 minute walk to the campsite, we finally arrived at about 17:00hrs at Berchtesgaden. Of course at that moment in time the weather decided to award us with a few drops of rain here and there and we feared we would not be able to set up the tent without getting soaked. But in the end all was well – Lyndon did most of the setting up bit, we stored our backpacks and made our way towards the Koenigsee to get something to eat.
You need to know that if I get hungry and don’t find anything to eat – I get cranky with a capital C. As it was Monday most Restaurants were actually closed for their so-called “rest day”. In Germany many Restaurants are closed on Sundays, however they are not obliged to do so. Therefore some are open Sundays and subsequently choose another day of the week for their day of rest. After walking around for a while we finally spotted one Restaurant that was open, but once we got there we saw people being turned away as it was so full. No wonder, because everyone tried to pile into there as all other places were closed.
From last time we remembered a fabulous Restaurant in Schoenau which was about a 40 minute walk away. After much cussing and pouting on my part, we finally decided to go there only to find that..Yup “Monday = rest day”. We knew there were a few other places around in that area and checked them out. But again, people were turned away as they Restaurants could not cope with the demand. I ended up sitting on a bench sobbing my eyes out – we both hadn’t eaten for a day, our feet were sore from all that walking and the thought of going back to the tent that early with a rumbly tummy just did my head in.
Quite frankly I do not understand the powers that be in Berchtesgaden – hotels filled to capacity (you saw the “no vacancy” signs all around), the campsite had tents and camper vans almost on top of each other, yet you can’t even get something proper to eat?? WTF?? Seriously, if I had a Restaurant it would be open every day of the week during the season – why throw away possible earnings like that. In the end all that was left was MacDonalds which caused me to sob again stating “ I didn’t spent a fortune on my holiday to go to Germany to eat the same shit I can get at home”...but hey, it was better than nothing and at least in Germany you can get McRib at McD – they don’t sell that in the UK.
Fast forward to our first night in the tent – not only did we have the noisiest neighbours imaginable who decided to converse loud into the late evening hours and whenever we managed to drift off a booming laugh made sure we wouldn’t fall asleep. I couldn’t sleep anyway – every bone in my body was hurting, it was cold and I just reveled in being miserable. In total, I think I managed to doze for something like 2 hours.
I was pretty much awake all through the night and was staring at the clock, willing it to get to at least 7:00 so we could get starting on the day. When I left the tent for the shower rooms I saw a big fat nothing – all the mountains surrounding us the evening before were gone, disappeared into thin air. Actually they disappeared behind the worst bit of mountain mist I ever experienced. You could not see a darn thing – yay me...hip hip hooray and a fabulous tenting time (notice the sarcasm oozing from that statement?). Story cut short – Shower rooms and toilets awful, Kim hungry, tired, frozen and miserable, no mountains in sight. I wanted to come home right then and there, but nooooooo Mr Lyndon said “don’t worry Babe, it’s only mountain mist, it will clear and we will have a great day”.
Whoo-pee.
At some stage I cried again – what a spoiled little wuss I am, but I quite enjoyed my misery at that time. You know the moment when you actually decide in your head that you should be awarded martyr status for putting up with so much crap ,yet no one recognises it? And as soon as you managed to make everyone else around you miserable too, you cheer up and say "get a grip - it's not all bad"
Anyway, we jumped on the bus to the Hintersee, which is close to my favourite
{zauberwald} and were supposed to hike from there to some fabulous Restaurant/Mountain hut. Thankfully there were some information signs, which displayed the fact that this hut in fact had its "rest day" that day. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah....what on earth did we do to have so much rotten luck?? Plan B, saw us waiting for the bus to return - check out my "happy" face on this picture, speaks a thousand words, right?
So, we got our butts towards the next stop - forgotten the name of the place where we got off but from there it was still a 40 minute hike to get to the {mittelstation} at the Jenner. The sun was beating down relentlessly and did not improve our overall mood, however the scenery helped us overlook the fact that we were hungry, hot, stinky and very thirsty.
Eventually we made it to
{hugo beck haus}, which is one of our favourite mountain huts in that area. Last time we were up there we had a fabulous meal and we hoped it was still as good as way back then. Thankfully, the hut was open and the food as divine as always. If only it wouldn't have been so darn hot - we both only had thin cotton shirts on and still they were SOAKED (and I am not kidding).
After our refreshment stop we carried on along the hiking trails and once more were amazed at the fact that there were so many people about. This was supposed to be post-season - and we had to walk single file most of the time...sheesh. Makes you wonder how packed high-season must be. But there were some "hikers" for which we gladly stepped aside - only in Germany.....would you step aside on a hiking trail for this:
Long story short, we walked for quite some time and about 18:00ish my knees started to hurt a bit. So we called it a day and went back to the tent. The next day would be quite exhausting we thought and we needed a good nights rest... I could barley keep my eyes open anyway
