So, as always we are long overdue for blog posts. Lets beam back to the first weekend in August…we
went camping in Garmisch, Germany just south of Munich. The outdoor recreation centers on the bases
here offer all sorts of camping equipment for very inexpensive rentals, so we
rented a tent and a camping stove for a new type of adventure with Toni and
Warren.
What was supposed to be a 4-5 hour drive ended up being a
few hours longer than that due to construction on the autobahn, but we
eventually made it to our campsite (after dark) and attempted to locate our
site and set up our tent. This feat
alone was an experience for sure.
Someone was set up on our site, so we had to find a different one and
let the office know that we had switched (the office was about a 5 min drive
away from the actual campsite). We got
everything set up and slept the best we could, but realized really quickly that
we did not pack enough warm pajamas and blankets for the cold nights. Over the
three nights we were there we purchased two blankets and a new air mattress
(after waking up on the floor at about midnight the second night…not
fun!).
s'mores for breakfast
our campsite
Our first day we went hiking in a nearby town called Mittenwald. This little alpine town was absolutely
beautiful and although it was a pretty warm day, we had great weather for
hiking. We hiked around this town as
well as around the Leutasch gorge. They
have constructed metal hiking paths that suspend from the cliffs on the side of
this gorge and it was just an amazing way to see this awesome gorge. We also hiked up a pretty steep climb to a
little restaurant right on the Germany and Austrian border. When you sit on the patio you are in Austria,
but if you go into the actual building you are in Germany. The views from this place were like a
postcard.
sitting in Austria drinking beer from a fridge in Germany :)
Mittenwald
Day two was the main reason we came on this trip. We drove about an hour and a half to Haiming,
Austria and spent the whole day white water rafting. In the morning, we went on an easy river and
learned the basic commands and got to know our guide. This river was mainly class 2 rapids with a
few class 3 thrown in. We took a lunch
break, were bused to a new start location and got back in the raft in the
afternoon for the best part of the day.
We spent the afternoon paddling our butts off and experiencing constant
white water with class 4+ rapids. What
an awesome adventure! We were pretty
sore the next day, but can’t wait to go rafting again. We don't have any pictures from during the actual rafting, but here are a few while we were getting ready.
Day three we headed home, but took a pit stop at the
Linderhof palace, one of King Ludwig’s palaces around Bavaria. After taking some pictures and spending some
time walking around the palace grounds, we got back in the car and headed home.
We had an awesome weekend filled with lots of beautiful scenery. We will definitely be going back to Garmisch in the future.
