Day 78: Down the mines

Date: Saturday 14^th June 2008
Staying: Camping Kasern – Salzburg, Austria
Distance Travelled: 0 Miles
Song of the day: Super Massive Black Hole – Muse

For day 78, we decided to go on our first organised tour of the trip. It was not (as some of you may be speculating) “The Sound of Music” tour, but instead one of the Salt Mines.

Crossing over the border to Germany, we were taken to a mine just outside Berchtesgaden. Before they let you into the mines, you must don “miners overalls”, large black coveralls with lots of elastic, a reinforced inner leg (purpose to become apparent shortly), and a lot of reflective strips. You are taken by train (think of the train in the Esplanade if you know Palmerston North), 600m into the mountain, where you are escorted around and shown various models and pieces of equipment associated with salt mining. To be fair, the real highlight and the reason people visit I’m sure, is for the miner’s slides. The slides consist of two parallel rails which are rounded on top, about a foot apart, and on an angle rather like a children’s slide. You straddle the two tracks, lean back a little, lift your feet and slide at rapid speed downhill. The first slide was 34m long and a fast ride. Cam got on first, I snuggled up behind him, and our guide gave us a little push. In the photo, I have my eyes squeezed shut, which tells you something about how fast it was. Fortunately I managed to keep my eyes open on the second slide which was a bit slower, but still a lot faster than I like to go under my own steam.

After the mines, we picked up another tour group who had been up to the “Eagles Nest”. We could just see it on the top of the mountain, but as it is a restaurant these days, it seemed a bit of a waste to spend €45 each to see it. We stopped for lunch in the village of Berchtesgaden, where kids were busking wearing lederhosen and playing accordions.

As we were driving back to Salzburg, I spotted a car parts shop. Now is the time to confess to my “oops” moment from two days ago. I mentioned in my last blog that we stopped in Liechtenstein to get a road tax vignette for Austria, but we also filled up the tank at the same time. Later in the day we noticed that the spare set of keys was missing. Yesterday I finally twigged. The last place we had the keys that I could remember was the petrol station in Liechtenstein. I had a walk around the van and the puzzle was solved. The keys were in the petrol cap. Which was still at the petrol station in Liechtenstein. At a distance of around 400km from our current location. To top things off, it had been raining overnight, so not only were we bereft of a petrol cap, but possibly had water in the tank too. For once, Cam had not lost his keys – this was entirely of my own doing.

Fortunately things turned out alright – I had an adventure on the local buses in Salzburg to the car parts shop (think Halfords or Repco, depending on your country of origin) and got a new petrol cap. Jarno, after a drive, seems none the worse for wear either. A lucky escape for us.

Now we just need a new set of keys cut.