There are no Kangaroos in Austria.

Despite the title, this blog update starts at the smallest country we have been to so far. Its hard to find one much smaller than Liechtenstein. At about 20kms by 5kms, it wouldnt be hard to miss. We first caught sight of this little country in our Europe lonely planet as the thinnest section. Once we heard it was famous for postage stamps and dentures, we simply couldnt leave it from our itinerary!

Our second couch surfing host, Henning, was living here. We met him in our hostel in Lucerne, Switzerland. Well, actually, he was the one to spot us... well Renee actually (recognising her from her couch surfing photo). A careful series of questioning confirmed it was and luckily he still let us stay with him once we got to Liechtenstein!



Henning, our Liechtenstein couch surfing host


A great guy, studying abroad, from Germany. Apparently the university he attends is very successful in recruiting foreign students by their luring promotional photo. (The stunning panoramic view from their glass walled library, comple with a hot young blond studying.)

To take in the majestic view of the country (literally almost all of it!) we were taken half way up the mountain next where we were staying (in the capital Vaduz). Unfortunately we were about 2 minutes up our climb when the peak fanished in front of our eyes! Heavy fog rolled in. No sooner had we decided it best to turn back, the visibility dropped to a few metres infront of us. As we reached the car it turned into a downpour and it didnt let up for quite a while.
This killed much of our activity for the day, however it was a suprising, yet beautiful sight the next morning as the clouds rolled away revealing the top half of the mountain covered in a fresh dusting of snow! (and here we were thinking it was summer in June in the northern hemisphere!)

We continued moving on to Innsbruck, Austria as we only had a few more days to get through Austria and back to Munich for our flight to London.

Unfortunately Innsbruck was a bit of dissapointment for us as the rain continued and when it stopped, it was still so cloudy we so couldnt see much of surrounding mountains. It didnt help that our Hostel was a smokey dive, with a very dodgy breakfast. Im sure it would have been much nicer if we had better weather and accomodation.



Tim wandering the cold, wet and deserted streets of Innsbruck


Salzburg was our next (and final) stop for Austria. We met up with our third couch surfing host Chris. He kindly took us around a bit of the old town before we met a friend of his and went to their quiet local spanish bar. A few wines (of which I'm still not a fan) with some lovely spanish bread, olives and cold meats was a good accompaniment for a great night of chatting away like we had always been good friends.



Chris, our couch surfing host in Salzburg


Chris already had some american boys who had booked the couch before us, so we found a hostel for the next night. To our astonishment, Chris, (obviously not realising how dodgy we actually were), trusted us enough from our short time together to hand over the keys to his apartment for the weekend while he went to Italy with some mates for a motorbiking weekend!
This kindness, generosity and trusting act shows humanity still has a chance, and makes communities like couch surfing work. (We only hope we can continue the great work of others such as the people we have stayed with, by helping others enjoy one of the best bits of Australia once we get home.)





Anyway... back to Salzburg. With Chris's house as base, we did a more extensive walk of the old town. Mozart featured prominently as it was his birthplace. The fact that he couldnt wait to get out of the place wasnt really promoted, but thats just a minor detail in history. ;o)









The highlight of the Austrian sights was our day trip to visit the largest (known) ice cave: Eisriesenwelt Werfen. A cable car got us most of the way up the mountain where the cave entrance is located, however it was a 10 minute walk up a very slippery slope and there were numerous times Tim almost ended up with a sore and cold butt!



Tim standing on the mountain; one of the few times he was standing! The rest of the time he was sitting in the snow on his butt.


Surprisingly, our picnic plans were put on hold...


With over 4okms of cave, it is pretty impressive inside. The 1km walk we had contained some impressive ice formations and features, but from our caving experiences in south West WA, their eco management seemed to be lacking. Our spelunking friends Jay and Ross would be livid if they visited. All the tourists were given keroscene lamps. The amount of Magnesium ribon burned and dropped buy the guides was distressing to say the least. You can see the damage to the features where the guides hang the burning magnesium to light it up, yet melt the ice at the same time!



And it's supposed to be summer in the northern hemisphere!!