Thursday 29th May
The Austrian Hungary border was a straight drive through, no passport checks, across into another country before we knew it ... and the weeks seem to be flying by.
There are many wind machines on either side of this part of each border, and by many, there are hundreds, also a lot of agriculture either side and not only red poppy farms but pink also.
On the Austrian side the region has many vineyards, and we stopped off at a lovely town called Gols for a coffee break, noticing several cellar doors along the main road. It was a public holiday and everything was closed.
We made our way to Eckartsau to meet up with Barbara and it is so great to see her again, so lovely and welcoming. We are staying on camp with her as she is working as a Park Ranger who is Independant of the parks and takes paying guests on treks, tours, nature study hikes in the National Park, on the Danube River and its tributaries. Usually Barbara lives in Vienna, but this is the start of her busy time of the year so on camp it is. The camp is all set up and it is either tents or cabins. Tonight we meet the other two families and had a campfire dinner featuring Austrian sausage.
(Shelley and I looked after Barbara and Nicolai when they visited NZ last year, unfortunately Nicolai couldn't make it to see us here, nor could we visit him in Russia, the distance too great.)
Saturday 31st May
We have been treated too all sorts of activities at the Donau-Auen National Park, which has the Danube River flowing through it. We have biked along the Danube River, visited and taken part in activities at the castle, which is the visitor centre, toured the grounds and it's many features, boated along the tributaries of the Danube, picniced on its banks, visited a stork colony... and enjoyed the company of the two other families, including partaking in some great food and local Austrian wines.
From this area of Austria we went for a drive around before dinner tonight and we were able to look over one of the rivers near where we staying and see Slovakia, and the town of Bratislava in the distance, we waved to Lydia.
We have been thoroughly spoilt here and tomorrow we head to Vienna to be met by Robert a friend of Barbara's who is going to show us around the city.
Sunday 1st June
We sadly farewelled Barbara this morning and headed to Vienna for the day and met up with our wonderful guide Robert, who was a wealth of information about the city and its history. A lovely city and all the sights are very central in the inner city, and being a Sunday a lot more quieter than we expected. We parked about a km from the central city and walked in to meet Robert outside St Stephens Cathedral.
We drove through to Retz and on the way crossed the Danube on a ferry which was very unexpected, it wasn't until the GPS said board the ferry in 200 metres we realised!
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