Summer storms, changed plans, one road trip to Malta valley

It took me six days to start writing this post. Because I’ve been just too tired to do it. Guess, that’s what happens when you spend your weekend driving around and not using the days off for what they were meant in the first place – taking it easy. Oh, but we took it easy for way too long, since Stela’s surgery we were kind of forced to. And when I saw last Saturday approaching and realized all the embargoes were off  I was like a kid in a candy store.

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Looking at maps, calculating destinations, making plans, no drive seemed to be too long, (and I am talking about a day trip, since we agreed to visit some friends on Sunday in a totally opposite direction). So, for five days plans were made to be altered. When I’ve finally made up my mind and we agreed to go to Sankt Johann im Pongau, about 2 and a half hour ride just one way,where we wanted to visit the supposedly amazing Lichtenstein gorge, ride a gondola, then board a train to arrive to the Ghost Mountain amusement park. A well thought out plan, but on Saturday morning, when Tesa awoke at the crack of dawn, really, at 4.50 am, I started having second thoughts. Do I really want to ride in a car for five hours, with Stela bored out of her mind and Tesa screaming her way through the Austrian Alps and me contemplating throwing myself out of the moving vehicle on the two lane highway.

So, comes Saturday, hubby and I exchange glances and just agree to do a shorter version of a trip. About three years ago we discovered Malta valley and its 14,4 kilometers of gorgeous High Alpine Road leading through incredibly beautiful nature, full of perks such as waterfalls – due to so many of them the valley is also called “valley of cascading waters”, meadows, streams, playgrounds all the way up to the Austria’s highest concrete dam with a breathtaking and scary knee shaking Airwalk giving you an amazing view. And we figured that would be the place to go and then finish the day with a dip in Klagenfurt’s Worther lake.

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Being a pro, it took me minutes to pack. I always plan on packing a day before our infamous day trips, but that has yet to happen. Thus, I run along, yelling and being obnoxious for a period of time it takes me to get all the bags full. Then I am back to my cheerful self realizing that otherwise this would be a trip from Hell. Our other great idea, or so to speak mine, was to not eat breakfast at home, but to rather torture our kids with waiting to get to an appropriate location (to my liking) where we would have a picnic. But since neither hubbs nor me were really willing to expose ourselves to hungry children, we did feed them a bit while trying to discover the perfect setting.

And perfect it was, we ended up going to Austria through Upper Jezersko, place we have never visited before, but truly beautiful and had breakfast on a blanket next to a pond surrounded with what might seem like a page from a fairytale. The ride to Malta with our bellies full was otherwise pretty uneventful though it did take much longer since choosing a longer route.

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As we approached the entrance to the road we stopped at this lovely amusement park – Water Games Park Fallbach located on a hill leading up to an amazing waterfall. It was meant to be only a short stop for kids to run around and get tired enough to want to keep sitting in a car for a while longer. But the park was so nice, we ended up staying there for about two hours. By then the weather changed and it started to rain and we figured it made no sense to drive the road to dam now.

playground

playground 2We chickened out again and chose the easier way. We drove to Klagenfurt’s Ikea to have lunch. Yeah, ok, so we suck. It’s just, well, no excuses, we wanted to eat something we all like, for kids to be able to play and us actually enjoy our meal in peace. And I said no excuses.

After a great, everybody happy lunch we went to the lake. Just as we managed to get everyone ready and all the stuff out in the open, it started to rain again. We moved to take cover and continued to play as if nothing strange was going on. Hubbs even took a swim, me, I wasn’t tempted after the wind joined the freezing rain drops. But I was mother of the year, all dressed up, with naked kids playing in the sand as if it was business as usual. Hey, when in Rome, right, since the Austrian kids were doing it as well, mine at least weren’t swimming. Finally we figured things will not heat up again, so we surrendered and headed back home. And just in time too, since we were tired and ready to hit the sack.

 

 

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