Garsten and Steyr

We were lucky enough to stay off the more typical international tourist track in Upper Austria and even luckier to spend time with Rob's friends, Ulli and Flo and their three gorgeous kids. Our timing was a bit poor as it coincided with illness in the family as well as my own continuing health problems. However, it was great we were able to spend time together over a weekend and it was lovely to be in such a nice family environment. We weren’t long in the house before we were treated to a dress-up parade that included Spiderman, a medieval outfit and a firefighter!

Garsten is a lovely village in Upper Austria, located on the edge of a town called Steyr. It is around 2 hours west of Vienna by train and, like much of the country, has the advantage of a lovely mountain setting. On the Saturday we had a relaxed morning before taking a walk up a mountain to Schosserhütte. We were a bit unlucky with a fog obscuring what is usually a wonderful view (for great views of what we couldn't see, visit here) but it was a nice walk and we were rewarded at Schosserhütte with a tasty, warm lunch. Schosserhütte was nice and cosy, as I imagine a lot of places in Austria need to be come winter! After lunch the kids played in the teepee that stood next to the hut and Jinti, the families beautiful “Nepalese mountain dog”, also had a fun time digging about the place. On the way down the fog lifted ever so slightly, giving us a view of some colourful Autumnal trees. 

Jinti

Jinti walking Rob

Finn, Flo and Jonah sprint/skipping down the road from Schosserhütte

We also took a quick walk up to the ruins at Burgruine Losenstein, which had lovely views and is regularly used as a site for plays.  Finn took the opportunity to work on his climbing.

Ulli booked us tickets for a Night Watchman's tour in Steyr that evening and Flo dropped us off in town. The tour took us through the medieval part of town and to the top of the parish church spire. The tour was in German but the guide was kind enough to tell us the key bits of information in English along the way. Steyr is a very pretty town located at the confluence of the Enns and Steyr rivers. (A useful spot to be when you need to construct a moat around your town!) Steyr has a long history as a manufacturing centre and once produced cars and arms. Our guide told us that at one time it was against the law to manufacture a complete gun in Steyr. This was (apparently) to ensure the working class Protestants would not use the guns to rebel against ruling Catholics!

The beautiful main street of Steyr

View from the church tower

Shopping alley in Steyr

Across the Steyr river

Family/city crests adourning the city streets

You can't make it out from the photo, but each sculpture on the facade
of this building represents one of the five senses

On Sunday we had a restful day for the most part. Rob, Flo, Finn, Jonah and Anna went for a short walk and saw some deer. Rob had a conversation with Jonah about…well, Rob isn’t sure. It was a bit one-sided with Jonah happily telling Rob all sorts of things he had no hope of understanding but he thinks that it was mainly about deer!

Though the kids were probably a bit afraid of us with our odd accents and lack of German, we managed a few games with them across the weekend. Anna, the youngest, was not at all shy and was keen for us to read to her. Rob pulled off the German a lot better than me but I was pretty good at pointing at things she was interested in! By the end of the weekend Finn and Jonah were saying “Good night” to us in English.

It was great to meet Uli and Flo who I have heard so much about, as well as see the lovely life they have created since they lived in Nepal with Rob. We felt spoilt to stay in such a beautiful area for what turned out to be our last stop-off in Europe.

Mongolian Tour: Games and Kids

I previously mentioned how one my favourite things from our Mongolian trip was hanging out with our host families. One highlight in this regard was when we arrived up North with the families who trained horses. Another, was a a few days earlier when we stayed in a house rather than a ger. On all occasions children from the host families and their neighbours were pretty excited to have people to play with them. It was lots of fun spending a few hours playing volleyball, soccer, martial arts, chasey and other games with these guys:

Skilled volleyballer that I struggled to keep up with

Did not want to stop playing

Look at me!

A bigger kid!

Lover of whirly-whirls

Rob: the ultimate piggy-back 

These kids are going to be tired tonight

Collecting tolls at one of the coolest toll-bridges ever!

At the end of our stay with a family we would give them small gifts. As part of our fundraising for Nepali youth we accepted a challenge from Tim to fire a bow and arrow from a horse in Mongolia. Our plan was always to give the toy bow and arrow to a child after we'd used it. However, we thought that it would be a pretty boring gift for a Mongolian child, for all we knew they had a real one! It actually turned out to be the best gift we gave. The boy we gave it to (pictured below) was clearly delighted and he touched the bow and arrow to his head which Bimba told us was a way to show appreciation. We were so pleased he liked it! 

Rob catches a ride

A little one from the reindeer herder family. We had a fun flower picking game.
(Pick flowers, put them in flower pile!) 

UNO Special Rules: the game that transcends all barriers!

Mongolian Tour: Horses and Reindeer (Travel Dream!)

While I can recognise a Shetland pony, I don't really know the difference between a horse and a pony.  Some people seem to refer to them interchangeably, so I am forever confused.  Such as it was, when writing out my travel dreams, one of them was to ride a Mongolian pony in the desert.

Before arriving in Mongolia, and for a long time after, I knew very little about the place (which is absurd, because I applied for an AYAD volunteer position based in Ulaanbataar in 2008, but I instead went to Nepal). What I did know is that they were horse people.  Love horses, just love them.  Horse carvings, horses painted on the sides of trains, horse souvenirs, horses where you find bicycles in every other country - hell, the national drink appears to be fermented mare's milk!  Horses were something we saw just about everywhere we traveled in the country, and why we wanted to make it a part of our tour.

After leaving the yak herders and beautiful Terkhiin Tsagaan, we moved again into more barren terrain, to the home of a collection of gers all devoted to strengthening, breeding and training beautiful horses.  Mongolian horses have somewhat of a wild streak to them (much like the people) and probably all horses do, but there's something in their eyes here that makes you realise you are not dealing with a household pet.  We were to spend 3 days with these beautiful creatures, as we climbed to the mountains in search of not only reindeer, but a family of the Tsaatan people who herd and breed them.  I'm actually not exaggerating about "searching" for them, because we literally did not know where they would be.

We learned earlier on the trip that Mongolians do not name their horses;  we found this out because we asked what Bataar called his car, and the answer from Bimba was "he doesn't call it anything, just like Mongolians, we don't name our horses".

"Not even your favourite?" someone ventured.

"No".

"What about one you receive as a gift?"

"No.. and those are even more special, we don't even ride them...that's the crazy", she says.  More on "that's the crazy" later.

Day 1 - Meeting the people

The afternoon of our first day here was remarkable.  While Bimba prepared an evening meal for us, we were treated to a veritable show.  The whole neighborhood (at least from gers within riding distance) had gathered outside Nara's family's home (Nara was our horse guide).  Partly they had come because tourists had arrived and they wanted to get a good look at us, and partly because they were here to see the breaking in of a horse.

Matcha (our apprentice horse guide) had the unenviable job of saddling the unhappy star attraction while the old sages looked on.  Young and old, women and men, toddlers and teenagers, all squatted within a safe distance, only occasionally mumbling a joke or piece of advice.  

Lesson time

The show only really began once the saddle was on, because another man climbed aboard and the horse fairly lost his temper and he raced off bucking and kicking to the horizon and we never saw the rider again.  

And we never saw him again

Strangely enough though, the horse was back the next day - Matcha had the job of riding it along with escorting the horse carrying all our gear!  Man, it gave him a rough time.

Following the show, the group broke up and went their separate ways, the highlight was a 3 or 4 year old, standing on the back of Dad's bike!

Show's over, heading home with Dad

Day 2 - Riding

My nameless dun-coloured horse, poor fella, as I am sure I was much too big for him, measured up to my expectations of an almost wild animal.  He was not interested in pats, "good boy" comments or sugar cubes, or stopping when told to.  He really wanted to go where we were going and then get back home.  

Rob's horse had a chunk bitten from his hindquarters

Kat had a chestnut horse which almost earned a nickname (until we remembered that we shouldn't) of "Bitey" due to his tendency to try to eat the other horse's butts. Strangely Kat's camel from the sand dune expedition shared this same tendency! Kat's horse was otherwise fairly cooperative, usually stopping on request and pretty happy to be alive. He did require a firm grip and Kat certainly found him more fun to ride than any other horse she has even met!  

Kat striking a Mongolian marauder pose

Our first day was spent walking steadily upwards towards a glacier near the Russian border (I was never able to find out the name), the vicinity of which we expected to find the Tsaatan family - for they were somewhere non-specific, in-between their winter and summer camps.  Through open plains, windy hills, boggy marshes, lush green forests and pine-clad ridges we meandered, getting to know our horses (but not our guides who were almost basically silent).  Bimba was (what appeared to me) an expert on the back of a horse and I think she loves it any time one of her groups goes on a riding expedition.  

Kat & Bimba, the horse-whisperer

Two dogs followed us all the way, and it took me almost the entire day to realise that they belonged to our guide Nara and weren't strays from a nearby ger-camp. They had a marvelous time finding their own way through the streams we crossed, digging out mouse and prairie dog holes and at one point terrifying my horse so much that it bolted (which is the part that terrified me).  Before long we were back under control and I was still in the saddle, but my heart rate was certainly right up!

Kat taking a sneaky break with Bitey

In the evening, we found the family, camped out in a clearing of a pine tree wood, not far from a thrashing stream.  After the initial introductions they rather kept to themselves, except for helping us set up our own yhurt, complete with semi-permanent (as permanent as anything is in a nomadic society) stove/fireplace and introduced us to their magnificent herd of reindeer.

How to build a yhurt 101

The big buck, recognisable from his ridiculously humongous antlers fed alongside the 30-strong herd of varying ages.  

Big man reindeer

You could easily touch and feel their fur (not the antlers!) as they were very docile.  Before we knew it, the reindeer were herded in for the night. I couldn't tell whether the baby human* or the reindeer were more adorable!  

*Child might be cuter than a reindeer (look at those cheeks)

They were all tied overnight, so they did not wander too far from where the family were staying.  I think this was mainly because in-between camps they had no pen in which to house them, and they needed the mothers close by for milking in the morning.

Mama reindeer settling in for the night

Day 3 - More riding and the glacier

A much slower and easier day, where we started to understand our horses a little better; we spent a few hours climbing the hill above our camp guided by the dogs to have a glorious view of the glacier.

Off to the glacier

Matcha, Sarah, Kat, Tasha & puppy-dog winding up the hill

We had a snow fight and just sat quietly, as far from anywhere as we have been on our entire world journey, soaking up the sound of the wind and the impermanence of our existence.

Even dogs like contemplating their existence

Day 4 - Homeward Bound

Our horses seemed to know the route pretty well.  So they knew that this day was time to go home.  With most of the route downhill, it was all I could do to keep my horse from galloping all the way!  Back through the same marshes and slopes, any time there was an open space he tried to go for it.  Eventually we all had confidence enough that we let them go and BOY what a feeling!  When the ger was in sight, I just needed to slacken the reins one little bit and he would go.  I probably looked like a lame little Lost Boy, but I felt like the Man From Snowy River.

Our crew: Tasha with Nara, his wife and son, Batar, Sarah, Kat and Rob
The best way to get the smile off a Mongolian's face is to pull out your camera!

Mongolian Tour: Gobi and Sub-Gobi Desert PART 2

Both the desert and ice canyon in one day!

I still cannot quite wrap by mind around the fact we saw an ice canyon surround by the Gobi desert.  I understand the process that created it, but it just doesn’t fit with what you expect to find in the middle of a desert! We had a lovely walk around the area and had a competition to see whose icy hands would fall off first...naturally. The area in which we stayed was often a highlight of our days for me, especially when goats on barrels were involved!

Camels and singing sand dunes

Sometimes it is easy to forget just how long we spent on the road. Some days it was as much as 8 hours but it probably averaged around 6 hours. To get to the wonders of Mongolia a long time in a vehicle and a very bumpy road is not only necessary, but part of the experience. I loved the way we stopped off to talk to passing parties. 

One of our many roadside chats

After a morning driving we reached a family that herded camels. The children were again gorgeous and the camels were willing to take us on their backs! Due to the season you really only had to lightly touch the camel and its hair came off in your hand. 

Our ride on the two-humped camels through the desert was enjoyable but I am glad it was not longer than a half hour. Our destination was the GREAT 2015 CLIMBING THE SAND DUNES CHALLENGE. It was really hard going. We kept thinking we were close only to go a bit further and realise there was a lot more hill left to climb, and it was only getting steeper. I think our camel guide left us at the hardest bit as a joke! Eventually Sarah had enough and started to walk back to the ger. The rest of us, perhaps stupidly, persevered ten steps at a time. Not only did the sand in our shoes and clothes weigh us down but it really felt like 3 steps forwards 2 steps sinking back. We were well and truly rewarded at the top.

The "singing" sand dunes were known for the tremendous noise that occurred when you ran down the dunes, displacing sand as you went:

~ TO BE CONTINUED~