Ka Pai Goes Up High

Wednesday September 8th

Today was the day they had decided to go up the cable car to the top of the Untersberg. The day was beautifully sunny and as clear as it was going to ever be. So they caught the usual bus into town and then transferred to the No 25 that takes you right to the cable car terminus. The ride from town is about a 40 min. The Salzburg card covers all of this. There is a large cable car that goes every half an hour. The ride up the mountain takes about 10 minutes There were some very nervous people in the carriage they were in who couldn’t even look out the windows. I must admit I stayed safely in the backpack on the way up.

During the ride they saw magnificent views of the Rossitten Valley and the surrounding mountains. The grounds of the houses that the cable car passes over are absolutely immaculate. Because it rains a lot in Austria the grass is bright green with no hint of a summer dry off. Apparently the farmers mow their meadows up to 10 times a summer to store hay for the animals when they have them inside during the winter. This means the butter is bright yellow in the summer and pale yellow in the winter.

Once they reached the top there was a marvellous view all over the surrounding area. They were able to see planes taking off from the airport and cars travelling along the various roads. They could look right back to Salzburg and pick out the fortress they had visited yesterday. There was also a good view of the ice capped Hohen Tauren mountains. Good display boards were available to identify points of interest and they could see the little mountain town they had visited on Monday.

There are many legends associated with the Untersberg mountain. One of them is that the Emperor Charlemagne never really died but is sleeping here along with his loyal knights. He will awaken when the empire needs him the most and ravens are no longer flying around the mountain top. When this happens Charlemagne, the father of Europe and his men will again to come to the aid of the people.


They spent an hour at the top and took the 12.30 ride down which was just as spectacular. At the bottom they ate lunch while waiting for the bus to take them to the Hellbrum Palace. The trick fountains are what people go to see here. Archbishop Markus Sittikus had these fountains installed to entertain his guests. There is an outdoor dining table where his guests would eat and at the end of the evening when they were getting quite drunk he would turn on the fountains that sprayed up all around them and through the seats. The guide asked for volunteers and of course some of the children were keen and delighted to be sprayed with water. There were grottos with water features in them and a wonderful mechanical theatre all driven by water. On many occasions during the tour you suddenly got sprayed unexpectedly. With no electricity available when these were fitted in the 18th century; it is all done by water pressure and pumps. The whole experience was quite unique and much more than they had expected.

The entrance ticket included entry into the palace with an audio guide as well, and it had a very interesting Chinese room with original hand painted wallpaper from China that has recently been through an extensive conservation process. In the 1950’s someone had pasted newsprint over it and the ink had transferred onto it and done a lot of damage.


Attached to the palace is the Salzburg zoo. It was not unusual for palaces to have their own zoos. They don’t usually go to zoos, but it was right there and covered by the Salzburg card so they took a walk though. It is now the Salzburg Zoo and is very child friendly and the animals have spacious natural enclosures. There were no kiwis here, but there were big brown bears. The monkeys were the most entertaining swinging through the trees and having the odd scrap with one another. The photo is of a cute little prarie dog eating grass.

Looking up towards the mountain they had been up in the morning they couldn’t even see the peak. The day had completely closed in and it looked like it would rain. They had certainly made a good choice to go there first thing in the morning while the weather was so fine. So they waited for the 25 bus to take them back to the station and then caught 23 back to the camp just in time to rescue all the washing on the clothes line.

After a walk back to the supermarket to get a few supplies, they spent some time on the internet and met another young couple from NZ. They live in Manakau now but he had grown up in Feilding. They were not up on the all the news for NZ and didn’t know all the bad news from Feilding and had only just learnt of the Christchurch earthquake.

By now it was raining really hard and they went back and cooked tea and then spent some time watching a movie. It was too wet to even think about doing the dishes. It would not be a good time to be camping in a tent like the couple they had just met from NZ.