Bäääm oida!!!

I spent the weekend in Haiming, Austria as it was the Faszinatour Season Opening. Grit, Emily, Birgit, and I entered the Faszinatour Fun “Adventure Race”. It didn’t have much to do with adventure racing but it was still good fun. We arrived Friday night, drank too much wine and went to sleep on the couches in the “adventure lounge”.

Above: We stayed the night in the Faszinatour adventure lounge. You can see it in this picture bathed in light. There were a few couches and it was really quite comfy.

The race started on Saturday with rafting on the “Imster Schluct”, i.e. the Imst river. We had a funny guide who we attempted to throw out of the raft several times. This invariably ended with Emily and I swimming. To rub-it-in he threw Grit out as we neared the end.

Above left: Grit and Birgit in the raft. Above right: Our wayward guide and I. Unfortunately it was 3-0 to him for throwing people out of the raft.

Up next was the “biathlon”, Build-your-own-plane, and Giant-jinga. Following this we headed out on mountain bikes for the perilous mountain biking stage. We got lost and spent two hours rather than the estimated 30 minutes. Well, actually we didn’t get lost. We knew where we were. We just didn’t know where the check points that we were supposed to be finding were.

Above left: Grit and Birgit assess the structural integrity of our block castle. Above right: Emily and I were sharp-shooters in the biathlon.

Below left: Grit and Birgit successfully co-ordinate their feet. Below right: Emily and Grit in the biking section. We took 2 hours, it was supposed to take 30 minutes.

Below: Would you trust your life in “Bäääm oida!!! Airways”? This is the plane we built. An amazing feat of engineering and artistic prowess you will agree. As you can see in the photo, I will be your pilot, and I have carefully painted the letter C on my cock-pit window so that you will know I am there and to allow me to better see where I am flying. On the maiden voyage, B, G, and E will be flying with me. No prizes for guessing who they are.

The last stage was the trekking section. The idea was to follow written instructions and the letters marked on bits of plastic hidden in a forest. Half way through I discovered we had a little map. I was most amused. Still it turned out that it was vaguely possible to navigate using it.

Above and below: We had an archery challenge during the biking section. Unfortunately as you can see we had a terrible accident! 🙂 Perhaps this was caused by my droopy arrow below.

We were the last team to return and were feeling a little disappointed with our performance. However later at the prize giving we were amazed to find we had made the top 10, top 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4… 3rd place! Bäääm oida!!!

Above left: The team walking in the trekking stage. Very serious we all are. Above middle: Emily climbs a tree in one of the trekking challenges. Above right: The “map” for the trekking stage. Not really to the same level as an orienteering map. A GPS appears to have been used to map the route. In the bottom left you can see where the forest cover was too much for it and it gave up resulting in suspiciously straight route lines.

Above: The team, Grit, Birgit, and Emily running towards the finish line.

We celebrated by drinking various alcoholic beverages. People slowly left. Sam and Grit slunk off into the night. We found our spot in the adventure lounge again and Birgit and I went to sleep and left Emily drinking by the fire on the grass outside the lounge.

Above left: We weren’t the only hochseilgarten graduates there. It was great to catch up with Diana, Johanna, and Michi. Diana and Johanna are the blurs in the photo above pickling their brain cells with alcohol.

Birgit, Emily, and I went climbing in Oezt on Sunday. The weather was fine and we found a familiar crag in the Oetz valley. I climbed there 3.5 years ago with Gina and Ulli. The day was spent climbing before we left Austria and headed back to D-land.

Above left: Birgit climbing in a crag near Oetz. We found a few easy routes and spent Sunday climbing there. Above right: Gina sits at the bottom of the same crag 3.5 years earlier.