I took the train to Munich and met Rachel and Johannes. Rachel was on her way to the Netherlands to start a new life and I was on my way to the Chiemsee area to look for potential places to live. We spent a day in Munich before piling into Johannes’s car and driving to the Walchsee in Austria where we’d managed to find an apartment for a few days. The plan was to do some cycling and inspect some of the small towns on the German side for liveability.
Thursday
We’d planned a ride around the Chiemsee but the heavy rain in Bad Endorf put us off and instead we drove onto the Walchsee where we went for a short ride in the afternoon under grey skies. The sun came out in the evening and we went for a walk up Brennkopf, a nearby hill. We reached the top with an hour of daylight remaining and had great views down into the valleys and towards Kufstein. The light was that rich evening light that you’d typically get under a norwest-arch back in Christchurch, New Zealand, and we used the last of it to get back into the valley before the sun set.
Friday
We headed off for a longer ride from the Walchsee over the border into Germany. We checked out a bunch of the small towns including Traunstein, which seemed quite reasonable. We looped back down to Ruhpolding, which although small was well placed in amongst the mountains. Johannes went ahead to catch the imminently closing supermarket and Rachel and I rode the last couple of hours back to the Walchsee in very nice sunny evening weather. The last part of the ride was particularly scenic with very little traffic as we rode by pretty lakes surrounded by mountains.
Saturday
We swapped our bikes for our legs and walked to the Ottenalm not far from our apartment. There were a selection of ferratas there and we did the Bergkameraden klettersteig, Rachel’s first before we returned along the ridge over Kranzinger Berg.
Sunday
We packed up and drove to the Chiemsee parking in Bernau am Chiemsee. From there we cycled clockwise around the lake, stopping briefly in Rimsting for photos at the townhall before continuing to a small bakery for lunch. The weather improved as the day went on. We had icecream at the lake later and then finished off our loop finishing early evening. We headed back to base to Johannes’s flat in Munich.
