India to Austria

The last place on our India itinerary was Varanasi, a city on the Ganges which is holy to Hindus. Bathing in the river will wipe away your sins, whilst dying there means that your cycle of death and reincarnation ends. I think being cremated there is equally good, anyway cremations happen around the clock. Seeing bodies in the street, lined up in orange silken shrouds ready for cremation, was not an unusual event.

We took the train to Varanasi, and here I got extremely lucky – I got the top one of the two bunks that are set parallel to the carriage (rather than one of six, where there’s a top, middle and bottom bunk). This meant enough room to be able to sit up and read on my bunk, as well as being able to sleep whenever I wanted. Cushy. Got a decent night’s sleep that night. Warnings about the train always being delayed, and possibly taking up to 24 hours, proved not to be relevant in our case.

The highlight of a trip to Varanasi is, ideally, a sunset boat ride on the Ganges. Unfortunately the monsoon had done its thing; the Ganges was in spate and all boat trips were cancelled. However, sitting by the river discussing Hinduism, and later sitting in a boat by the shore watching the daily fire ceremony, were pretty memorable events.

We ate and drank rather well in this city. The latter involved a trip to the Blue Lassi shop, where the lassis were thick and full of fruit.

Food-wise, our guide had mentioned something about going to a kebab factory, where we’d be supplied with all the kebabs we could eat. This sounded great, but turned out to be rather smarter than expected; we didn’t eat in a factory, but at The Kebab Factory, a restaurant which is part of the Radisson SAS… Anyway, the food was yum, and we ate to bursting point!

We took another train back to Delhi, had a walk round Old Delhi, a final meal together in the evening, then we said our goodbyes. Shout-out to the group, especially Nina, Sarah Jane, Eva, Michelle, Lucy, Courtney and Alex, it was great to get to know you guys and to share experiences in India with you 🙂

Then it was time to head to Austria. One taxi, two planes, and four trains later I made it to Bad Aussee – hooray. The jet-lag wasn’t too bad, what with it being only 3.5 hours different, but I took a couple of days to get over a cold before doing anything too active. Over the years, I’ve walked up most of the hills and mountains which can be seen from base camp, but not all. Zinken, at 1856m, definitely looked like it wanted climbing.

It didn’t look too far on the map, but was clearly going to be a very steep climb and descent. Still, I got an early start, and didn’t feel the need for a headtorch…. Not wise.

There was a lot of up, most of it every bit as steep as the very tight contours on the map suggested. Most of the ascent was in the trees, so I stayed out of the sun for a good while. Height gain happened slowly, but gradually I was able to look down on the smaller hills. Dithered quite a lot about whether to turn round or keep going, but I really wanted to see the view from the summit.

At the top there was almost no shade, but the climb did become less strenuous, and there were great views of the Dachstein. By now it was rather later than it should have been, but the top was too close to quit. Fantastic panoramic views greeted me at the top, with all of Ausseerland ahead, and the Dachstein behind me. Most excellent. Despite having not seen a single person on the walk, the logbook at the top had a few entries for that day. Guess some people got an even earlier start. Or walked a bit faster.

I could see the van from the summit, unfortunately there were 1100 ish meters of descent between me and it. Also unfortunate was the fact that I was nearly out of water, my 3 litre camelbak just wasn’t up to the task that day. So I rationed myself to a mouthful every half hour. There were two springs marked on the map, one on the ascent and one of the descent. There’d only been a drip coming out of the first spring, most happily the second spring was flowing steadily, so I got a little less dehydrated for a while.

Got rather benighted, and ended up walking by the light of my phone. NUMPTY! Someone had helpfully put electric fences across the path at a couple of points, but after a much longer day than expected, I was not going to start finding alternative paths. Made it back to the van, gulped down some coke and drove slowly back to base camp – to be handed a bottle of limo and my tea, thanks people!

Expo (that’s Cambridge University Caving Club’s annual expedition to Austria) is coming to an end. All the rope has been brought down the hill and top camp was packed away yesterday. To celebrate, and not least to get rid of the Wrong Custard (which needs to be made up with milk & sugar and is therefore useless as an instant drink at top camp), I made a trifle, decorated with extremely alcoholic cherries.

The number is the total length, in kilometres, of the main cave system. We also christened our fire pit and had a celebratory bbq. Good times!