Tuesday 9/22
Lammerklamm hike
The Lammer River flows through a narrow gorge (klamm) to the Salzach River downstream. I had seen pictures of this "Dark Gorge" as it's called and we decided to see it for ourselves. We drove to Oberscheffau and paid at the little kiosk, then headed down into the gorge. I really have to mention here that we appreciate the people who maintain this gorge. There are wooden railings attached to the side of the rock that help to keep you from falling into the gorge. This river frequently floods and the railings and stair-ladders are completely underwater when that happens, so some ares need to be rebuilt every year. There are high water markers along the trail and the marker for 2002 was way high up near the top edge of the gorge. We couldn't even imagine what it would like with so much water flowing through there. The little towns downstream would certainly have been flooded.
We first hiked upriver from the entry point to the narrowest part of the gorge that you can access on foot. The sheer vertical face of the rock is amazing and the water is the most awesome shade of blue in there. The trail is very narrow, in some spots we had to turn completely sideways a couple of times just to get through.We then turned around and hiked downstream all the way out of the gorge along the river and into the little town of Oberscheffau. The waterfalls and swirling basins of water were so cool that we kept stopping just to enjoy the sight of it and the sounds of the rushing water below us. When the water is a bit higher, they say it's a favorite place for kayakers. After fortifying ourselves with a cool drink and some strudel in town, we hiked back up the trail to the gorge entrance and headed the car toward Werfen for our next stop. We had a little trouble getting there as our rental Garmin was having some sort of nervous breakdown, but we finally got going in the right direction.
Hohenwerfen is a fortress castle that sits 155 meters above the town of Werfen in the Salzach Valley. Built in the 11th century, and despite a large fire in 1931, the castle is still very intact. The clock tower is very impressive as it dates back to the original castle and was not damaged in the fire, we climbed up to see the clockworks (still quite accurate) and the giant bell at the top. Pretty cool to realize that the wooden beams overhead and walls of the tower are original and still in great condition. Very windy at the top of the tower and rather chilly. We had a late lunch of wurst and Coke Light, then walked down to the falconry center to wait for the bird show.
Now this is not our first bird show, but I have to say that we enjoy them all. This one was particularly enjoyable as the birds were obviously not on their best behavior. The first out was the falcon, lightning fast. We always crack up a little when they bring the falcon out with it's hood on. This is because we saw a hilarious interaction between the falconer and the audience at a bird show in Ireland. Anyway, I digress. Next up were the hawks, 3 different kinds and I was surprised when they flew them at the same time. Typically they only fly one bird at a time or at least one species at a time. Well the Hawks were having an awesome time just flying around, doing whatever they wanted - except the Harris Hawk who seemed more interested in just landing on the ground and looking around.
Next up were the Eagles and vultures. The bald eagle responded pretty well to the handlers commands but the sea eagles and the vultures just decided they wanted to do their own thing. They finally got all the birds back by the end of the show except one of the vultures who was still just soaring around the castle parapets when we left. It's handler was still outside the falconry center just waiting for it to decide it was ready to come in.
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