A Festival and Lunch in Austria

14/05/15 Buchs to St Margarethen, 54kms

A Festival and Lunch in Austria

Bong, bong, bling blang bong! What the hell is that? Oh yeah, the "Beautiful" town clock that is loving itself sick chiming away like anything at 6am! The bloody thing has been going off all night, and obviously Timon has had enough, he's up, packed and saying see ya by 6:15am. The rest of the cycle convention are back to bed for another hour or so.

We finally dragged ourselves out of the tent at about 8am, and the sun was shining. Things were drying nicely, so we ate breaks, had a coffee, and got ourselves sorted. Wolfgang was ready and departed at 9am, to another 10 minute chorus by the clock. He is riding 100+kms today to Konstanz, in Germany, to try and hole up at a youth hostel, for tomorrow's stormy, cold weather. We had considered it, but the convention was too hectic.

Finally on the road by 10am, saying goodbye to the Norwegians, and the bloody clock, we were cruising through some lovely farming areas, and a couple of little villages, when we looked up, saw our sign and turned right. A little bit on, we came to a fork and no sign??? Which way? We decided left, but looking up, we could tell we were heading back towards Buchs. We stopped, turned Davo GPS on and he told us to keep going, in a big loop around some strange way and it didn't look good. We sacked him again, and using Maps.me (see, we're learning), found a quick route to the river and just rode along that pathway. 

Heading off towards the river? Hopefully.

Can we go to Liechtenstein Jen? Please, it's just over there.

We decided we would cross into Liechtenstein, may never get another chance, so next bridge off we went. How strange! We trudged along into the strong headwind, past heaps of people all riding the other way. Smart! 

Happy now, sitting half in and half out.

Not much looked different, until we came to another bridge crossing and what I thought was the car of the day. It was actually a little three wheeler Lamberetta truck, with two young guys, who looked like the Mario brothers working on it. I asked if I could take a photo, and they came and had a chat, and convinced us to follow them to a local festival about 200mtrs away. Mario number one (Claudio) said his friend was cooking potatoes with his little steam engine machine, and we could eat them with cheese and have a beer. So we followed them! We were hungry and there was beer. You can stick your cheese though!

Mario Brothers pick up truck, they said the naked ladies are usually sitting in the back.

He's cooking potatoes in that pot, boiler thing on the back...so funny.

How cute is this thing. 1968, with 180cc motor, max speed 50km/hr. 

So we ended up in Austria at some local festival eating Zach Zach (pork in a bun with some sort of sauce) and Wurst, drinking beer. Everyone had come by bicycle, there were thousands of them. It was so funny, it was like playing "Spot The Aussie" we stuck out like sore thumbs. So we are and drank, then scooted off again, back to the river path.

Once a year local festival. Sausage, pork, beer and Oompa Oompa band from Liechtenstein.

Zach Zach, sausage, beer..... Do I feel out of place? Hell yes!

Heading back into Switzerland, and this Karmen Gia just photo bombed us.

The wind had really picked up now, and was blowing about 30km/hr. So even though it was a pretty flat ride, it was push, push, push. It was also not helping poor Will's eyes. He is really in a bad way now, so we decided to stop and hope the campground had a cabin or something, so we can stay dry and hopefully get some help for this stupid allergy thing.

Pushing into the wind on the gravel, and those cows just stood there staring.

One last onsite caravan, thank god, for two nights. It better bloody rain heaps tomorrow, now we're not riding. No Wifi, so the plan is to go to MacDonalds tomorrow and mooch off them. Hope it works. Tough, windy, funny day!