Day 68 Tuesday 7 August 1984
Rest Day Klopeinersee. 0km. total 3879km.
2 broken spokes.
For the first time, we breakfast inside the tent. Muesli. Walk beneath dripping trees to the supermarket to find a busy area of gift shops, where we drink coffees, sit a while. Guy mends my wheel. It turns out to have two broken spokes. The sun begins to come out. We borrow a spanner from a German man and later three of them come over to talk, we tell them that we intend to take the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse.
The Grossglockner High Alpine Road (Großglockner-Hochalpenstraße) is the highest surfaced mountain pass road in Austria. It connects Bruck in the state of Salzburg with Heiligenblut in Carinthia via Fuscher Törl and Hochtor Pass at 2,504 m (8,215 ft). The road is named after the Grossglockner, Austria’s highest mountain.
Built as a scenic route, the Grossglockner High Alpine Road was officially opened on 3 August 1935. 870,000 cubic metres of earth and rock were moved in the 26 months of building, 15,750 cubic metres of walling was created, 67 bridges built and a road telephone with 24 facilities was installed.
We have packed up a parcel of spare tyres and films to send home so we don’t have to carry them. We carry this up the hill to the post office where we cause trouble by having no sender address, as we are between houses, and have left all our belongings in storage, but eventually we can leave it to start is journey back home.
not at home 