Hohe Wand

We thought we saw some sun yesterday, and the new car hadn't taken us out of Vienna yet, so we headed down to Hohe Wand. There is a Nature park there on top of a small plateau. Not as high as Schneeberg, it is one of the hills leading up to it. It takes about an hour to get there by way of the Suedautobahn. Once you leave the Autobahn at Wiener Neustadt West the fun begins, as several ruined castles are visible from the road. Eventually you reach the road up the mountain. Here you are stopped to pay road toll and entry fee to the Nature park. It is 1.50 each for the car and adults, (over 15) . That is on weekends. During the week you are expected to pay voluntarily at the park shop. The ticket also allows you to enter the museum. Along with your tickets, you will also receive a small brochure with a map. It's not a great map, but does help.

As we headed up the hill it was raining, and we weren't sure the whole thing had been a good idea, but we went up anyway, and (taking the left turn at the T crossing) drove to the large parking lot. At this point the rain stopped, and if not sunny, it at least got a lot brighter, so we set out into the woods. There was a thin covering of snow on the path - just enough to give a nice mood, without being at all difficult to walk on. Ideal! We headed for the 'Tiergehegen' and were rewarded by seeing many of the resident animals. My favorites are the 'Hirsche' - the large deer. At first we had trouble finding them, but then we realized that some of the stumps in the snow weren't. First we saw two young males. But then the capital male with his 7 females became visible. He is really very impressive!

The next fenced off area has Steinboecke' - mountain goats. In the summer we have seen the young males run at each other and smash heads together. This time they were all lying down either near a stump or in the shelter where hay is put out for them. Cutest was a baby with pencil thin horns - he was trying to pose impressively. Very funny. Next door was one 'Reh' - these are the smaller, much more common deer. This one was all alone and obviously lonely. She came up to the fence to be patted, both by us, and then by the children in the next family.

A bit further on, we heard a horrible racket. We went off the trail to a poultry house. It held a pair of beautiful white pheasants (the sign said gold, but he was white. She, of course was plain brown.) There were two fairly normal looking roosters, and about half a dozen 'Perlhuehner'. One of them was squawking. One. The others were all very quiet, but this one kept up his noise almost nonstop. We left to get out of ear range.

Then Steven discovered that he is getting too big for a lot of the climbing equipment. The trail has several nice playgrounds, but now that he is bigger than his parents, he doesn't fit through some of the openings. Also the slides were all wet. The round trail we take takes up about an hour to walk.

After that we were ready for some food. Several of the Gasthaeuser were closed. Our favorite up to now will be open again next weekend after remodeling. That is Kohlrosenhaus, where you can also admire a lot of minerals. We were wondering if we were going to have to go down to the valley to find food, but then we noticed a board at an intersection saying that another one was open, so we headed into new territory. The food was excellent, and we haven't been walking in that area, so next time ...

Depending on the season there are lots of different activities possible from Cross country skiing to rock climbing and paragliding. There is also a cave to visit, and a petting zoo. I guess we're boring. We usually just take the one walk and get some food. The museum is worth seeing once. For us it has the advantage that the trails are wide and fairly level - There is some up and down, but not more than I can handle. At this season you have at least a good chance of getting above the fog.