Runs for the hills

So after 5 weeks of noise pollution, a lack of anti-socialism, and too many gated national parks we decided to run for the hills. First stop en-route to austria was trenchin in slovakia. (first stop was actually a tiny bar somewhere in nowhere as a result of the 2 hour rule - it had a swing and locals doing a 'bring your own bbq'. I ordered a coke, the kids asked for apple juice but after 3 weeks of polish and 5 seconds of slovak bev turned up with 4 multi juices...we returned to main roads and eventually came across an odd site of a man laying on a rug in the road shortly followed by two others walking in the middle of the road, 5 minutes later a barefoot pikey, 5 minutes more and 2 tourist looking types meandering, then a main street where we came to the conclusion this was the set of a new league of gentlemen series or a Rowy in the making. Another km down the road and it all became clear, a cowboy come beerfest come funfair extravaganza. We accelerated through the whoops of joy from the road angels explaining it was closing down and sped to an 'island campsite overlooking medieval castle' at trenchin. It was a great view of the castle, only marred by the trailer park theme (the 'sex shop' sign spotted by daddy was probably not a drunken student trophy after all!) we had a beer and jem learned to flip beer mats then the following morning the kids played on the swings by the lady that seemed to walk around the campsite in a body stocking most of the morning. Then we left for bratislava as jem had had enough of castles, but continued on to austria after reaching the city and voting unanimously we all needed hills...we crossed into austria without even realizing it (bar the marked difference in roadside food) and found beautiful gesause national park with a camping site 'forstgarten' that was exactly what we needed. Right between two high mountains in a typical alpine meadow and most importantly, hardly anyone else there:-) after what seemed hours of driving in torrential rain at night on windy roads it was well worth it. The next day was still constant rain but we got out to admont, the nearest town to get supplies and even got bbq fodder, then returned back to play rainy day games and spend the best part of an hour figuring out the best way to get a tarp up. That night the kids really behaved themselves and went to bed quietly so mum and dad could sit out on their own under the tarp in the rain (ironically the first time we'd been able to with all the great weather, and now it was bucketing it down) but totally relaxing. Sitting under the tarp we finished the bbq and turned it into a fire with the help of some bundles of birch we'd got from a petrol station in slovakia and found our 12 pound bbq purchase to be perfect! We both fell asleep by the warmth of the fire and woke up at some point after midnight and returned to the van. It was 2 maybe 3 hours after the perfect evening that ant woke up needing to perform a complete system evacuation and did so 2-3 times during the course of the night, not due to the goldwaser as bev first suggested whilst hubby was doubled over 2 days of rotting chemiloo but some good old bbq pork poisoning. The next day bev did a great job looking after the whole family whilst suffering from relatively mild food poisoning herself and daddy retired to the bunk only to emerge mid afternoon to answer Charlottes equally helpfull question 'why did you eat pig with bugs in it?'
That night we listened to 19 feral kids that weren't our own let off steam on some outward bound course and decided to keep moving the next day to find more mountains for when the weather improved.
We headed for a lake at 'bad aussie' wondering what 'bad' meant to find it was bad luck as daddy got his first scrape on the van. Not too bad but highly annoying as it was a scratch to the rear bumper as he was turning round having pulled in to a layby only to check the width of the van before deciding we'd have to take a different route round the lake. Anyway that's done now so move on, move out, and park close to someone i can blame it on !
we're now at winkl or something like that..camping am see ..the most expensive site so far at near 40 quid a night...it is nice tho ! For the days ahead, There's an ice cave, salt mine, some decent altitude and you can fish the lake so looks promising ! Sorry for lack of photos..was busy being sick !