Took the S44 north of Merano then crossed into Austria over the Passo del Rombo, aka Timmelsjoch. There's some amazing views from up there. It's way up in the clouds. Temperate dropped down to 6 degrees so heated grips got an airing for first time this trip. It's also a private toll road so we got stung for €12.
Quite a few of the passes in Austria are private toll roads. And all the autoroutes require a vignette. You can buy short term vignettes and I believe they're cheaper for bikes than cars. The toll booths are marked on the Michelin map with black bars across the road so identifying toll roads is quite easy. Any road that requires a vignette has a huge picture of a red vignette on the road sign so no excuses for accidentally finding yourself on one.
Coming down from the pass another biker that was parked up frantically flapped about and told us to slow down. Further down the road a copper was giving speeding tickets out to bikers.
We returned the favour and pulled over to warn a huge group of British bikers. The chap at the front had no idea where he was or where he was going. Didn't seem particularly bothered by the speed trap or grateful for the heads up.
There's a bit of a nanny state attitude to speeds in Austria. The speed limit tends to drop to a marked compulsory lower limit every time a side road joins a main road. It's really frustrating. Every Austrian driver sticks rigidly to the speed limits or just ambles along at a ridiculously slow speed.
From Oetz we took the back roads past Innsbruck and picked up the E533 north into Germany. Close to the border on the B11 there's a little town called Wallgau. Every single building is painted really ornately. It's a bit much and very surreal, but quite pretty. Wallgau was also the first in a long line of towns and villages that we passed through that had a massively tall upright tree trunk in the centre. And I mean really huge. Every branch, apart from maybe a few at the top, had been sawn off. On top there would be either a few neatly trimmed branches, in a Christmas tree style, or a cockeral. The top third would be decorated with ribbons or something.
We passed Lakes Walchensee and Kochelsee. The Kesselberg road between the two lakes is a famous biking road. It a short section of nice scenic twisty road. On weekends it apparently closes to bikes southbound but northbound is ok. We didn't actually notice any such restrictions so maybe we've been misinformed. We were heading north so it wouldn't have affected us anyway. We were also warned that the speed limits are well policed.
From Bichl we rode east to Bad Tolz then headed south on the B13 to Achenpass. We'd definitely saved the best until last. Achenpass is on the German Austrian border. It's actually back in Austria but it's so close you wouldn't realise. The B13 down to Austria is amazing and we luckily caught it at a quiet time of day. We were still in Austrian riding mode. Making good progress but constantly wary of speed traps. Especially as it was a weekend and these roads are biker magnets.
A German rider on a sportsbike went caning past us. No idea what speed but our bike shook. He gave us a huge cheery wave as he passed. Assumed that he had a bit of local knowledge and knew the roads were good to go so we were massively relieved to pick up the pace again.
The pass itself isn't particularly high but the road is lovely. As soon as we'd cleared the pass we headed north back into Germany on the B307. Again the road was amazing.
We planned to stop at 7.30 and right on queue we found a campsite near lake Tegernsee.
It's a nice site. The ground is soft grass which makes a refreshing change after camping in the mountains for the last week or so. Pitching the tents took no time at all.
Went to the bar and found refreshment in the form of Hopf white beer. Huge glasses of the stuff. Catherine tried her best to communicate with the barman, who said he didn't speak a word of English but at the end of the night had a long conversation with us in perfect fluent English. Her failed attempts were blamed on the fact that 'they speak a different type of German near the borders'. Whatever.
She also got mistaken for a waitress when another punter started complaining to her about the wait for food. You should of seen her struggles with GCSE German to get out of that one.
The barman also told us that the Austrian word for Munich is 'Minger'. He had no idea why we found this so funny. Not so fluent after all I guess.
179 miles
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