Wilderness and some Wildlife

Today we went for a trip to a national park that held an animal sanctuary. Although we didn't see all the animals we were hoping for, we did get to see the majestic bison, beautiful birds, and even caught a glimpse of a bear's bum. Or a bare bum. Disappointingly we did not see any wolves (the reason Mum wanted to visit here) because they had been killed in a storm. 

About halfway through the walk Alyssa realized that we didn't have any food and was not impressed. This resorted in a lecture about food. So I don't bore you to death I will sum up the lecture in a few sentences. Eat more food. Stop grizzling. Pack your own snacks if you think you will need more. After we finished the walk we went to the Cafe in the front of the park. Hysterically we didn't get any food from here. We did get food from Aldi though. When we arrived back at the hotel we chilled out for the rest of the day. I worked on my little waterfall in the creek. Alyssa on the other hand got a horse ride in the forest. There is not much more to write about today other than to rate Schollnach. I rate it a 10/10 no problem. 

Definitely my favourite hotel/house so far.

Max

 

The Wild West in Germany!?

Today I had a great sleep-in to start off the day. Always a good start. We decided after breakfast that we would go to a wild west theme park. This was called Pullman City. It was amazing!

There were old styled shops, a gold panning pond and a whole village in the woods. My favourite part was definitely the gold panning pond. It wasn't really gold that you were looking for, it was rock gems that a lady threw in the pond. This made it quite tricky because you didn't know what was a gem and what was just a cool rock. I collected heaps of gems, (or what I think are gems). At about 12:30 we went to a western show with trick horse riding, knife throwing, juggling and whips. Actually I've changed my favourite thing to this. It was soooo cool and I'm sure it would've been even better if the host dude spoke English or we spoke German. I didn't really like the knife throwing because it was so close to hitting the lady a couple of times. This was not good for Mum’s jumpiness. It was more fun to watch Mum than the knife throwing. After the show we went panning for a bit before going to our next show. I didn't really like much of this show because it was under the scorching hot sun. And I mean scorching. However the best part about this show was a man called Crazy Horse doing some amazing tricks with his horse including making it rear and making it walk sideways, awesome! After that show we went panning for a bit. This was when Mum slipped on a rock and went flopping into the water. If I made that sound like a fall it wasn’t, as the water was only knee deep and she only slipped so her pants got wet. Still hysterical though. When we had finished panning we headed back to our hotel thing for dinner. After dinner we just chilled out and went to bed.

Max

 

Into The Forest

Not much to say today due to the fact we spent the day driving to our next stop. Thanks to Max and his app for Truth or Dare the drive was filled with lots of laughs. Below is a few photos of our destination. It’s in a place called Schöllnach. Which is a small town in Germany close to the Czechia and Austrian border. In the next two days you will see why I picked this spot. 

Donna 

 

Escape Plans

 Today we got up to our first breakfast in Colditz. It wasn’t as good as some other places we have been too but it was still very good. After breakfast we went on a history tour around the castle. This was so cool we looked at all the tunnels that the prisoners made when they were here. The main tunnel that we saw was the French tunnel in the museum there was even the original ladder that the French made all those years ago. On the tour we visited a cool little cellar. Well now it is a cellar, back in the day it was used for potato storage. The prisoners used this as a plan b for their escapes. Because of the stink of the rotting potato’s the guard dog could smell them so this made for a great escapes safe house. Down the far end of the cellar there is a small crack to outside the castle this is how they escaped. The most impressive escape plan was to secretly build a glider in the attic of a building by the clock tower. Fortunately the war ended before they got to escape. Now there is a replica of the glider in the same building. They were going to launch the glider off a runway built of tables on the night of the planned launch. The launch plan was to drop a bathtub off the end of the roof that was attached by a pulley system to the glider. Overall Colditz has been an awesome experience. Everyone found it interesting and we all had fun.

8/10 for Colditz because there wasn’t much to do in the village. Also I had to make my own bed and that was using energy I didn’t have after a long car ride. 

Max

I booked the Ranch with the kids in mind, a stay in Switzerland for Rich. This leg of our journey was for me. I love history and once I found out that it was possible not only to visit Colditz Castle, but you could actually stay in it, I was sold. It meant that we have a couple of biggish driving days, but it has been so incredible that it was worth the extra hours in the car. Plus when you are travelling around 140km on the autobahn it the kms literally fly by! 

If I were to describe this place I would have to say that it feels like the history is soaked into the walls. It’s got an eerie feel about it, but it is also beautiful in its harsh simplicity. First constructed as a gift for a queen from her husband Colditz has been used as a hunting resort, a mental hospital, the first concentration camp, a POW camp run by the Nazis for high ranking officers, it was then taken over by the Soviet Union and once again used as a hospital. It is now owned by the Saxony government and is used as a museum, function centre and youth hostel. 

The tour we went on was fascinating to me in a number of ways. The ingenuity of the prisoners was incredible. The tour focused on their ideas for escape and the lovely guide told us story after story of the different known escapees some successful, some not. 

What I found interesting was the fact that after the tour you felt like it was a semi friendly experience for the prisoners here and that escaping was more of a game than anything else. The dark history of this place was not discussed at all. 

Our experience here will be one of the stand outs of this trip for me. We move on tomorrow, to our next stop on our Germany road trip. I have been surprised by the incredible, breathtaking beauty of this country. The forests, farmland and architecture is stunning. The people are genuinely welcoming and warm. And thankfully due to the non existent speed limit, the drivers are very considerate! 

Donna