It's my birthday and I damage another hired car on the Großglockner Hochalpenstraße! Doh!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE EXPLORER Danik

AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME .....

That's what I thought when I woke up, but usually on my birthdays something goes wrong. I been kicked out of my rented accommodation on my 21st a few years ago, had arguements with my ex's, and last year had an arguement with a very aggressive passenger at work on my birthday. Today I am 27 years old. What could possibly go wrong, on my first birthday outside England and spending it in another country.

After a basic breakfast in the hotel, we got into the car and drove to nearby Bruck (Fusch) to have a drive on the mountain road known as Grossglockner High Alpine Road. This is known's as Austria's (and maybe the whole Alps region) best alpine road.

I have seen a few clips on YouTube of the road, and the drive looks great and the views look stunning. So off we went in our rubbish Opel Corsa. After paying the € 28 day toll to drive on the Grossglockner High Alpine road, we took our time going up the mountain, stopping off at various places and taking some great photo shots of the Alps and the valleys down below. In the car I had stuck with the video camcorder VELCO onto the dashboard so we could record every moment of the drive on the Grossglockner High Alpine Road.

The road winds and bends, and Signposts at every corner indicating how much higher you have come since you took the last corner. The day started off clear blue skies, the temperature was high on sea level, but getting Colder the further up we would go.

A few clouds passed trickled mountain peaks. This was fantastic. After about an hour driving, we came to a huge car park. I did not want to go into the car park, I wanted to get to Kasiers Franz Josfs-high area at 2369m to see Austria's tallest mountain, the Grossglockner. Stewards pointed us to go into this car park which turned out to be about queuing lanes of cars waiting to go up the mountain to the Kasiers Franz Josfs-High area and then view the Großglockner mountain. There is only a certain amount of car parking spaces at the top, so we had to wait before some cars came down from the Kasiers Franz Josfs-high car park before we could go up Tannoy messages kept going off every four minutes, telling us that cars who had just joined the queuing lanes would have to wait for 15 minutes before going up to the Kasiers Franz Josfs-high space. (Yeah right, 40 minutes later, and after nearly Knocking over the steward, we were on our way driving up the mountain!). They did this Tannoy message in German / Austrian, Dutch, English, Italian and French. Good it got annoying after a while. They was not even no point putting on music inside the car trying to drown out the messages because it was god dam noisy! So after 40 minutes, I could understand, speak and probably do a dance to the same old message in any language!

Anyway, up the mountain, past three car parks which were full, and there was a MUTLI-storey car park at the far end of the Kasiers Franz-High Josfs space. So in I go, up four levels to the top, and found a nice big car parking space, so I drove straight in. I could see the metal fence which means if you hit it, the car should not go over taking you to your deaths, but I did not see a blue bar just above the Tarmac, anyway, driving straight in and smacked.

I dented a lot of the casing and mark all the paintwork with the blue paint of the bar! Oh oh! It look bad. I do not think I was going to get away with this, like this time with the hired car two weeks earlier in Italy! I knew this time I would have to pay up Great, Happy Birthday Danik the Explorer (look at the photos to see the damage!)

I tried and not let that play on my mind all day, after all it was my birthday, and I am at the top of Austria, looking straight over at the Großglockner mountain which is 3.798 meters above sea level. So I had a breathtaking view of the Pasterze, the longest glacier in the eastern Alps. So here (below the viewing platform) is a vistors center with exhibitions, cinema, panorama room, the national park information point, shop, cafe and also the Wilhelm Swarovski Observatory.

The Grossglockner mountain was impressive, and great to look at, but all the time on the back of mind I was wondering how much I will be paying the Hertz car rental company when I return the car back in a few days time when we travel back to England from Geneva.

Back down the mountain we went, and drove back along the Grossglockner High Alpine road, taking in some more views and great shots on the camera. Half way along the road, the clouds came in, and it got really bad. At one point when driving you could not see over the cliff. I had to stop at various viewing points until some of the cloud lifted.

But at the end of the day, we spent about 6 hours here (including over an hour in a restaurant) and I had one of the best drives of my life.

:)

A few facts which I found out during the day while traveling along the Grossglockner High Alpine Road --

1) 48 kilometers of high Alpine road with 36 bends, and an altitude ascent to 2.504 m above sea level!

2) Großglockner is the highest mountain in Austria, and the first ascent took place in 1800. In 1856, His Majesty Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth hiked to the point that has since been known as the 'Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-High', which is now the car parking area and information center opposite the Grossglockner mountain.

3) The Grossglockner High Alpine Road was built between 1930 and 1935 and is a cultural monument.

Believe me, if you got a car in the area, got time to kill, and got a spare € 28 and some fuel, then drive the Grossglockner High Alpine Road. It's well worth it. So there is an animal wildlife park at the northern toll (extra fee needed), which might be worth checking out, but I ran out of time. : (