Osttirol Revisited - Part II

The dream is relatively straightforward and specific; buy up an old farmhouse with a barn but not too much land somewhere close to Lienz. The farmhouse has a large country-style kitchen with a massive table. The barn will be converted into holiday accommodation; downstairs the guest rooms and upstairs a massive open-air space that will serve as kitchen, dining room, living room, seminar room and anything else you'd chose to use it for. The barn will be available to rent for small groups of up to 10 people, mostly self-catering but with the option of breakfast in the farmhouse if needs be. It'll open for pretty much any type of group accommodation, but the focus will be on photo safaris and workshops in the surrounding mountains. Both the main chain of the Alps and Cortina - the heart of the Dolomites - will be within easy driving distance for day tours. When the kids visit, there will be plenty of room for them and when we get too infirm to run the photo safaris, we'll still have the additional income of the holiday let to fall back on. Like I say, straightforward and strangely specific.

Covered Bridge, Matrei || Olympus 25 mm, f/8, 1/40 s, ISO 200

In the meantime, I've got a few years to work on my photography and instructor skills. I'm not yet where I want to be, but I'm happy with the trajectory so far as I look back over the last two years. We'll keep you posted.

But back to our most recent foray to Osttirol.

Matrei and Kals

To change things up a bit, instead of hiking we decided to rent some trekking bikes and cycle up the valley along the Isel, a tour that I would recommend to anyone, especially the way round we did it; Lienz-Matrei-Lienz. The tour gains around 300 m in altitude over about 30 km - 300 m that are much more acceptable downward than up after lunch! 

The cycle ride up to Matrei was good fun if a little challenging in places. The bikes we'd rented from Probike Lienz (for a very reasonable price) admirably did the job of getting us up the valley and the views on the trail, which changes from one side of the river to the other, are varied. We found Matrei asleep at lunchtime, the streets practically deserted. Part Corona, part mid-day slump on a hot day. Quizzing the waiter in the pizzeria, even without Corona the village is quiet on sunny summer days as the tourists are all up in the mountains at midday.

Old Matrei || Olympus 24 mm, f/8, 1/40 s, ISO 200

After visiting the National Park Centre (really a must if you're in town), it was out into the streets. There are a couple of really quaint corners of old Matrei near the Park Centre, including the neighbouring Pfarre Matrei church, a couple of old wooden houses and the lovely covered bridge over the Bretterwandbach stream that bisects the village. 

Parish Church, Matrei || Olympus 13 mm, f/8, 1/200 s, ISO 200

One of my favourite scenes of the day was a little church on the hillside above the Isel in the tiny village of Gereiter.

St. Niklas, Matrei || Olympus 100 mm, f/8, 1/100 s, ISO 200

We stopped off on the way back to go up the Hochstein chairlifts and take in the view down the Drau valley. Of course, if you're up here already, you may as well come down on the Osttirodler, probably the coolest summer Rodelbahn out there.

The next day saw us up in Kals, a picturesque village at the foot of the Großglockner, July is still a little bit ahead of the main summer season and so only the cable car open was the one up to the Adlerlounge and so we headed up to the Rotenkogel before hitting the thoroughly recommendable Kals Matreier Törl Hütte. If you're ever up there, just don't forget to ask for Gina 😉. 

Towards the Großglockner || Olympus 12 mm, f/16, 1/125 s, ISO 200

Kals Matreier Törl Hütte || Olympus 34 mm, f/8, 1/160 s, ISO 200

On the way back we stopped off at the spectacular Staniska waterfall - always worth a visit either on the way to or from Kals from Lienz and really low hanging fruit - you have to walk 10 m from the car park to set up your camera! Generally I prefer shooting waterfalls in more subdued light because of the high contrast situation you'll often find, but the full-on afternoon sunshine here didn't detract too much. I used a variable ND filter here to reduce the light level so that I could shoot at 1/10 s to blur the water.

Staniska Waterfall || Olympus 14 mm, f/22, 1/10 s, ISO 64

Lienzer Dolomites

If you've seen any photos of the Lienzer Dolomites, you'll have probably seen shots of the beautiful Dolomitenhütte. This delightful hut lies at the starting point of many tours in the Lienzer Dolomites. You can drive up from the valley to 1,600, saving yourself a 1,000 m slog up a fairly boring track. From the Kreithof it's a toll road. Unless... We were camping at the Tristacher See and wanted to drive up for dinner at the hut accompanied by shooting the sunset. We drove up to the toll booth and found the barrier up and the hut unoccupied. Asking at the Hütte the road is open from 17.00 onward and you can drive up to the hut without paying the € 8.50 fee.

In the Stube, Dolomitenhütte || Olympus 44 mm, f/4, 1/3 s, ISO 200

Unfortunately the terrace was full, but inside the hut is very appealing too and so we settled down to dinner, waiting for the sun to set. We were not disappointed! The light was challenging - classical sunset problems of bright skies and dark foregrounds. I started writing how I overcome this problem in this post but decided that it was probably better in a post of its own. I'll post it later and link here.

Dolomitenhütte at Sunset I || Olympus 50 mm, f/5.6, 1/50 s, ISO 200

Dolomitenhütte at Sunset II || Olympus 23 mm, f/5.6, 1/125 s, ISO 200

The next day Sharon drove me up to the Kreithof and then went off with the kids to do another Klettersteig that was outside of my comfortable power to weight ratio, leaving me to meander down to Lavant on my own and take time over the photos. It was another case of everything going different than planned: I'd understood that there was a small gorge on the descent to the valley and a massive waterfall just beyond the village at the bottom. The gorge proved to be pretty much unshootable and I couldn't get to the waterfall because there was too much shooting! The Austrian army was using their firing range  at the bottom of the Frauenbach waterfall, preventing access. 

Emerald Beetle || Olympus 100 mm, f/8, 1/60 s, ISO 200

Harebells || Olympus 66 mm, f/4.5, 1/400 s, ISO 200

None of this stopped me from getting some lovely woodland images on the walk down and some decent shots of the St. Ulrich church above the village. There's a 'Stations of the Cross' path leading up to St. Ulrich and I followed this down into the old part of Lavant. The path comes out an old farm that looked like just the sort of place that I'd envisioned. After establishing that the Frauenbach waterfall was off the ticket for the day I went into a local restaurant to sate my thirst. The village lies at the northern foot of some pretty steep mountains. Speaking to the locals at the restaurant I discovered that the village doesn't see sun for two months a year - it simply doesn't get high enough behind the Lienzer Dolomites to shine. That's Lavant crossed off the list then!

St. Ulrich, Lavant || Olympus 29 mm, f/4, 1/500 s, ISO 200

The Wicked Woman

On our last day, the kids decided that they weren't getting enough exercise and went off mountainbiking on their own, leaving Sharon and I to drive up to the Hochsteinhütte above Lienz and from there to hike up the wonderfully named "Böses Weibele" - I think literally the Evil Wench. One of the many attractive things about Osttirol is the sheer variability of the mountains, from the high Alps of the Groß Venediger and Großglockner to the impressive crags of the Lienzer Dolomites and the more gentle slopes of the Vilgratener Mountains to the west. 

Down the Drau Valley || Olympus 13 mm, f/8, 1/250 s, ISO 200

The Böses Weibele was a fitting final tour - an Ausklang or finale. Only 500 m up from the 2,000 m high car park. The trail leads along a gently climbing long ridge up to the Weibele with amazing views both of the Drau and Isel valleys. As we were approaching the summit, Sharon spotted a bird hovering above the slopes not far from us - a kestrel. He/she didn't appear to be in any hurry, giving me time to swap out lenses for my longer-reaching Panasonic f/4-5.6 100-300 mm lens. She disappeared for a moment, swooping down on some prey, drifted down away towards Assling before returning to her starting point, letting me snap away in continuous shooting mode. Don't ask me how many shots I rattled off! This was about the best I could make of it. A shot I'm happy with, especially as the bird is nicely lit against a relatively dark background rather than being a black silhouette against a bright sky, but it's still not absolutely sharp. Probably my favourite shot of our time in Osttirol though as I've been looking at getting an image like this of a kestrel for a while.

Kestrel on the Böses Weibele || Olympus 300 mm, f/6.3, 1/2000 s, ISO 500