Sunday 20 July 1980 - diarist: Colin - Ansbacher Hutte to Pettneu
As today had been designated a rest day I had expected to be gently roused from my slumber. However, first thing this morning I heard the sound of an approaching avalanche - was this the end of the British Loonies? No, just Dave snoring. Martin had been similarly disturbed and kicked Dave violently; this had the desired effect and we dozed on a while longer.
After a leisurely breakfast we settled the bill, packed and unpacked our rucksacks, and set off in the wrong direction.
In an attempt to
reach the correct path, we started traversing across the hillside. This involved negotiating
several deep gullies. Martin and Nick, feeling less suicidal than the others,
decided to continue down to reach the valley in Flirsch.
The rest of us continued to scramble precariously across the hillside. Ruaridh and Dave decided that even this was not difficult enough and started passing rucksacks to each other. Eventually we found the path - a two foot groove heading down the hillside to Schnann.
Passing the
Fritz Hut it became a multigroove, as people had cut off corners from the
original path. We lunched above Schnann and spotted a white hat in the village
- this we later confirmed to be Martin.
The trog along the road to Pettneu was hot, sticky and miserable. We found Martin and Nick in the middle of Pettneu and we all collapsed on a bench. As no-one had much energy we spent quite a while eating slightly more than half the dried pears. Just as we were about to make a supreme effort and leave, a group of people headed towards us - it was a Sunday afternoon procession. At its head were four horses which seemed fairly nervous as they passed five scruffy loonies. One of them presented us with a 'sausage' (although Martin thought it was more like a pancake). The horses were followed by two brass bands; one trumpeter seemed unable to control his music and as he passed us he dropped it; much to the amusement of ourselves and his fellow bandsmen it landed right in the tracks of the incontinent horse.
Enlivened by
this, we set off through Pettneu and headed for a valley on the opposite side
of town. A suitable campsite was found, tea and/or coffee drunk, dinner
consumed, postcards written, a shopping list for tomorrow prepared, and I wrote
this - far too long for an uneventful day's diary entry.
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