Today was a very satisfying autumnal day! Like a new seasons Granny Smith apple – beautifully proportioned, green skin, moist white flesh with a crunchy zing to the taste and a slightly tart finish on the palate! What provoked that analogy is that all along the country roads that I traverse apple and pear trees form a pungent avenue of ripening fruit.

The cycle path R4, from Linz to Gmunden , I have discovered, is part of the European Camino Trail! I am back on the way of St James. It was but 12 months ago I was on my spanish cycle pilgrimage. Praise the Lord! I suspected this when I began to see the universal blue and yellow nautilus emblem along with the R4 signs.

For most of the day along the R4 I seemed to cycle between fields of ripe corn on one side and sunflowers or cows on the other. By about 1 pm the austrian alps also become more obvious in the distance. Disturbed two deer in the forest. As I was startled by motor vehicles on my cycle path, so the deer were startled by a cyclist in their deer park!

For the cycle tragics, lets get the stats of the day out of the way:

4 hours 40 minutes in the saddle for a distance of 81.71 km, which
averages out at 17.5km/hr. total ascent 600m, total descent 414.

Never, well hardly ever, did I feel under duress and the glorious part was my perception that I was always gently climbing and despite the extra load, and again, hardly ever needed to engage the lowest gears.

A comment on the bike, it is a delight to ride but a Tiagra group set is definitely not Ultegra! They do not take kindly to dropping gears under stress and complain noisily and long, ultimately spitting the dummy and dropping the chain. Has happened once to me, once bitten twice shy. So “anticipation” is my second name.

Gmunden is about 60 Km by main road from Linz. It sits at one end of Lake Traunsee. It has that general look and feel of Victor Harbor as a holiday and naughty weekend retreat for randy South Australians in the 1930s , but on a grander scale. The Landhotel by the edge of the water, has that same nostalgic feel of days gone by. “No vacancies” on weekends routinely.

Here I shall stay for 2 nights surrounded by tall blonde young men in Lederhosen.

On second thoughts I may stay the whole week.

Excellent signage although at some intersections and In the towns, the signage was inconspicuous. I am following R4.

For most if the day along the R4 I seemed to cycle between fields of ripe corn on one side and sunflowers or cows on the other. By about 1 pm the alps also become more obvious in the distance

Just an ornate building! In Lambach.

Another “Schloss” outside Lambach.

Late lunch on the way to Gmunden. The beer is fantastic. A touch of lime! I could almost become addicted to it!

8 km from Gmunden. What a sight it was about 17.30 hours a little crisp but I could have cycled for another 2 hours if that view stayed with me all that time!

View from my room at the Landhotel, Gmunden.