Sunday 10th & Monday 11th May - Dalaas Austria, then on to Switzerland.

Sunday we had to say goodbye to Garmisch-Partenkirchen.  We have loved our time there and will very gladly go back.  The van was cleaned out, everything packed away, the final bill paid, and then we were off.

Our next stop was Camp Erne, in Dalaas Austria.  I'd picked it because of the fact it was on route and looked brilliant - green & grassy.  We had plenty of time so on the way we looked out for interesting stops.  We found a one with a view of the Zugspitze..... 

Looking back on the Zugspitze on our way to Dalaas, Austria

A zoomed in view - you can see the viewing station, restaurant etc at the top.

And a second which promised an interesting walk around some old mines.  Trouble was, after climbing up some narrow village streets in the van to reach the promised location, there was nowhere to park.

So we went back down to the motorway.  We were using Google as a satnav, and since Peter had already paid for a vignette which would allow him to drive on the motorways, we'd not told it to avoid tolls.  We didn't realise that would result in us ending up paying to use the Arlberg tunnel.  It's a magnificent tunnel - 8.7 ish miles long, but we could have gone around it.  It would have taken 4 minutes longer and saved €13

We reached Camp Erne at around 2pm, and sadly we were a little underwhelmed.  It was full of long seasonal caravans that had obviously been there a long time, they had small attached extension buildings and covers.  But they were all empty and the place felt unloved.  If it wasn't for the fact I had emailed ahead a booked a pitch, I think we would have left there and then.  Eventually the owner came out, she was chatty and like everyone else we've met on this trip, spoke very good English.  We decided to give the place a go, and as it turned out, it was a really good site, just empty.  The facilities were just about the best we've come across, absolutely immaculate, as if they'd only just been installed, and there was a massive Spar minutes away.

Camp Erne from a nearby bridge.  It's probably lovely when all the caravan owners are about.

We ate a late lunch, researched local walks, and then it started to rain, so we ended up having a very lazy day.  We decided there wasn't enough to keep us in Dalaas so we would move on in the morning.  I emailed ahead and booked us in to our site in Switzerland a day early.  All good then. 

Monday morning we set of for Lauterbrunnen. It was a horrible wet day, it rained most of it and we decided it was a good day for driving.  We drove first through Liechtenstein, which was a bit of a novelty.  We left before we knew it.  Once in Switzerland, we followed the Rhine for a little of the way as it followed the the border between Liechtenstein and Switzerland.  I never realised the Rhine started this far south.

We were 20 mins into Switzerland when my phone data suddenly stopped.  I'd been using it to find out stuff (e.g. the Rhine) as we travelled, and I got a load of messages telling me I'd run out of data.  I was really confused, cos I had loads of data.  Turns out I should have checked the message I got as we crossed the border.

We've gotten so many as we've been driving around "Welcome to......  calls and minutes are included in your allowance..."  we'd stopped reading them.  And we both missed the message in Switzerland that said "not included", and essentially I had used up my bill cap of £20 on data in 20 minutes.   Peter was still online because his cap was higher, but he was using Google as a sat nav.  We needed to sort it out fast. We found a MacDonald's, bought a Swiss priced lunch and used the wifi there (after a struggle), to buy data for Switzerland.  If we had known to do this before we entered the country it would have saved us nearly £100 (£30 MacDonalds, £20 on my phone and £45 on Peter's). Lesson learnt. 

Once the data issue was sorted, we drove on,

enjoying the scenery, 

even in the terrible weather. eventually arriving at Jungfrau camping late afternoon.  The site looks really promising, but the rain has persisted, and the lad that had to find us a pitch (Sebastian), seemed to be struggling to find a suitable dry one.  He even lent us a couple of pallets to step out of the van onto.  Good job he did.  It was a very wet night. 

We did manage to get the awning up during a dry patch though, so we are settled in.  The weather forecast doesn't look brilliant for tomorrow, but we have worked out that we can walk up the valley towards a waterfall attraction, which would be fine for wet day.  The Swiss chapter of this adventure begins.