Snowboarding trip, Post 3: On thin ice

On Thursday, when Ben and Donna were at Kitzsteinhorn, Matt, Kat and I walked across the frozen lake at Zell am See! A brand new experience for me, but it was the thought rather than the experience that was the most freaky. Apparently the ice had only been okayed for walking on the previous day, but don't worry, we weren't the first ones to test it out! By the time we got there, quite a lot of people were walking across it and there were benches and small trees marking out a safe path from one side of the lake to the other – it must have been two or three hundred metres across.

There were signs warning that walking on the ice was done so at one's own risk, and the unsafe sections of ice that were closest to the path were roped off with red and white tape and warning signs. If you refer to the first photo under the Wednesday section of my last post, you will see two large holes in the lake's icy ceiling... well, just to the right of the closest one (where the large white hotel juts out at the shore) is where the path started! And, in the below photo showing me walking across the lake, one of those ski runs visible on the mountain in the background will be where I took that photo from when we were at Schmittenhöhe the previous day. :)



Afterwards, we had a wander through the lovely streets of Zell am See. Note the photo below with the "no kangaroos in Austria" sign, which was also on shirts, bags, mugs etc... Kat explained it's because when Austrians are asked by Americans where they are from, Americans think they are saying "Australia" and instantly respond with "oh, kangaroos!" :P