The HIVE Tour - Episode 24 - First month of a 4 month motorcycle trip is over!

And what an end to this month it is! My previous 6 posts only covered the last day of it and this one is about the end of a longer than long day.

So my dear host Markus here at Knittelfeld Austria, despite an epic showing me around a radius of 100km he also wanted to show me one of the cutest roundabouts of the area as I didn't manage to walk it yesterday due to lots of rain. They tend to put as many flowers as possible here,

The HIVE Tour - Episode 23 - Castle hunting in Austria leads to an infinite climb!

Continuing from the previous episode where me and my host Markus left that foggy mountain hut behind we now drive North West on the 77 as he wants to show me the oldest castle around. I have no idea what this is about but who cares given a ride on roads like this:

The HIVE Tour - Episode 22 - Gulasch, Almdudler and other Austrian pleasures for the tongue (and the eyes)

I can't thank my host Markus enough for the long and nice walk around Graz but as if the sky is the limit he now offers to drive me back North via the route I took when I made it to his place a couple of days ago. And you might say, why thank him for doing the same route? Well, because the weather was so bad that I couldn't see much, if anything at all especially around Gaberl pass.

So here we are in this lovely route but this time under much better conditions:

The HIVE Tour - Episode 21d - Enjoying the beauties of Graz

I'm not a super fan of beers but I fancy a good one once per while. I consider Radler as the lamest a beer can be. That said, it's the thing that satisfies your thirst like nothing else and after such a walk I think I deserve one:

The HIVE Tour - Episode 21c - Enjoying the beauties of Graz

Graz is blessed to have such a wonderful hill overlooking the city like Schlossberg and at the moment I am in front of this:

The HIVE Tour - Episode 21b - Enjoying the beauties of Graz

If you are a local in Graz it is impossible to not know this fountain:

The HIVE Tour - Episode 21a - Enjoying the beauties of Graz

Picture this: not only you have the best hosts possible but one of them (Markus) offers to drive you to Graz which is 70ish km away. Can it get any better? Probably not. But wait for it...

In case it's hard to picture this I have already done it for you so here we are rolling down the S36 on our way to Graz:

The HIVE Tour - Episode 20b - Rivers, cows, horses and other beauties of Knittelfeld Austria

In the previous (sub) Episode I left you around halfway my walk by Knittelfed's river.

Did you miss those shades of green?

Well, here's some more:

 

The HIVE Tour - Episode 20a - Rivers and other beauties @ Knittelfeld

After a good deep sleep I wake for my first time at Knittelfeld Austria. The weather is far from as good but my lovely hosts have a good breakfast waiting for me to make it up for it. Dear Markus hands me his rain coat and I am ready to take my Mediterranean self out walking into far from Mediterranean weather and environment in general.

It's all wait and about to rain again:

The HIVE Tour - Episode 19 - Goodbye Croatia, Hello Austria!

The last couple of days in Croatia were rather sweet and allowed me to enjoy small trips around as you saw in my previous posts. However, Croatia got really angry on my departure. I manage to load my bike in dry weather and drive the first km without drama but the more I get closer to the Slovenian border the darker the weather gets, making rain ready to begging at any chance given. I am prepared for that, dressed for that and keep my camera in my luggage as I knew from the start there were wouldn't be much to capture.

Especially as I am crossing that dense forest near Bela, there isn't much difference than what an open space looks like a couple of hours after the sun is down. To give you an idea about how dark the day is, it's the first time that I am experiencing my phone dimming while driving in daytime due to lack of light (and auto brightness of course).

The Slovenian border looks like a ghost town as there's no one there but the rain is here finally. Not a surprise but not welcomed either. It rains all the way through this narrow part of Slovenia and I make the miserable km up to Austria is kinda shitty weather. Otherwise this ride would be quite the opposite - Slovenia is a biker's heaven.

At the Austrian border there's just one guy watching the (rather low) traffic, I nod at him, he nods back and...hello Austria! Austria's hello is even heavier rain. The whole thing feels like trying to make it to the top of my "worst rides ever" list as the weather shows no signs of mercy in the foreseeable future. As I ride West parallel to the Slovenian border I start looking for a gas station in order to find a dry spot and text my next host about my arrival. Even though I ride on the 69 there is no fucking gas station for many km. Not the kind of 69 I would like to have at the moment by all means. Finally my luck shows mercy and I find this one: