What is usually a stunning lake in good weather, the Hintersee

Headed from my hostel to the bus stop and hopped on the 840 bus to Berchtesgaden. Its great having such short transfers to new places, especially when its just a local bus trip of 45mins. Got off the bus and started to navigate my way to my hotel. It was a bit of a trek up pretty steep roads, and it was damn hot too (later id find out theres a shortcut OVER the train station). Checked in and got my key and also a tourist card which gave me free transport on all the local buses. Score. My room was pretty sweet too, compared to a hostel room it was a palace. Walked around the town for a bit, having absolutely no idea that they even had a town square even though I was here last year. Found the supermarket and opted for the ghetto dinner of rolls with meat and other stuff.

Woke up and went upstairs to the buffet breakfast. EPIC. They have everything. Stuffed my face with cereal, fruit salad, rolls with phili and meat, etc for about 30 minutes. The breakfast room is great because its on the top floor and overlooks the mountains so you can see what the weather is like up high. Today it wasn’t so great, quite a bit of cloud around the top peaks. So I opted to head to Konigssee and do the lake cruise and walk over to Obersee. DAMN thats a slow boat, I swear I could swim faster with one arm. But its a beautiful lake with mountains all around so it makes sense why they go so slow. Did the short walk to Obersee (‘High Lake’) and unfortunately the weather was near identical to last year, with clouds. Went a bit further to the waterfall, which is the highest waterfall in Germany. Really wish I had my tripod with me though because this place is heaven for slow shutter water flow photos. Walked back to the ferry and took it back half way to the St. Bartholomä stop. Thankfully this year the church wasn’t covered in scaffolding so i could at least get some decent photos of it. Didn’t hang around there too long because the weather was turning bad, and fast. Back at Konigssee I check the bus times back to Berchtesgaden and I missed the bus by TWO MINUTES and the next one wasn’t for another hour and a half. Stuff that so I just walked the 4km back. Picked up some take away Chinese thats next to the hotel and had that for dinner.

Went up for breakfast again, this time looked out the window and BAM no clouds just blue sky. I don’t think ive ever had breakfast that quickly before. Quickly got down to the bus station and went up to the Eagle’s Nest. Ive already blogged about that here though so ill shutup and move on with the other days. Third day the weather was looking pretty average, not raining but a lot of cloud in the sky. I decided to go up to the top of Mr Jenner anyway. Caught the bus to the cable car and headed up to the half way point and then hiked up the rest. I have to work the shit food off somehow and the views are amazing. Made it up to the top cable car station at about midday and then the clouds rolled in. They were moving FAST, crazy fast. So I hustled up the final part of the hike to the very top and by the time I got there it started raining. I was the only one left up here at this stage because im crazy so I quickly setup the tripod and snapped a photo of myself and a white cloudy background, just to prove how crap it really was. Ran back down to the cable car station and had to buy a ticket so I could just cable car it all the way back down to the bottom. This time I didn’t stuff up the bus times though and got back to my hotel a lot quicker. Chinese for dinner again (the place is cheap and you get a tonne of food).

Last day in Berchtesgaden and the weather is even worse than the day before. Its pouring rain and I haven’t even had breakfast yet. So I just chilled in my room, caught up on some photo editing, blogging, emailing, hostel booking etc. One of the advantages of a hotel over a hostel is definitely this, when the weather is crap you have your own room just to relax in. By about midday it started to clear, well it stopped raining at least. So I took a gamble, went down to the bus stop and caught it to Hintersee (‘King’s Lake’). On a sunny day this place is absolutely spectacular, crystal clear water surrounded by mountains with walking trails around the lake. But today was definitely not lending itself towards landscape photos. Was feeling pretty bummed cause of the weather, but I got my camera out and started snapping a few things, and things started to look up. The day this doesn’t happen anymore is the day I throw my camera off a cliff. There was a fisherman all on his own on the lake which made for some great photos. Walked along a trail for a while that followed a stream which had some really cool completely mossy sections. The rain was starting to get annoying though, was just on and off all day. Not bad enough that I had to put the camera in the bag, but bad enough that it annoyed the shit out of me. And being the tough nut Australian that I am I was obviously just wearing shorts and a tshirt, so it got kinda cold when it rained. Im also starting to feel left out because I don’t have a Jack Wolfskin jacket, because seriously every single person wears one here. After a few hours I decided to call it a day, the rain was getting too heavy.

Overall, and I hate to say this about any place I visit, my stay in Berchtesgaden this year was rather disappointing. I really only came back here because last year the weather was also pretty mediocre so I wanted to come back and get photos with nice sunny weather. Don’t get me wrong though I still got some great photos and it just meant I had to adapt to the weather and make the most of it. C’est la vie, I move on, and it just means ill have to come back once again.