day 03 of the hiking tour (my second day, as i skipped the first day). at the breakfast table one crew member announced he will take a bus back home and skip this day. the reason he quit is a mixture of pain, a girl and lack of sleep; he was one of the two seeking a party location in the empty streets of breitenbrunn the night before. as i thought, they did not find such a place. so we were reduced to a group of three.
again the weather was perfect, and our track was mostly through the woods, so we had plenty of shadow. also for a long distance the track was right along the border of lower austria and burgenland. furthermore it was an area used by the military too - at least we thought so, according to all the shooting ranges and strange signs[16] we saw along the road.
on our tour we met several local people, loads of them asking where we come from and where we are heading to. and most of them suggested we aim for mannersdorf, as it would be easier from there to get transport to vienna. so we took that tour, with a few detours as sometimes the signs were lacking or we simply just missed them to take the right turn. in mannersdorf we had a tasty lunch at a restaurant.
then it was time to get a bus home. so we located the nearest bus station, had a look at the plan, and were a bit confused. then we took out our phones, checked the bus schedule, and were even more confused. it seems, there is absolutely not a single bus that enters or leaves mannersdorf on a sunday. it looked like we were stuck in this little ghost village. too bad.
fortunately the mother of one crew member had a friend here in mannersdorf, who we called. we were very lucky, as she was just about to leave for vienna. so she delayed her departure, gave us coffee and biscuits, and let us play with her really super cute dog[23-25]. finally we left and were brought back to vienna. puh, we were saved - very, very lucky us.
thanking her over and over again we got off the car at a metro station and took the metro back home. what a relieve. the total distance for today was 17.30 kilometres. and remember: don't end up in mannersdorf on a sunday if you don't want to stay there overnight.
here is the track for day 03.