Bushwalk Australia

Hi there I'm going to Europe this summer, may - july, I have online uni so not heaps of time so am interested to see which hikes people have already done and would strongly recommend?

At this stage I will be travelling, over my school holidays, to Bavaria for 4 days
Austria for one week
Ireland for one week
scotland for one week

I will be based in Germany during my stay, but between uni things I should be able to make short trips.

anyone had any amazing experiences they would like to share?

I'm not an extreme hiker when it comes to danger limits and navigation, but ideas would be awesome.

also any recommended gear you would suggest outside of the obvious essentials?

Thanks!

I can only help you with France I'm afraid, let me know if you go there. As for Austria I would advise to do it last, so you can hike at higher elevations (in May there's still a lot of snow on the ground above 2000 m, although we're having a rubbish winter this year).

Hi sanloz11.

I went to Scotland 15 mths ago and am planning on a week there Oct this year.
I found the walkhighlands.co.uk website very helpful.

I plan on going back to Cairngorms in particular to do a walk called the Black Wood and Dum da-Lamh fort walk. Only 8.5kms but how often do you do a walk that includes a 2000 year old Pictish fort with 20ft thick walls built to fight off the Romans. The local bartender at the Laggan Pub- Robbie, offered to take me up and also show me a hidden cave where the Picts would hide if they felt "numerically overwhelmed"

I bought a book on walking in the Cairngorms which is excellent and you can borrow it if you like as I see you are quite close to Frankston.

As I had family with me in Ireland I didn't get a walk in anywhere, but I also hope to get back there in October and find the www.irishtrails.ie website quite useful for general planning and mindless daydreaming of this magical island.

Let me know if you want to borrow the book and we can work out how you can get it.

Cheers

Greg

sanloz11 wrote:Hi there I'm going to Europe this summer, may - july ...

At this stage I will be travelling, over my school holidays, to Bavaria for 4 days
Austria for one week
Ireland for one week
scotland for one week

Regarding Scotland:

May/June is (in a normal year) a very good time to be there, and generally better than 'high Summer.'

There are a couple of well-known long trails to do, but, to me, those miss the point: better, generally, to plan on day trips from a base. (There are really only a handful of areas - e.g. Fisherfield, or Knoydart - where you *need* to plan overnight trips.)

If you've never visited before, then I would recommend a few days based in Glencoe. It *is* admittedly the honeypot area, but the scenery is great and there are lots of options.

A fabulous area if you can get there is the far north west - Coigach and Assynt. That area has the oldest rocks in Europe ('Lewisian Gneiss') topped by spectacular 'island' peaks of Torridonian sandstone - and really does look different to the rest of the country.

Torridon itself also has plenty of possibilities.

The main difficulty is transport to some of these places, and then transport to the starting points of the walks. A car is helpful! Hitching still works here, though: so if you can get to some central base (e.g. a youth hostel or similar) in any of these areas, you're *probably* then sorted out.

I am happy to help with more detailed info if the above raises any questions.

sanloz11 wrote:also any recommended gear you would suggest outside of the obvious essentials?

For Scotland, if you take the same stuff you'd take for Tassie you won't go far wrong!

Have a good trip.

Bavaria is easy. Drive to the base of any visible mountain. Find the chairlift and ride it to the top, where there will be places to walk. Plenty of walking maps available locally.

Thanks!! At this stage we are going to the Kieler Woche, just off the boarder of Denmark. I am keen to do some Denmark hiking and then catch a ferry to Norway or Sweden or Scotland... (the first two are very pricey)

Thanks for your tips on scotland, they will be very useful in my research to come before making a firm decision

Denmark is pretty flat by memory but not as much as Holland. Ummm...


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"Denmark hiking" I don't think I've ever heard of that... And Southern Sweden is really boring for hiking.

Hallu wrote:"Denmark hiking" I don't think I've ever heard of that... And Southern Sweden is really boring for hiking.

I suspect you have not visited Denmark, whilst there are no real peaks there are a lot of options for short walks (3 or 4 days) including camping in the forests and adjacent to the beaches. In fact this guy has just completed a 5300 km circumnavigation of Denmark. http://www.fodenpaakanten.dk (Google Translate will provide much more detail) I have walked a lot in Denmark and many of my trips can be found at https://nielsenbrown.com/denmark-wanderings/ Furthermore, the public transport system makes it easy to get to and from an area, so a car is not a necessity.

The beaches and coastline are excellent and I spend as much time as I can visiting them.

I am happy to provide more detail if needed.

Hi, thanks I will look into these links! also have to forward all info to my partner for his opinions.
North Denmark and the coasts did look good in what I have found so far, so I don't think it should be so boring.
We will have a car anyway because were driving from Germany... but we might leave it at an airport if we fly over to Norway or Sweden for a short visit. On a pretty tight budget, considering I need to upgrade my gear to a lighter, non snow, friendly set. I currently have a snow set up from being there over xmas and only winter hiking in VIC.
But now it is Sunday I will have time to read read read, its just so hard, so many places that make me excited! Choosing is the challenge.

I'm not so worried about peaks either, I just enjoy nature and good scenery. I also hate heights, or what I like to call, death drops!

Two words: THE DOLOMITES

Most beautiful place I've ever been. Even better than NZ. Want to go back. One of the most famous walks in Europe (the Alta Via 1) starts from the spot in this pic - I didn't do it - but next time I'm there, I will. I'm sure you could find some excellent day hikes in the area. It is not too far from Bavaria. I also really loved Switzerland except the Swiss can be a miserable bunch sometimes. The Lauterbrunnen valley is pretty stellar. Also the lake region in Italy - lake Garda, Maggiore, Como, etc. Southern Germany where Neuschwanstein is located is also a lovely area. You could also visit some Hitler sites too while hiking in Germany- e.g. the Eagles Nest.

But I recommend avoiding walking in Garmisch-Partenkirschen - I walked there and there was a LOT of gravel trails. Horrible to walk on. I also vastly preferred hiking in Switzerland (on the Haute Route) to Austria (on the Stubai high trail - Austria is overrun by ski resorts which mar the view of the mountains in summer).

(also, not sure what you're doing for uni in Bavaria but if you speak German, Southern Tyrol in northern Italy (it used to be part of Austria) and much of Switzerland is German speaking. No doubt some obfuscated dialect in each bit tho.