Goiserer River Traun Fishing

The other day I found a video on youtube on flyfishing in the Goiserer Traun. A nicely made Video, especially for lovers of nature and ... fishes. As I live in the area and yesterday was a sunny day, my wife and I decided to take some photos for you. You find the video on fishing at the bottom of this post.

Above you see only a simple bridge crossing some river. Well the bridge is the main one in Bad Goisern which is located in the 'SalzKammerGut', part of the Hallstatt World Heritage area in Upper Austria.
Since a couple of thousand years (3-4000), this river was used by men to transport salt from the saltmines (10 miles south) to far away European regions.
Effigies of crucifixion (so called 'Marterln') you find all over Austria, especially in exposed places like here, on top in the middle of the bridge. In the above photo we look towards the northwest.
The thing on the side of the dam is a 'fish pass' (German: FischTreppe), that helps the fishes to 'climb' the difference in height of two different water levels.

We are still looking in the northwest direction, the direction where the river flows to. On the first mountain ahead there is a webcam installed from which you can check the whole area. It's a pretty good webcam, that you can turn around, zoom in and out. Here is the linkto my post with instructions and the final link to the machine (if you want to take a LIFE-LOOK from there): Goiserer WebCam

Please heed the times. Here we got MiddleEuropean summer- or wintertime. At night you see only the nights, but might get some impressions nevertheless.

Ok, let's turn around, 180 degrees, and we look into the direction from where the water comes.

The river Traun comes from the Hallstaetter lake (German: Hallstätter See)

Right along the waters it's very enjoyable to take some walks.

You find 'hidden' paths, places to make a fire or to step into clean fresh water ...

You find places to dream and to listen to the talks of the river. Quite often when I'm at a river I remember these words from the Easy Rider Movie/Song: "The river flows, flows to the sea, wherever the river flows, that's where I want to be." Hm. Actually I'm happy being here, just the melody of the song and of course this movie Easy Rider can make one sentimental. The Sixties, bygone days ...
I love the sparkling of the light in the water.
And it's quiet here, no noise, maybe some humming or so from afar of, though we are actually pretty close to civilisation.
You can click on the photos to make them bigger (maybe you see some bugs - no, just kidding).

If you would wish, you could take pretty long walks here and do a lot more, however we turn around now and walk back to our car which is parked at the bridge.
Our dog enjoyed a bath, and did some swimming (I threw some sticks into the water) and now we've got a wet dog in our car.

Thank you for joining us on this short walk. If you want to continue you can do this here where I tell a bit more about Ancient Navy Inland Navigation.

And here is the YouTube Video on FlyFishing in the Goiserer Traun by YouTubeUser ProGuides:

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HallStatt World Heritage Austria

I live pretty close to Hallstatt, just a few miles away, and a couple of months ago I took some photos that I share now, to give you some impressions of the area here. Plenty of books have been written about this place, but I will not go into any details this time. I'll only say, that this place has been populated now for about 4000 years. The Celts were here, the Romans ... Nations passed through, Barbarians invaded for one thing: Salt

Let's start our virtual walk in Obertraun, which is just across the Hallstaetter Lake (Hallstätter See) at a favorite place of mine: an old graveyard, from which you have a beautiful view of the Hallstatt area.

Now on the following picture, the village right before us belongs to Obertraun. Across the lake there is a mountain on the left called 'Hirlatz'. Hirlatz is full of caves and they all aren't completely investigated yet.
The valley in the middle of the picture is the 'EchernTal', the Echern-valley. It's another favorite place of mine, it deserves a post for itself, which will come some time soon. In this place there were found ruins of Roman houses and a graveyard from the time of the emigration of nations.

Now we changed our position and take a look from another view. Across the lake is Hallstatt.

Now we get a bit closer:

And on the following photo you see (from the distance) the area of the saltmines, an area also of archaeological excavations.
However salt is being won up to this very day.

Yes, looks pretty romantic right? Well there isn't much sun here in winter times. What we don't see here, are the mountains ('DachStein, KrippenStein) in our back and on our left side.

In the following photo we take a look to the right side, far right at Hallstatt. This is the direction to where the salt was shipped. To the Traun - River from where the salt would be transported into a variety of European regions.

Some more Info at:

Hallstatt Dachstein Salzkammergut World Heritage

Ancient Navy Inland Navigation

Ok, we continue now our 'walk' from the Traun bridge of Bad Goisern to a bridge in Steeg which belongs to Bad Goisern too. To get there quicker we use a car.

And here we are, maybe just one or two miles away from the former bridge, now at the place where the Hallstaetter lake flows into the Traun.

So, let's have a look around. On the right side you see the 'Steeg' bridge and left thereoff there is the so called 'Clausn am Steg' a logging dam to regulate flood waters. What's special about it?
It's over 500 years old.
In the year 1511 a logging dam was built on this place which was destroyed by flood waters. Then again in the year 1573 a new logging dam was built by the logmaster? (dam-master?) (excuse me I don't know the English term and didn't find it either) ... ehem by the 'WührMeister' Thomas Seeauer. The building served to regulate the waters of the river Traun, because at this time till up to the year 1877 the ships with the salt, that came from Hallstatt, went further to the North. Why only till 1877? Well then the railway line was built and the transport on the river was stopped.

We look around ... plenty of ducks ... clean water nevertheless ...

Mostly nature all around, not many houses at the shore, nice for walking. The black dog you might know if you read this post on the Muensterlaender :)

We had two weeks of rain and now is the second of the sunny days at the end of September 2008
Now in the above picture we look towards Hallstatt and the Dachstein. However you can't see Hallstatt nore the Dachstein because they are behind the mountain on the right. From this direction the salt ships were coming to enter the Traun river.

Now in the photo below we look into the other direction, we've got the Hallstaetter lake in our back and are heading towards a northern direction. In this direction the salt was shipped.

What the mountains around us look like, vegetation and stuff.

Yes, we got electrictiy here :) Thanks for asking :)

Sometimes you see human artefacts in the water, good for something, maybe dry feet or so?

Or maybe the river got some kind of teeth? Well through out the centuries lots of people died in their works to get salt, to transport salt ... Let's take a minute for a short prayer for them ...

Well we step out of the deep waters of rememberance and discover again, that it's a beautiful day, and we ... are still alive and our dog is engaged in barking against the ducks which ... don't care about the dog. However they might underestimate him, cause he's a good swimmer, but of course, he can't fly.
In the background of the above picture you see some dark pieces of wood which you now, in the following photo, can identify as a traditional boat of the area here, a so called 'Zille'.

Thanks for joining me so far on this short trip into the past. If you like to continue this walk have a look at the area of the Hallstatt World Heritage place to get some impressions there.
See ya!

WorldWar Bomb Explosion Vienna

Sept. 20th, 2008 --- Yesterday, Friday evening, another bomb exploded close to Vienna (on Vienna territory). Sad to say, these kind of souvenirs of WWII. are still popping up. Glad to say, that no one was hurt.
In the late evening hours, earthquake-like vibrations were registered by the Austrian Geodynamical Registration Center (Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik = ZAMG).
The shake was also perceived by many citicens who informed the police.

On Saturday morning the aircraft bomb crater (46 feet wide, 20 feet deep) was found at a market garden (botanical nursery).

Probably 63 years ago, an aircraft bomb (550- 1100 pounds) had drilled itself into the earth.
Reason for the detonation now was (also probably) an acid detonator (fuze) that ignited the explosive body.

Above a 'new' bomb from 2. WorldWar times. Depending on the country of origin there are/were different types like for example: 'SAP 1000 lp' or 'GP 500 lb'. From 1944-1945 there were 53 aircraft bomb attacks on Vienna, dropping 100.000-120.000 bombs, leaving approx. 10.000 dead, destroying around 7000 buildings.

Since 1946 in Austria around 21.000 bombs (duds = UXO s = unexploded ordnance devices) were found. The general rule of thumb is that the sixth part of dropped bombs didn't explode.
Around 14.000 explosive war relicts are still supposed to lurk underneath (all of Austria). So, these were some numbers for Austria. And here a big THANK YOU to the people who help us to get rid of these things.

Now just a short comparison Vienna-Berlin. In Berlin alone, around 500.000 aircraft bombs were dropped, with estimated 5 % UXOs which would be ... 25.000 bombs. Experts suppose at least 3000 bombs to still lurk in Berlins underground.

I collected a short playlist on youtube in commemoration of these horrible days of WorldWar 2 and you'll also find the 'old' song 'Masters of War' performed by Bob Dylan in June 2008 in Vienna.

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If anybody needs such a thing: Here's a piece of BOMB-ART. It's not an 'art-piece' :) to gloryfy war, it was just a way to draw some attention to this post from my friends in the various networks.

Turning things upside down, inside out.