4 month holiday starting now!!! Austria & Swizterland

Now that I have finished working I have officially got 4 months off work that I can completly dedicate to travelling through Europe and kayaking in Uganda.

The first stop is South-Tirol, on the boarder of Austria and Italy...this area is phenominally beautiful and a winter paradise with some of the best skiing in Europe. Its also pretty crazy because the people don't consider themselves Italians or Germans...they speak their own language (Ladina) and have strong traditions and customs that are stricty abide to, to keep their Tirolian mana strong.

I stayed with my buddy Miu Miu for almost a week, walked everywhere possible around the area, ate great traditional Tirol food and got asked if I was a German way too often!!

The Oetz River were the comp was supposed to be held

Then it was off to the Adidas Sickline Kayaking Xtreme Race in Tirol, Austria which was promising to be an awesome event but mother nature decided against it and poured down with rain non stop so the race had to be cancelled due to high river flows. Such a shame cos it would have been real good but no worries, they kept the party going and that was a pretty mad night even without the race being held-Austrians and kayakers know how to party!!

Angi and Sophie the legends at the after-party!!!!

Randomly met up with some real cool Tirolians (Ben, Sophie and Angi) that I had met on the side of the canyon way back in Italy a month before hand. Then 1 hour later I was going rafting with them, then at their place drinking beers, then getting offered a rafting job for next summer, staying with them, then going to Switzerland the next day with Sophies friend Peter for the next 3 days!!!! I love these guys and I cant wait to come back to Tirol and hang out with them all next year!!!! Great people

Mountain biking in Switzerland, loving the colours of autumn and the great riding

Peter and Shifa at the get out of some section on the Inn River just out of the Swiss boarder.
(Shifa is a Swiss chocolate maker and fattened me up the whole week on the best chocs Ive ever tasted in my whole life!!!!!!)

Then it was back to Tirol to celebrate the girls successful Rafting Assessment, do more kayaking, celebrate Birgits birthday in Innsbruck.... and then go skiing the next day!!!!!

I love Tirol... theres not many places you can go boating one day, and snowboarding the next without having to travel very far. The Kaunertaler Glacier was real nice and they put up a great opening weekend!!! The field was nicely coated with some beauiful snow - especially for mid October!! It was an absolute bluebird day on the hill and me and Angi had a great time!!!!!! Im so excited about the Tirolian winter now, the only dumb part will be adjusting to the climate after the Uganda heat!!