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The Newt 2007 took place in the Totes Gebirge region of Austria.
Sepp's Deutsche Nachrict
This year's Newt team met at the Bad Ischl Bahnhof (train station), a small
town nestling at the foot of the Totes Gebirge mountain range, south-east of
Salzburg. Our small contingent, consisted of John, who had flown from the UK,
myself currently living in Munich, and a carload of French enthusiasts,
Bernard, Jacques and Sylvie, and of course the indefatigable Christian from
last year. We walked through the town and set off from a farm on the
outskirts, before heading up into the woods above. It was a grey day, and
although the sun was not shining, at least it wasn't raining, and we had not
gone 10 metres into the trees before we were all naked, taking photos and
laughing. We walked under the trees shadows for a while, past large limestone
outcrops, along the largely abandoned trail. After a time we had gone far
enough for irrepresible Sylvie, who has had some very serious hip surgery, and
she returned to the car with Jacques, to meet us later on further up the
valley. The rest of us continued up through the forest, quietly tramping along
the steep empty trail. After a couple of hours, we came to an impasse. The
trees ahead of us had been struck by a storm some months previously and the
hillside looked like (I imagined) a battlefield. Enormous trees were laying
around like a giant game of "pick-up-sticks", for hundreds of metres up the
slope. We stopped for lunch at our high point, before retracing our route back
down the hillside, using a forest road to contour up the valley towards our
target ridge.
The view across the valley was stupendous, high rocks surging upwards from atop
each alp, fluffy tree covered slopes all around under a friendly sky.
Descending at first via a steep overgrown path, we switched to follow the
forest road, and it was here we had our amusing public encounter of the day.
On a bend of the forest track, a car drove slowly past the four naked men, and
the female passenger was clearly surprised, and she brought her hands to her
face in mock shock. What we found particularly funny was that she covered her
cheeks, not her eyes - most amusing. Finally we reached the gasthof in the
valley where we met Sylvie and Jacques once more, and had a well deserved
apfelschoerle. This is fizzy water with apple juice, and it was amusing
observing the French trying to pronounce such a word. Then we had dinner. We
camped by the river under the trees and slept well.
The next day we set off along the valley and reached a bridge, under which ran
a refreshing looking river - over and through the rocks - in and out of
swimming holes. Christian just had to jump in, and Jacques set about monkeying
around on the wet rocks too. The trail now wound it's tortous way up the side
of a steep wooded slope, with no respite, ever and always upwards. The trail
winding it's way past yet more storm damaged trees. Jacques was always trying,
(and succeeding), to climb up the trees on the way up. I became tired just
watching him leaping up the trunks like a happy-at-home monkey. We continued
up and up until we finally reached a raised valley, where cows were gathered
around small mountain huts, and a light mist covered every horizon all around
us. We stopped at the Ischlerhutte, with a friendly hut warden, for lunch, and
a warming hot chocolate, before heading on across the ridge in a light rain.
As the rain gently fell, my umbrella, (usually the cause of much merriment),
now came into it's own. Jacques wrapped up in a plastic bag, and Bernard
donned a raincoat. Christian of course, (la Bete - the beast), strode on
regardless, completely naked, wet and happy. There is no stopping this man, he
even drove the entire way from near Paris to Bad Ischl naked in the car.
During the week's walk, the ever calm Bernard went so far as to earn the
nickname 'La Bete 2' because of his enthusiasm. Wending our way along the
faint path, among the heather and high mountain flowers, we crossed the col and
descended to the hut on the other side. No milk to be had here, surprisingly,
so we had hot tea instead. At this point our party was joined by the erstwhile
Sepp, the nacktbergsteiger, (naked mountain climber), from Austria, who arrived
in the middle of the rain storm which started fortuitously just after we had
arrived at the hut. After a break we set off once more and followed the long
and steep track zig-zagging down the far side of the mountain. Some of us
naked, some half-dressed and some well covered from the weather, the rain
didn't let up. In fact the rain now set in for the night, and it was a rather
bedraggled looking little group which turned in for tea and cake at the gasthof
in the valley.
Once in the valley we met up with John and Sylvie once more, who had found a
couple of extra people. Pat and Claudie had arrived while we'd been crossing
the mountain, having finally made the decision to join us, and had driven the
1,000 km to do so - they were to have a short but interesting trip. The group
was now up to it's full complement of nine naked enthusiasts. It was still
raining, so we sojourned to a very comfortable student accommodation apartment
in Bad Ischl, and chilled out, (and warmed up), for a while.
The next day we decided on a short day so that both John, who had camped out
alone in the forest that night, and Sylvie could keep up with the group, so we
drove to Offensee, a charming lake nestled close to our descent of the previous
day. We stripped off at the car park and sauntered along the forest track
which skirted the lake. There was hi-jinks as we posed atop a fallen tree
trunk on the lake side, and we met several day-trippers returning to their cars
as we strolled along. After a short while we turned up into the trees, along a
trail, and followed this for a while, turning to walk up the open valley of an
old dry river bed. We left the trees, and the views became marvelous of the
mountains around us, as we steadily gained height. We came at length to a dam
designed to hold the stone back, and stopped for our picnic here. Salami and
cheese, an apple and a little sunshine, good company and wild scenery - who
could ask for more? While we sat around, Sepp set off up the slope like an
unstoppable mountain goat, he had a great deal of energy just bubbling under
the surface, and before long he had nearly doubled our height gain in half the
time, and nearly managed to crest the outcrop ridge behind us. After a while
we set off once more, returning to the lake side to look for somewhere to chill
out, near some water. We passed more people on the shore, and one woman
stopped to ask us what we were doing, I offered her one of my "visiting cards",
explaining a little about Nacktivism, but she politely refused it, having at
least read it though. We occupied a flat stretch of beach just around the
corner from the gasthof and this meant we could nip around for an ice-cream, or
cold drink. Meanwhile we went swimming in the cool but glorious lake,
surrounded by green alps and blue skies, an idylic location. Pat floated
across the lake, probably 1.5 kilometres across, on a large slice of log, which
became waterlogged as he reached the other side. While he was walking back,
Jacques, who was always game for a laugh, swam across too.
Meanwhile we were planning an evening meal, and
getting the French contingent all gathered in one place at any one time, was a
bit like herding cats. Nevertherless, eventually we reached the gasthof on the
other side of the lake, before they closed, and ordered dinner. As we started,
the sky grew dark and heavens opened, the wind billowing the clouds around the
valley, the rain beating down on the roof of our covered terrace. The meal was
very pleasant and as we finished, so too did the rainstorm. The party now
split with half going to the student apartments and the rest of us heading back
to the lake with our camping equipment for the night. As we put up our tents,
with the ever focused Pat asking me what on earth I was doing as I crawled into
my waterproof bivouac sack, the rain started again in earnest. This time the
rain didn't stop, and my bivvy sack proved to be waterproof no longer and I
spent most of the night curled up trying not to squish the water with my toes
in the now waterlogged sleeping bag. I hardly slept, and at about 5am I woke
Christian and the others, and was gratefully sheltered in Pat and Claudie's
tent, until the coffee was ready. We packed up in the rain, tramping back to
the car, some naked, some dressed, and all completely soaked, before driving to
join the others for breakfast in their hotel, with our tails firmly between our
legs. We were going nowhere today.
That was really the end of the Newt for 2007. We stayed on another day in the
hope of improving weather, but the rain just continued on and off all the next
day long too. So I, even with odd patches of blue showing through, reluctantly
declared Newt 2007 over. Even though we finished this year like damp squibs,
it had nevertheless been an interesting week, we had all met new and
enthusiastic naked walking partners, and we had been out and about in some of
Europe's most fantastic scenery. Although we had been rained off this year, we
were looking forward to Newt 2008, and all the naked hiking we can do in
between.
What are you doing next year ?-)
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...If Man were Meant to be Naked, he would have been Born Naked
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