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Southface

A few weekends ago I packed my hiking boots, half a hundredweight of chocolate and as much photo gear as I was willing to carry to 1,878m above sea level.

The tour started in Lunz am See in Lower Austria at about 600m elevation. On the first day I only went as far as the Ybbstaler Hütte, where I overnighted. There was a lot more distance to cover on the second day, but apart from the initial ascent up the Dürrenstein summit it was mostly downhill and offered amazing views of the surrounding alps. (more…)

Madloch lift

It’s already been a while since I got back from my skiing holiday to St. Anton and Lech in the Austrian Alps. Dealing with that particular bunch of photos has not been easy – the whole batch was so incoherent. Landscape shots mixed with people shots – and all of those from 4 different cameras belonging to myself and my mates.

Evening glow

Finally I got round to looking through them all and I picked out some of the nicest landscape shots of the beautiful snow-covered mountains.

Check out the whole album ‘Skiing in the Austrian Alps‘:

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Ysper ravine

I have updated the Landscape & Countryside section of my gallery with a new album of photos from hiking in Austria.

The short hike in glorious spring sunshine led to the ravine of the river Ysper in the northern Waldviertel (lit. wooded quarter) region in Lower Austria. The ravine, called Ysperklamm, is a spectacularly beautiful natural wonder. The stream and its the countless cascades and waterfalls are shaded by surrounding beech woods and in the spring are drenched in chlorophyll-soaked light.

Druid's rocks

The walk continues along the druid’s path – named after the mysterious rock formations in the forest. Huge rocks are piled up on top of one another or arranged in rings, which has led to speculations that they were used by the ancient Celts for spiritual ceremonies.

Well, the rocks certainly look mystical and I can see where the speculation is coming from, but I am sure there is a perfectly natural explanation for their arrangement. And if the Celts did live there, they probably just used the rocks in their natural place, rather than hauling 40 ton boulders around the woods.

See all photos in the album Ysperklamm :

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Whales are generally classified in two groups – baleen and toothed whales – and both show adaptations that prevents the bends that would otherwise result after diving hundreds of metres deep.

While scientists used to believe that both groups evolved from a single deep-diving ancestor, a new theory proposed by Brian Beatty puts the idea forward that the overcoming of the bends evolved independantly in both groups.

By analysing whale bone fossils they found that whales were still suffering from decompression syndromes around the time where both lineages split apart, but modern whales of either group can both dive deep without adverse effects.

Read more about this fascinating research into when anti-bends adaptations first arose in whales:

Early whales got the bends – life – 08 May 2008 – New Scientist

The above picture is a painting by Noel Ashton depicting a Sperm Whale diving © IFAW

A friend pointed me towards a nice selection of smileys – symbols like :-) that make up a face when you tilt your head.

So I thought I’d design one myself and came up with this

}:³#

I name this “the confused cow”