We departed Venice this morning with Austria in sight. 3 hours to the service station for lunch, an hour to white water rafting, and then off to the Contiki stopover in Hopfgarten, Austria.

I slept for most the first part, and felt like crap when I woke up. I was so dopey and my eyes were all blurry. I was so tired. When I woke up, I wasn't sure if we were in Italy still or Austria as the landscape had changed so much since I had fallen asleep. It was super green and very different to where we had just come from (The landscape on Austria is very much like New Zealand - green and hilly). Plus the signs were also all in German as well as Italian. Turns out we were still in Italy for another hour or so after the service station.

As we arrived in Austria, we were run through a little German language lesson (not that I can remember any of it, German is really hard), and told what Austria is famous for, and apparently this is where Redbull comes from! So I should have no shortage of Redbull while I'm here.

Our next stop was for the white water rafting. We got suited up in a wetsuit etc, taught a few commands and then we were off. I was feeling pretty freaked out. The first lot of little rapids we came to we were told to "get down", which was the command if the water was getting rough, so I jumped in and then couldn't get back out! Everyone was paddling away to get out of the rapids and I was just stuck in the middle of the raft. I managed to get out eventually, but it still happened several more times. We saw a dead deer floating down the river at one point. We were on the river for about 1.5 hours, but it went so fast.

Once we got to the end, we spent a bit of time in the cafe and then we were off again. It was 22 degrees in Austria, so I thought the temperature was just lovely. It could have been warmer because of the fact that we were in the river, as the water was freezing, but I still thought it was a good temperature. The water in the river comes from the Swiss Alps, so is understandably cold. But then when we got back on the bus, everyone was freezing so they wanted the heaters on! So I ended up getting off the bus with a headache, and feeling sick and dizzy. I hope this isn't the way people are going to feel for the rest of the trip if it stays cooler.

Once we arrived at the Contiki house, we dropped our bags up in our rooms and had dinner. We're staying in a room of 3 tonight. The Contiki house is in a nice little village in Tyrol. Tonight was the first time since Paris that I've put a jersey on. It is still plenty warm enough in our room though, but just not as sauna like as the last few cabins we've been staying in luckily.

Tonight was a tight and bright party, but again, the nana's we are, Stacey and I went to bed. Tomorrow morning we're off on a 25km bike ride! 10km uphill and 15km down. Then in the afternoon I'm going paragliding. I'm feeling a bit nervous about this, but excited!