That’s “granate”, not granite

 Day 13: Döbriach to Bad Kleinkirchheim

Hours walked: 8:30 - 10:30, 2:00-4:30

Kilometres walked: 12.5

Quote of the day: “Ohh, a little baby!” - Museum attendant, referring to the garnet Jakob was proudly displaying

Jesuses seen: 5

After two demanding 20+ days, today was much chiller. We treated ourselves to a leisurely morning, letting the kids play in a park before walking the 6km into Radenthein. There we had a second breakfast at a cafe full of Austrians who were at least twice as old as us, and three times cleaner. 

We went to the Granatium, a museum dedicated to the garnet mining industry in the region. We often shy away from museums but when we read that this one allows you to prospect for garnets in their retired mine, we decided it was a detour in our day that the kids should appreciate. Although some of the museum held little interest for any of the girls, they enjoyed the displays of garnets (which really do look like pomegranate seeds, finally that word makes sense!); Sophia studiously filled out the museum quiz while Tova and Zadie ran amok. Next we donned hard hats and descended into the part of the museum that’s an old mine. For no reason other than acoustics, they’d put a huge gong deep in the mine, which the girls bashed away with great pleasure - all except Zadie; who held tightly to her mother’s hand and pleaded to exit the mine. 

Upon exiting the cave, we were handed protective glasses and pickaxes by a genial man who spoke no English, and were taught how to extract garnet from stone. We all very much enjoyed hacking away at the rock - funny how we can pay money for this pleasure while others can barely survive off this same activity as a living. By the end, we had amassed quite a collection of small, nondescript rocks tinged with red which we hoped were garnet. We clutched our little baggies of questionable garnet protectively and stretched our stiffened fingers. Jakob got his first blister of the trip (left hand). Aurora resourcefully found a vein of garnets in soft calcite and mined a trove; by contrast, Tova spent half an hour balancing on one leg, smashing away at an unfortunate piece of rock which yielded a lot of dust and only a few shards of treasure.

After a mellow lunch in the grocery store parking lot, we were on our way once again, having retired our picks for our packs. Although the AAT made a sharp left to head back into the mountains, we took a different path; back on the planning stage of this trip, we made the decision that three straight days in the mountains was not on the cards for our family this time around. So instead we walked on small roads though the hills to the point where the AAT emerges from the mountains (after a long steep loop). 

We finished in time for a filling pizza dinner, high-energy shenanigans, and Ritter Sport and showers all round.