Having given up on more snow (now forecast for the day after we were leaving) we decided to capitalise on the absence of rain and visit the Rossfeld Panoramastrasse. This is a route that briefly crosses into Austria and climbs to an altitude of 1600m. It was planned during the Third Reich to impress foreign dignitaries and is now Germany's highest toll road.

No sooner had we left our house and began to climb did the rain start. Well we thought it was rain, but the higher we climbed it was obviously snow, a fact that elicited squeals of excitement from Gunther's back seats!

At the next layover we were out of the car, throwing snowballs and building Tannika's much anticipated snowman.

By now it was snowing quite heavily and satisfying our need for the “white” part of Christmas exceptionally well.

Further up the road we found an alpine café serving wunderbar hot chocolate and beer, satisfying everyone's wants before we moved on again.

After completing the route we tried to find somewhere where the girls could “sled” or snow tube but the slopes that offered this option were lower down the mountain and did not have enough snow. They contented themselves with a couple of runs down a hill near our house seated on a plastic shopping bag,which subsequently necessitated a quick change of clothes before we were off to pursue our next venture.

My wish list included “a one horse open sleigh” and we had heard that they had started at Hintersee on Christmas Day so we wanted to catch that out to the deer feeding station which is set up in winter in the National Park.

This proved to be 4 euro each well spent and after travelling out in the “two horse covered sleigh” (using wheels today but equipped with a sled!) we walked back, ravenous after somehow missing lunch

Many of you will know that I have been monitoring a particular live webcam in the village of Ramsau which shows a beautiful church in a very picturesque setting which we had visited back in the summer of '08. With the light rapidly disappearing, we found the spot and quickly messaged the only person back in Oz whom we thought may be awake (at 2.30 am), Ben, who didn't let us down. He was online and watching as we waved and posed from the bridge and then very kindly posted our webcam shot on FB to capture the moment. How good is technology?

The last thing on our 'to do' list was a return to the famous Heng Heng's Chinese restaurant in Berchtesgaden. The venue for a great meal and a couple of take aways back in 2008, it is where you go when you have had a surfeit of meat and potato.

We were greeted with the infamous green Heng Heng cocktail (which we still have no idea of the contents) and then began the difficult task of choosing from a huge menu. Heng Heng himself served us and when we told him we had returned all the way from Australia we were treated like royalty, right down to the complimentary schnapps at the end of our meal in the MOST surprising of shot glasses!! Details in person only!!

After paying the bill (about 22 euro each and we left food on the plates there was so much) we were given two special Heng Heng panda tea cups and drove home, still laughing about the shot glasses.

As Tannika pointed out, the best Boxing Day ever!

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Champagne and orange, pancakes with lemon and phone calls home to Oz took precedence over unwrapping Christmas presents, but they were worth waiting for!

I can't believe what we all managed to come up with for each other in such a short period of time – well done everyone!

By 12 noon we were packed into Gunther and on our way to Königssee, a beautiful green lake Sam, Russell and I had visited in '08. Today though, it was not the emerald green that we had seen but almost black as grey skies and towering peaks blocked the sunlight. Only electric boats traverse the lake out to St. Bartholomew's pilgrimage church and the adjacent hunting lodge, once the residence if Bavarian kings. At 8 kms long and 190 metres deep, it has the reputation of being the cleanest lake in Germany.

I had made reservations for lunch at 1pm but unfortunately we missed the boat (seem to be making a habit of that lately?) which travels out to the hunting lodge and we arrived 30 mins late to an absolutely frenetic scene.

Tourists milling about (why weren't all these people home with their families I ask?) and apparently only two waiters serving the whole place – one of whom was exceptionally rude. Eventually we were seated and incidentally found the one English menu in the restaurant and subsequently ordered.

The meal itself was wholesome and generous in size, most of us starting with the venison goulash soup and following with either more venison, meat loaf or pork medallions. Luckily we were waited upon by the nice waiter who had a sense of humour in what was clearly a very understaffed establishment. Never before have I been served my main whilst still eating my entree on such a small table that I had to hold my main in my left hand until I finished my soup, hilarious. (And it was the same for all of us!) A Christmas lunch we won't forget in a hurry.

The setting on Königssee could not be beaten though and easily made up for the 'less than silver service.'

Wandering around in the vain hope that we were walking off calories, we found plenty to photograph as the temperature dropped markedly.

As the light faded, we boarded a boat back to Gunther and then home, strangely just as bloated and tired as any other Christmas Day.

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Christmas Eve's trip into Salzburg was planned with military precision but we still somehow missed the bus and ended up taking the somewhat slower but very scenic train ride into Salzburg.

We were under pressure to do our gift shopping as the shops were closed yesterday and close early today – I will never complain about shopping hours in Adelaide again.

Christmas Eve is the big celebration in Germany (and obviously Austria as well,) so shops and businesses close soon after lunch and it was 10 am by the time we had established a 3pm rendezvous location for our return.

This was non negotiable as we were booked into the 5-7.30pm 'slot' for Christmas Eve dinner back in Berchtesgaden – so, 5 hours to accomplish our varying priorities – shopping for some and visiting museums for others.

The decorations, wreaths, table settings and ornaments available at the Christkindlmarkts are absolutely exquisite and I couldn't help spending precious minutes checking them out whilst speculating on how many of them would end up with customs in Adelaide. They are so reasonably priced however, that I eventually decided to risk a couple and see how I go but there were so many others I wanted…….

I decided that Salzburg would have to figure on a future agenda as time rapidly ran out. We remembered in the nick of time that we had no supplies for Christmas morning breakfast (Russell's signature pancakes) so then had to carry grocery shopping around for he rest of the day as well!

The atmosphere in town was very festive, many local people standing around the Glühwein stalls catching up as well as countless Aussie accents heard as we dashed around looking for the 'perfect' gifts. I felt like I was on an episode of Amazing Race; never have I done my Christmas shopping in a few hours flat and managed to dash up the funicular to the fortress for a quick look!

The people milling about on the right hand side of this photo were listening to a guy playing the didgeridoo ! Trust an entrepreneurial Aussie to be capitalising on the Christmas crowds.

After exiting the funicular we saw Zoe and Tannika and decided that a taxi back to the train station was in order as the groceries were becoming heavier and we were all laden with packages and exhausted!

So many things I would have liked to have done but so little time!!

The group photos followed which provided entertainment and frustration (would Sam stop his comic poses for a minute please?) before we got the final Facebook worthy shot – thanks Russell!

Anyway readers, it is light now and I hear the mice stirring so I will sign off and head down for Christmas breakfast.

Merry Christmas from us xxxxxxx

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Merry Christmas readers….. it is 6am Christmas morning as I write this and “not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse,” except for Russell's gentle snoring beside me that is. I will take this quiet moment to update the last couple of days.

After a fairly leisurely breakfast Zoe seemed to think she felt a little better so we decided to head off to Hintersee, a lake about 15 minutes drive away. Normally it freezes over and there is ice skating in winter but as everyone keeps telling us, “it is too warm” so not to expect a frozen lake. When we got out of Gunther there was a fairly strong wind blowing but it was indeed comparatively warm, probably about 9 degrees. The lake was not frozen enough for skating but certainly frozen enough to be picturesque for us southerners and we spent quite some time photographing it and ourselves.

Having now worked up an appetite, we found a warm Gasthaus with a waitress who spoke no English. She was extremely entertaining nonetheless and with some trepidation we ordered from the completely German menu and waited with anticipation!

As it turned out, we all had lovely meals, varying from oven baked whole fish (tasted lovely, looked creepy), the trusty Weiner Schnitzel ( always recognisable on the menu) and the ubiqitous bratwurst.

By the time we finished the sun was shining outside ( it must be unusually warm because the waitress mentioned something about a 'bikini') and we walked back to collect Gunther.

As the sky was so clear, we thought it would be opportunistic to take the Mt. Jenner gondola up to the 1874m peak from which you can see “100 German and Austran peaks.” Unfortunately it was deemed too windy to go the whole way so we had to content ourselves with the “middle station” which was a little underwhelming but snowy enough for us to see skiers ad snow boarders doing their thing.

By the time we rejoined Sam and Holly below, darkness was falling rapidly so it was time to head home for après snow drinks and plan the next day.

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Saturday dawned wet. It had rained much of the night and that largely influenced our decision to go underground today to the famous Salzbergwerk Berchtesgaden – the Salt mines.

The 'white gold' as it was once known, is still mined here and this interpretative centre does a great job of explaining the process whilst incorporating underground train and boat rides plus a couple of fun slides, along with English audio guides for foreigners like us.

Sam, Russell and I had done this in 2008 but were keen to show the girls and it turned out to be worth the 15 euro for a repeat trip. New holographic lighting technology had further improved the experience and despite Zoe still feeling unwell, we all had a laugh – just looking at our uniforms did that!

Having worked up an appetite in the mine, we ordered lunch in the adjacent restaurant (Tannika and I had a great Wiener schnitzel) followed by pancakes. The waitress was most perplexed when we asked for accompanying lemon, obviously not a German tradition.

Although the rain has stopped, the little hint of blue sky we had seen prior to going underground had disappeared and the mist had returned. Very atmospherical but a little milder as well, the forecast is for clearing skies but no snow. Can't have it both ways 🙂

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