European Wilderness Volunteer Diary

The Diary of the European Wilderness Society Volunteers

Wilderness Diary

Weekend is for a walk in the nature

We enjoyed the wonderful weather in Tamsweg as a family and started a short trip on Saturday. We started walking on the cultural- pad up to “Sankt Leonhard ob Tamsweg”. While starting walking, my daughter fell asleep, just as we found our way up to Sankt Leonhard. That fact was very nice, because so we could walk a longer distance. Since she can walk by her own, she....

WILDArt Majella 2019- 27085.jpeg - © European Wilderness Society CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

WILD times in Majella

After getting settled in Tamsweg and exploring the surroundings with my great new colleagues, it was time for my first wild adventure with the European Wilderness Society. At first, I only knew that after two months in the Lungau (and a short trip to Triglav) I would go back home to Frankfurt for the first time to attend my friend´s wedding. I had no idea that the....

Slovenian Wolf Monitoring Howling-26712.jpg - © European Wilderness Society CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

A wolf adventure in Slovenia

Biff, Hanna and me spent the last week in Slovenia in the search for wolves. While we were working hard during the day for European Wilderness Society, we worked even harder each night, driving around on dirt roads in deep forests in hope to hear a wolf. All this was a part of the annual wolf monitoring where we volunteered for four nights in a row. I’ve done....

A swim, a pizza and a farewell

Our last adventure brought all the volunteers together as we said goodbye to the first of us, Rebecca. On Monday the 5th we finished a little early and cycled up the valley along a beautiful cycle path, which meanders along the river Taurach to Mauterndorf. Here we enjoyed the last few hours of sunlight at Schwimmbad Mauterndorf where Ziva tried, with varying....

Back to Eberswalde

What for a time! The training period with EWS is going well so far. For me, it is really exciting to get an insight of project work. And furthermore my mountain shoes are already broken in. After a great first month working with EWS with and superb team I was visiting Eberswalde for a meeting with the BEECH POWER project team. I met Marcus (who was that day alone) in....

Val Alba Wilderness-25665.jpg - © European Wilderness Society CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

A trip to Wilderness

Last week I was super excited for the first team trip to discover some Wilderness out of the office. This time, we didn’t go very far from home – I mean my own home, Ljubljana. We went to Soča river valley, one of the jewels of Slovenia. As the area is rather far and inaccessible from Ljubljana, I have wanted to go there on a trip for a few years now and....

Triglav Wilderness-25659.jpg - © European Wilderness Society CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

A rough arrival, but smooth start

My name is Jonas, I am one of the many new volunteers of the European Wilderness Society. I had my arrival in Tamsweg on the 30th of June to start my volunteer period here one day later. I chose one of the hottest days of the year to travel to Tamsweg from my parents’ place in Frankfurt, Germany. So instead of a smooth train ride, I had to endure a cancelled train, a....

Medieval festival

One weekend I was greeted with glorious sunshine and the prospect of medieval shenanigans and steam trains. Snacks packed and a bottle of water I made my way down to Sankt Andrä im Lungau. Along the way I met one of my other colleagues Hanna. She walked the last stretch with me and soon we found ourselves at the steam train. While I was busy marvelling at the train....

Amphibians, Reptiles and Medieval people

Amphibians in Mariapfarr As the snow began to melt and the signs of spring started to emerge, so did the herps. On one of my walks I found myself around the lake of the Der Outdoorparc Lungau. It was the breeding season of the common toad, Bufo bufo. Thousands (or so it seemed to excited me) of them had gathered to call and find mates. Heaven for a herpetologist and....

Learning to ski

As a passionate and amateur herpetologist I was very keen to start exploring of Austria to see the various snakes, lizards and amphibians the country has to offer. But with the largest dump of snow the Lungau had had in many years… it meant I had a long time to wait and a lot of time to kill. So what to do in the snow laden mountains of the Alps? Learn to ski....