If you want to explore mountains, Austria has you covered. I can’t think of anywhere more enthusiastic about getting absolutely everyone into the high Tyrol and jolly well enjoying it.

This is made altogether easier by the many cable cars which run throughout the summer. We found that giving a farmer €8 to park behind a barn, meant they would sometimes give us a tourist pass to get cheap – or free – cable car tickets. High peak walking without even having to walk up to the high peaks! And when you are up there, the paths are graded and signposted and when you need a bench, there’s a bench!

If the kids whine about another day spent on a mountain, don’t worry there’s a bouncy castle at the top!

Age or infirmity need not be a barrier. Neither should not actually enjoying walking, because once you get off the cable car there will also be a bar and deck chairs.

Just about everyone hiking at this time of year is Of A Certain Age – a phrase which always indicates someone older than me and which, under the laws of mathematics and longevity I will eventually have to stop using. Anyway, you see a lot of older people puffing about with hiking poles and the right kind of jacket, because it’s Austria and they can. Of course younger people see us as older people, but we don’t have the jackets.

And all this open access is all very well but at a certain point it does seem that Austria is taming the whole mountain experience. And that’s not really what I want from a mountain. Half the joy of these places is a sense of being in the great big wild, which could eat you at any moment. “So find a tougher hike” you might reasonably suggest. Yes, “but there’s a free cable car” I will bleat in response…

And of course the scenery is just as magnificent whether the path has been carefully smoothed out for you, or you’ve hacked through the scrub with a machete.

We set out one day on a carefully constructed trail winding though a series of waterfalls, culminating in the Krimml falls, Europe’s tallest. We paid for access to the gravelled path along with the rest of the region’s tourists and we herded up through the trees, stopping at the overlooks.

It was all rather lovely and the big falls were a showstopper, pounding their way down 380 meters. When is a waterfall just a series of rapids though? Discuss.

At this point nearly everyone we were loosely travelling with turned back to head down to the car park. We weren’t quite done though and noticed that the path while getting narrower and a bit less maintained, continued. We decided to carry on up. After another twenty minutes or so we arrived in a broad river valley.

The crowds had melted away and we made for an old dairy farm which was selling cheese and ice cream from the milk from the cows grazing by the river.

The place was owned and run by Heidi and Joseph and had been in Heidi’s family for forty years. She started making cheese and buttermilk with her mother when she was eight, walking daily to the farm along the steep path beside the falls. They were lovely, and seemed to exude the richness of the nature around them.

We carried on deeper into the valley, past more tiny farms and log cabins. Were we the only tourists there? No, of course not but there was something about making our own decision to try something else which scratched the “finding our own trail” itch. We turned back down past all the waterfalls feeling content.

They were undeniably impressive, but there really is a special pleasure from finding new experiences for yourself.