Of course we are in fact already BACK home again, but in order to give you a good idea of how our trip went, I will just pretend that we are still traveling.
We arrived safely, but very early in the morning in Frankfurt. They were really careful when they off loaded us and we were taken to the "Fragile cargo" section - hmmm - not quite the first class counter, I must say, but at least mum and all the other humans were already there to greet us. Onto the trolley and off to customs. None of the dogs were allowed out of their crates yet, which caused at least one or 2 of them to protest loudly. Not me and Chippy - we are soooo well behaved.
Mum took us to customs, so they could check our papers. She said afterwards that she thinks we could have just gone through the doors and nobody would have stopped us. But my mum takes paperwork very seriously. At customs we had to wait for the Vet to arrive, who checked our papers and our microchip. I don't want to complain, but I am not sure if she was a real Vet - it took her for ever to find the chips, even though mum told her where mine was. Eventually, finally, we could get out of the crates and onto some miniature flowerbed. I must say, the urge to do anything left me quickly when I saw the bed.
On we went, the humans pushing the trolleys with luggage and crates and us walking next to them. I think the newspaper must have announced that I am arriving, 'cause all the people stopped and looked at me - the others too, but I am sure they wanted to specifically look at me. Eventually the humans got their directions right and we found the hire cars. It was well organized and in true South African VIP style, we traveled in German black cars. The cars were fine, but the packing was lousy. We only had 5 humans, 6 dogs, crates for 6 dogs and the luggage to load and the humans struggled to fit that all into 2 station wagons. Mum said the problem was that these weren't real station wagons, but what she calls "hatch backs". In any case, after much loading, unloading and re-loading we eventually drove off. Lloyd very kindly found us a very nice place to stop and mum took us into the forest for a walk. That was very strange - all new smells. Chippy of course couldn't have cared less, all he did was to find a big stick and asked mum to play. At least he was tired by the time we got back to the car.
A few hours later we stopped so the humans could have some lunch .... nobody offered me any lunch ... and we went for another walk and Chippy had another game. Back into the car and another few hours drive and we finally arrived in Dornbirn at our hotel. Some more pictures ... oh I forgot to tell you, the amount of ictures that were taken during this trip could fill a whole website. Mum says we can only upload a few. I am not very fond of pictures, if I could I would be wearing large sunglasses to hide from the paparazzi, but mum says I can't do that. So, after the pictures we went to the room and FINALLY got some food (they did give us water earlier of course and mum also made sure we got some treats). The food was boring pellets and Chippy told mum that he is not that hungry that he is eating those. I ate most of his, if he is so fussy. They weren't bad, really, they weren't.

Later on we went for a great walk. It was along the river and it was very, very nice. We even found some areas were we could go into the river and onto the big rocks. There are pictures of that as well of course. The river was just outside the hotel, so we walked there every day. Sometimes on the left bank, sometimes on the right bank - it was very nice. That first day we went to visit mum's aunt and uncle who live nearby. Everyone always wants to touch Chippy, I suppose that is because I am always well groomed and they don't want to mess my hair up, but Chippy looks disheveled anyway, so it doesn't mater if they put their hands on him. Of course he doesn't like it and mum constantly has to remind other humans to please not touch him - humans don't listen very well I have noticed ...

We all went to bed fairly early that first day. It was so cool having mum all to ourselves. She even shared the bed with me. She had brought a special cover for the bed. I think that was so it would be cosier for me ... someone mentioned it was so the bed linen would not get dirty. I have no idea who would make the linen dirty, so I don't think it was because of that - must have been to make the bed softer for me.

Day 2 to follow