Nockalm Road Motorcycle Heaven

There are not many roads that do not run through a single settlement over a distance of 34 kilometres. The Nockalm Road in Carinthia is one: between the two ticket offices - to the south several kilometres outside of the community of Ebene Reichenau, to the north right on the fringe of Innerkrems - there is nothing other than bends and nature. And several pretty places to stop in rustic houses and huts in which authentic Carinthian fare comes to the table.
The reason for the "nothing" along this route has been known as the "Nockbergs National Park" since 1987. All around these Nockbergs, these strange, roundly smoothed mountains at a maximum height of about 2,400 metres, stretches the largest stands of larch- and stone pine trees in the eastern Alps.

Through the Nocky Mountains

But with such strange names as Koflernock, Mallnock or Plattnock, the Nockbergs not only have a unique appearance, they are also a geological rarity: they contain funnel-shaped cirque springs and karsts. A lime xenocryst about three kilometres wide is easily visible from the Eisentalalm and the Eisentalhöhe as blank karst. In this karst water seeps deep into the layers of rock where it is heated and returns to the surface near Bad Kleinkirchheim as 38°C thermal water. But the National Park status of this landscape is also important for the fauna: 69 species of birds, of which 13 are on the "Red List" of those threatened with extinction, live in the National Park. They have found an assured habitat here.