“Every person from Međimurje should visit the source of the Mura River at least once in their life,” said Ksenija.
The whole idea started brewing back when I was planning the 1,400 km Drava brevet. At the time, Ksenija commented, “If you’re already doing a marathon ride around the Drava, why not also do one around the Mura?” Honestly, I didn’t even know where the Mura River starts. I was familiar with its direction near Leöben and Brück an der Mur in Austria because I’d cycled through there a few times, but anything further west was a sort of Terra incognita for me.
Since poring over old maps—both geographical and historical—is one of my guilty pleasures, I quickly dug into a few different maps and sketched out a route. The idea was to follow the Mura upstream from Međimurje all the way to its source, and then take a shorter return route.
For bike touring enthusiasts: there’s a full cycling route that runs along the Mura River called Murradweg. It connects the Stickler-Hütte (the river’s source) with Legrad in Podravina, where the Mura flows into the Drava. It’s 453 km long. But fair warning: it’s not road bike friendly – gravel at the start, and some rough patches further along the meanders, where tree roots have lifted the asphalt.
Our imagined route was over 700 km. We knew we’d be moving slowly—riding mountain/gravel bikes in hot, muggy weather, with plenty of climbing ahead. That week, daily afternoon storms were raging across the Alps, so we expected to take shelter from time to time and lose a bit of time. (By the way, it’s really not smart to “charge ahead” in the high mountains when gale-force winds and lightning storms roll in.) We even expected to end up pushing our bikes toward the end, but luckily, due to the traffic ban, we didn’t have to live that part of the adventure.
In the end, we decided to ride the route in reverse from what we originally planned. Time was tight, and we wanted to reach the source as early as possible. We did reach our “goal”—but to be honest, I’d call it a partial success. To do it right, you need to be prepared for both cycling and hiking. We missed a lot of the beautiful details along the way, and it’s definitely worth going back for a day or two, walking more of those scenic high-Alpine trails in the Höhe Tauern.
And here’s a fun little twist to end on: when we set off, Ksenija didn’t actually know where we were going. I’d kept the whole idea under wraps for nearly a year. For her, this really was a journey into the unknown. I only uploaded the route to her GPS the day before we started, along with packing instructions for three days of bike travel. On day two, she quietly said, “I know where we’re headed.”
Cheers!