World Adventure

Time to talk more about the hotel routine. You must mark the board with a plus before 10am to ensure dinner. No deviation accepted. Dinner is alternating spaghetti or prawns, vegetables,rice and mushroom sauce. Mandatory. No deviation accepted. All meals are served with wine, soup and desert. Mandatory. Walter has been doing this for at least 20years.  It is good to know where you stand.

13Sep
Partially cloudy so valley walk up to kiltchbalm with waterfalls everywhere. Walked a long way up the moraine for a lunch. Very nice. Walked up to Murren for supplies from Co op.
Evening meals. These are great. We have met some really interesting people during our stay and the numbers have varied from 4 to 15 at the table. Most are American following Rick Steve's guide but we also met a family of Canadians. These are particularly sociable affairs and we get a bit of an understanding of real American families. They are nice. it is interesting to note that keep coming back to this place. Actually I have been wondering why. Yes the mountains are fantastic but I think that it is Walter and his hotel. He is like a surrogate grandfather and the place feels like a home.
14Sep
Nice clear day. Set out to walk along the north face walk above Murren. We wandered around some smaller tracks and found a nice lookout in a sanctuary. We startled a red fox along the way which was a surprise. Nice view of the three mountain peaks. The ogre,the monk and the maiden. The famous north face of eiger (ogre) was clearly visible. It is hard to imagine how anyone can climb it.
We came back past a ski lift and ended up at the top of the funicular railway. The reason why there were a lot of people around the area.  We had quite a laugh when we saw  calves following a lady with dog. She would turn around and tell them to stop following but as soon as she moved forward they started following again. She got quite annoyed with them and eventually they gave up and went back to eating grass.
Then we saw a track heading up and decided to follow it. We walked up to Birg 2700m which was a very steep climb with a 1400m rise. The views were fantastic but it was an exhausting walk. We decided that we did not have time to loop back to Gimmelweld as it was 4pm so took the cable car back down to Murren and walked down to Gimmelwald.   
I dropped into the village and purchased some local cheese from a farmer.
15Sep Murren
short day - walked around - nice weather again - panoramic walk
Was a bit sore after the big climb so decided to take it easy.
 The farmers keep old traditions alive. Some farmers were in the fields cutting grass with scythes. It is amazing how steep a slope that the farmers can cut grass. The mini trucks for carting the hay have anti-tipping wheels on the back of them!
16Sep Gimmelwald-Interlaken-Boat trip on Lake Thun-Thun-Lucerne
Decided it was time to get moving as we were at risk of spending our whole trip at Gimmelwald. I saw a base jumper making the jump and landing safely as we were traveling down the valley towards Interlaken. The area is a mecca to base jumpers and para gliders and we have been watching the latter all week.On the day that we arrived in the Berner Oberland region we overheard some base jumpers sitting next to us saying that a female basejumper who was 5mth pregnant had died that very morning.They were very matter of fact about the whole situation.
I guess given the fact that over 150 people have died since the inception of this 'sport' they have excepted that sooner or later someone they know will become a statistic.

It was a great visit! I am however looking forward to a bed in which I can sleep with my body stretched out.