5/10 - We entered
Switzerland yet again (4th time) and followed the amazing sheer rock
gorge of the Simplonpass. Kent was busy out taking pics of the
fantastic rock walls and waterfalls when he fell heavily on his right
hand, luckily it is just badly bruised with a few cuts but very sore.
The road continued up to the pass at 2000 mtrs and then swept down
again over some amazing bridges and views, down and down to the city
of Brig. We continued on and turned up the road to Zermatt where we
thought we would be able to see the Matterhorn. We were unable to go
further than Tasch as Zermatt is now a green zone and vehicles are
barred. You can travel the 5 km by train for a mere 15 Francs each
(about NZ$20) we were a bit pissed off about having to pay so much
for such a short trip which is not actually up the mountain but just
to a town where you can see the Matterhorn from the main street... So
we made a bad decision and decided to head back to Brig. The next day
was the most beautiful clear day and it would have been a perfect day
to walk up to Zermatt and back.
6/10 - At Brig we found a
McDonalds WIFI and got a message from Carol's sister Dawn to say that
we must visit Interlaken. We looked at the map and discovered if we
took a different route we could swing up to Interlaken and then
continue our plan of travelling south into France from there. And so
a quick comment sent us off on one of the most amazing roads of our
journeys in Europe so far. The road north out of Brig (the 19) took
us up over the Grimsel, Fürka, and Susten Passes. These amazing
roads zigzag straight up mountain faces with spectacular views. There
were lots of motorbikes and pushbikers on these roads enjoying the
beautiful weather, lots of the pushbikers were older men talk about
fit to get over those roads! We actually should have just gone over
the Grimselpass but when we saw the roads we couldn't resist doing
the whole circle before going down to Interlaken.
7/10 - Interlaken is of
course between two lakes and both are very beautiful. We drove along
the northern shore of the first lake then into Interlaken itself. But
good luck rather than good management we accidently ended up right in
the centre of the picturesque 'Old Town' and magically got a park
there too. On the other side of the market square from where we
parked we found a goat parade was being held, there was one
particularly big white Billy. A funny thing to find going on in a
town center :) We drove on toward Spiez beside the southern side of
the second lake and stopped on its shore in the sun. For the first
time we just relaxed and had time off from travel. We put down the
picnic blanket and got out the food and had a picnic, a sleep, then a
game of backgammon. The sun was all there was in the sky and no wind,
the lake was calm and the view magic - what a lovely day. In the late
afternoon we headed south and stopped the night in the middle of the
countryside in a quiet spot near Gstaad.
8/10 - The countryside is
very very charming in Switzerland and the autumn colours make it even
more so. We took a secondary road from Gstaad to Aigle, in one of the
towns some cattle were being moved along the road. Every second cow
and some sheep in these countries has a bell around it's neck and we
have become quite accustomed to the sound of cowbells whenever we
stop in the countryside for the night. It's not an unpleasant sound
but it is continuous as the bell sounds each time a mouthfull of
grass is ripped to eat. So this herd of cows being driven by people
with sticks was ringing it's way down the road and it was quite fun
passing them, these cows had huge embroidered leather neck straps and
huge bells as well. We passed over the Col du Pillon (Col = pass)
where in the summer they have a rollercoaster that races over the
mountain instead of up in the air, unfortunately it was closed now.
The buses in this area have bike racks on the back, in NZ years ago
they used to have pram racks on the front or back of the buses but
not any more as prams fold down. Finally we came down a long hill
into Aigle and as we descended through vineyards in action we could
see a castle/chateaux waiting at the bottom. We decided since we were
nearby that we would head for Lac Leman on the shores of which at the
other end lies Geneve but we didn't want to go into that city but
drove along the southern edge of Lac Leman to Thonon. A funny thing
happened at St Gingolph where the border is into France (it goes up
into the lake and exits again before Geneve), we were trying to get a
good pic of the lake but were up about 20 ft above it and the lake
was full of mist. At St Gingolph we spied a little road running down
to the lake shore with a parking sign down there so we whipped down
the narrow road but found all the parks taken and the road ahead
covered in the chairs and tables of a restaurant. We stopped the car
and took some quick pics anyway then had to head up another narrow
road to our left to get back on the main road. At the top we looked
to our left and discovered we had bypassed the border post! Funny! We
accidently snuck around the border... haha. Ahead of us in the middle
of the road was the border into France and consisted of a lone guard
standing in the middle of the road visually inspecting each vehicle.
He asked us to stop...
To
see our photos http://cjb.pascoe.net.nz/
(click on or copy and paste into browser)
