We had a rude awaking at 5 o'clock in the morning by an unholy clanging below the house! It was still dark. What was going on? We stumbled out of bed to see a herd of cows being driven along the road with bells on their necks and lights on their heads. We've seen the bells before but never lights. Whether these were set amongst garlands of flowers as we've seen before or tied onto their horns, I have no idea. I was too groggy to get my camera working in time to capture the sight. These are the scenes that make rural Switzerland special and interesting. Farming here is so different from home where everything is done intensively. Here, charm still exists. We had a domestic morning. First, we had to find somewhere to get ... read more

We had a day of problems but got off to a good start with Marc taking us to Kontanz to pick up our rental car. It is VW Golf, automatic, has a GPS and is a good size. The GPS was odd to operate and when we put in an address we headed off towards St Gallen. Wrong. So, we put in Saanen and headed off towards Zurich. Correct. We had a lunch stop at a huge Movenpick outfit which straddles the motorway where my 1E coin wouldn't work for the toilets - of course. The Indian lady finally let me in after some gabble between us. The scenery along the way is low lying, rolling hills with a lot of forest cover. More forest than we see at home I might add. The towns and ... read more

We took the long haul from Auckland with no stopover on Emirates Airlines A380 from Auckland/Dubai/Zurich. Amazingly, we were wandering through Dubai Airport and someone called out my name. It was Heather and Doug from New Plymouth on their way to Sweden! Apart from that the trip was the usual - endure the trip and get it over and done with. One point of note is that Dubai had a population of 30,000 in the 1930's and now has 4 million. That is some growth!! Not for this Kiwi though - very modern, very busy, very hot and very sandy. On the Dubai to Zurich stretch we flew over Iran which showed some spectacular geology with outstanding examples of layered and folded rocks in the landforms.From flying height you could virtually see that the land had ... read more

After a good night's sleep in our high rise bed (we almost needed a ladder to get into it) our day started with a four course breakfast at the Victoria B&B. It is well known for it's breakfasts and the Victorian house and rooms. Needless to say there was more than we needed for the breakfast so our lady gave us a bag to put in any excess food which we did - true to our TTATs philosophy. We shared breakfast with four Ozzies three of whom were immigrants which made them interesting. The man ( a real Ozzie bloke) was married to a Mauritius woman who was born in Australia. She had her Mum and Aunty with her and they were originally from Mauritius. How much do we know about Mauritius? Practically nothing. English is ... read more

Oh my, what a beautiful breakfast we had delivered this morning. A glass of grapefruit juice; a parfait of chopped fresh strawberries, yoghurt, a rim of fresh blackberries topped with a strawberry; a poached egg with greens and a little tomatoe followed by an orange and pecan warm muffin - all creatively presented on a tray. This lady knows hospitality and presentation. We then continued the Wild Pacific Trail along from where we were yesterday to the 6.5km mark. This trail is appropriately named as the coast is indeed wild. The headlands and bays are solid jagged rocks with waves surging and crashing with the ebb and flow. It is well paved and signposted and in many places they have little viewing platforms to stand on the edge of the cliffs or rocks to view out. ... read more