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Published: September 6th 2008
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Switzerland- days 3-4
We took the long drive from Paris thru some very beautiful countryside to Lauterbrunnen a tiny village at the base of the famous Jungfrau and Schilthorn mountains in Switzerland, we passed many beautiful lakes and the mountains were the biggest I’d ever seen. The campsite was located in a small valley with a waterfall at the door step and the snow capped mountains off in the distance. Alex and I shared a cabin with a couple from New Zealand (wellington) Gus and Alenea, the cabins were simple but was a warm and safe place to rest our heads. We had our first top deck prepared dinner in the cook tent, we were treated to a cheese fondue which was full of booze and was so rich it you couldn’t eat too much of it, but at the same time it was so tasty we finished off our bowl and the boys at the table helped another table polish of theirs, this was followed by a chicken cordon-blur. We made our own fun with drinking games and get to know you chat back to the cabin before heading to the bar. The roof of the bar was covered in
coasters with notes on them from thousands of travellers over the years, this meant that the bar smelt of old beer but once inside for a little while that disappeared. We partied into the night getting to know some of the people on our bus and a few of the boys got to know some of the girls on the gap year bus that were also staying at out campsite.
It was up early the next morning to make our paced lunches for our day trip up to the top of Jungfrau Mountain, one of the tallest peaks in the area at over 4000m. We walked to the train station to catch the first of two cog railways to the top. The first train took us up to a little village half way up, along the way the scenery just got better and better as we ascended the village disappeared into the valley. We jumped on the next cog to find that there weren’t enough seats as they had over booked the cog so we needed to stand for the next part of the trip which took about an hour, they did compensate those of us who had
to stand with a free drink when we reached the top. The second part of the trip was inside tunnels all the way up. The train stopped twice along the way for us to jump out and take some photos you could feel that the air was noticeably thinner and was dramatically colder. We soon reached the end of the rail journey we were still inside the mountain so wandered though some dark passages until we found the ice cave, it was full of ice sculptures of various animals. We soon found our way up to the highest point we were allowed to go, the views were amazing, you could see for miles and miles there seemed to be no end to the valleys and mountains. We could see a baby ski/boarding slope a little lower down so decided to go check it out after we had a little lunch with our free beer. Damo, Trent and I decided to give snowboarding a try while Alex watched and took some photos. My first run was great fresh legs and no fear of falling helped until I fell flat on my face, on my second run that combined with the ‘lift’
which was no more than a rope with a handle on it every 2 or so metres which was a killer and drained every last inch of my energy made every run that little bit harder. I gave up after 45 mins or so and Alex and I want for a walk to find the husky’s and maybe a ride on their sleds, we walked for a good 10 mins past the point on the map where they were supposed to be and couldn’t find them so I decided it was snow angel time, this turned out to not be the best decision I’d made that day as ended up not only with a wet bum from snowboarding but now my back and legs were soaked too. We made our way back to the cog railway for the 2 hour trip back down the mountain after a hard days playing.
We met up with all the others who had been up the mountain and the few who didn’t including Lachlan, Tyson and Clarkey. We started on a few of the local brews and headed to dinner then back to the pub for a few more dinks with the boys
then off to bed as we were heading back into France in the morning.
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