Climb every mountain.....

From Geneva we only had to cycle in the now steady drizzle another 40km to our campsite that night. Another lake front campsite with more cous cous cooked ala Swiss raindrops. Slept in and woke to blue skies. Suddenly (blue skies are such an amazing anti depresant I wish I could market it), everything seemed possible and we were no longer convinced our quickest route out of Switzerland was the best plan. Skyped Chris, an old friend of mine, who lives on the other side of Switzerland from Geneva. I felt a bit pathetic trying to explain that although I had finally made it to his country I was not going to be able to make it to see him, his wife, Anja, and most importantly his new baby, Malin.

Finally Nic said the “t” word (which we have kinda been avoiding as wanted to do this trip under our own steam). A train made a lot of sense and within a couple of hours we had cruised along the lakefront to Lausanne, grunted up the 12.5% gradient to the train station and were traversing across Switzerland, covering a distance our bikes would have taken 5-6 days to cover in 2 hours. Chris and Anja were amazingly welcoming considering we gave them a good 5 hours notice of our arrival in their part of the country hoping for a bed. Anja was unfortunately away the first couple of nights which gave us a good excuse to have 3 nights of luxury in their apartment with mountain views waiting for her and Malin to return.

Anyone who has seen me at work in Starship knows that I like babies and most of the children I come across. However not all babies are cute (despite what parents think). Malin is definitely one of the cute ones and at 3 months is a charmer, smiling pretty much all the time. I think she cried for maybe 1 minute while we were there. An amazing baby. Good warm up for all the babies that will be around in NZ when we get back to cluck over!

We did a bit of a mission cycle up a valley on our first day at Anja and Chris's where our bikes got to meet snow (on the side of the road but still cool that they have been in the sands of the Med and now up by Swiss Alp snow). The second day we were there we went walking with Chris – first cycling to near the base of a mountain. This was quite a different experience to walking with our mothers! Walking with Nic and Chris made me feel very short legged and I turned back short of the pass we were aiming for. It was very “airy” with vertigo inducing views, glimpses of a mountain goat and eagles. I was told that despite not making the pass I could still record in the history books (ie my diary and this blog), that I had reached 2000m. I think that was over 1km of vertical climb. My legs were destroyed for the next couple of days of cycling (seriously - getting up from our picnic rug was serious effort).

Anja had proposed raclette for dinner which is the ultimate in acceptable playing with your food at the table. Little plates under a grill for melted cheese with piles of potatoes.......Fantastic. Like leaving the gite it was quite sad saying good bye to Chris, Anja and Malin, although hopefully we will see them in NZ in the not to distant future......