Switzerland - Day 3

Woke to a nice sunny day, a perfect day for walking in the Swiss Alps. As we have done before on these trips the first walk we elected to do was the climb from Kandersteg up to the Doldenhornhutte. Having done a walk before it is a good way of finding out exactly where you stand in terms of fitness for the holiday ahead as well as taking away the problems of navigation.

There are a number of quite tricky segments on this climb particularly in the first half when the trail crosses a few small mountain streams but the climb went well and there were plenty of opportunities to take photographs and record video clips. I may not have mentioned that one of the main reasons for choosing to come here, having been here before, was the advent of readily available high-definition video recording. Searching the Internet before we came I wasn't able to find any nice clips of the areas we have visited in the past and I find more and more that video, even though time-consuming to capture and edit, produces a much better record of many experiences than still photographs alone. Hence the decision to return to some of our old haunts and make some decent records of the places we have enjoyed to enjoying the future.

The arrival at the Doldenhornhutte was brilliant and achieved in bright sunshine. The "standard time" for the climb to the hut according to the signposts is 2 hours and I was surprised that we reached the foot only about 15 min after this time even having stopped many times to take photographs and just generally enjoy the scenery.

Whilst I was messing about taking photos Lorena went into the hut and ordered bread and soup and by the time we sat down she had struck up a conversation with a very nice Swiss physiotherapist who was also enjoying her lunch stop. The trio passed a very pleasant 45 min chatting away before heading back down towards Kandersteg. We opted to take a different route down which avoided the trickier areas of the ascent but would probably not follow this return route again. Although the route was certainly easier underfoot it was a much longer route bringing us out in the upper part of Kandersteg and left us with quite a long walk back through the town.

Once back at camp the usual routines kicked in, on the menu tonight was minced beef and onions, potatoes, carrots and peas. This all sounds very grand for a camping trip but as you can imagine the tin opener played a big part in the proceedings! This culinary extravaganza was followed by a delicious tin of creamed rice pudding, from the same source. As is generally the case on trips like this an early night is the order of the day, and a good day it was indeed.

One slight technical problem that has revealed itself has been my slowly deflating air bed. The latter part of the night is spent experiencing a sensation not unlike a rough channel crossing but so far I have managed without taking additional travel sickness pills. At some point there will be a detailed investigation of the airbed and if possible a bicycle puncture repair patch will be applied, we shall see, I may just keep on rocking.