22. Jun, 2016

22. Jun, 2016

22. Jun, 2016

21. Jun, 2016

TUESDAY 21-06-16

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday was glorious, but today has been back to cloud and light rain showers all day long. In a way it was a blessing in disguise as both The Chef and I are feeling a bit achy from yesterdays hiking. I estimated last night it would have been about ten miles. Three miles down the valley, three miles back along the ridge, and four to get down along the zig zagging service road.

We spent the morning doing some chores and after lunch had a wander down to the village to stretch our legs. The Chef also wanted to draw some more money out whilst the exchange rate was good, it seems it's improved slightly, mainly on the back of the city gamblers believing there has been a swing towards 'Remain' in the forthcoming referendum. I tell you, these people would panic and sell if only the wind changed direction.

On arriving back at the campsite we popped in to Reception and enquired about buying our train tickets from them for the trip up to Jungfraujoch, probably on Friday. The full fare is 180SF, about £145 each, but we can have the 'Good Morning Special' which means we have to catch either the 07:07 or 07:37 trains up there and be off the mountain by 13:00 for a staggeringly cheap price of just 135SF, about £100 each, so that's what we'll do. We also enquired if we could leave the campsite ahead of our planned leaving date, should we wish to do so due to the weather without financial penalty. They said that as we had booked with them directly we could.

We've chatted about it, and as we've already done everything we ever wanted to do here on previous visits, including train trips to Zermatt and Bern, it seems daft to put up with bad weather at top prices. Unless things pick up, and at the moment we're due another wet three days over the weekend, it's likely we'll leave here Saturday and make our way in to France for food and fuel, probably staying at Colmar, before heading up to Germany and the Mosel Valley. Looking at BBC Weather online things seem brighter and warmer up that way.

We've even deployed the wind-out awning today, not because it's sunny and we need shade, but because it shields us from the rain, thus giving us a bit more living space.

Tomorrow we plan to catch a train up to Wengen, the village we can see up on the side of the mountain, and from there catch a cable car up to Männlichen where we'll get some lovely views and a little bit of walking. We were originally thinking of walking back down from Wengen but won't do so now, giving our aching limbs time to mend.

Of course today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, which gives us just that little bit longer to watch the cloud and rain before it gets dark.

I'm beginning to doubt global warming.

21. Jun, 2016