Day 20 – 27/04/13 – Total so far 1128.8km

Sarnen - Interlaken

54.7km, 4hrs 48mins, 1735m total climb

Our two days off ended when we woke up to the rain on the outside of the tent this morning. We had to get packed up and on the bikes in the rain, but luckily we were still in the worlds best campsite! We dragged everything over to the main washing/showering building and laid it all out over the nice dry floor and ping-pong table. Once we wiped down the tent and packed the panniers, we moved it all again over to the main building that has the restaurant, reception and the brand new swimming pool which was opening this morning at 09.00. We paid our dues, then took all the bags into the laundry room where we put everything in a tidy corner and hung out the tent to dry.

Then we went for a swim! First ever customers! It was bloody cold, about 7 degrees outside and blowing a gale, and both pools are open-air. The water temp was 24 degrees, but you had to keep moving. I was impressed as the whole pool was made completely of hand-welded tubs of stainless steel. Must have taken months and cost millions. I kept finding new welds everywhere, even on the starting boards. Wish we had pictures.

Then we tried out the Erlebnisbad (wellness pool). This had the bubbles and jets and also a whirlpool that dragged you around, again all hand made and welded. Nothing was switched on at first but two of the contractors/foremen were still hanging around and saw us in the pool and switched it on for us. They were laughing that we were actually in there and one took a picture of us swimming against the whirlpool current to send to his mate who had bet him they wouldn't have customers.

Got on the bikes at 11.00. Nice way to leave, but crap weather to cycle into. A climb up the Bruenig Hoehepass (1008m), made this our new champion of climbing days, with 1735m total. It's going to get worse though! We were passed by a couple of serious looking cyclists on the way up as we were u-turning away from a busy road (which turned out to be the right way), and met them again later on up the climb twice. They were in full wet weather gear and booties whist we were in shorts and I only had my climbing (sweating) t-shirt on despite the rain. I don't think we were more than a couple of minutes slower to the top! Anyway, they were friendly and gave us the usual weather forecast and what to watch out for on 'their' roads as people like to do. He was English and she Swiss, randomly.

The long downhill was freezing as expected due to the weather, but we were pretty cautious anyway, not too fast as it was very wet and some leaf covered corners.

We turned off into Interlaken which we were going to camp the other side of, but had decided to seek out warm and hopefully cheap accommodation instead due to the weather. Unbelievably, the first 15-20 people we saw were all Asian? Was a bit of a shock as we weren't expecting any tourist hotspots. How poor our Geography! The place was very busy despite only being able to see the first 200m of the toes of the Alps.

We searched and asked the locals, Johanna had a tip of one place near the school so tried to find that, but there were so many it was confusing. We then got another tip from a local to try a famous Herberge called Balmer's. Very famous due to the number of American and Canadian youths that stay there whilst on the Eurail tour (European Railway round-trip). It was fairly priced and had the deal-clinchers of a free buffet breakfast and free WiFi (55 Euro), also came with a free drink token for the mini-club later. Done.

We packed up the bags and found our room. Showers were decidedly bodged in, half way down the hall, but overall the buildings were old and nice and everything was clean. Had a shower and a relax, then went for a quick drink with the voucher. Disappointingly there was only over-enthusiastic, nasal American teeny boppers, drinking copious amounts of sweet fizzy alcohol. We spoke to one Swiss guy who was travelling with his young daughter and went to bed. Rock and Roll! :) 

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1274401

Free of charge swimming pool at Seefeld Park Sarnen

View of the Campsite

Day 18 to day 20 – 25/04/13 to 27/04/13

Well, we needed to rest our cycling muscles, and we valiantly failed to do that up until now with our days off that always involved some pedal-work of some sort. So we vowed to make these days bike free.

It worked, we walked to the shops, walked to the pub and walked around. It was HOT on the first day, all day and we soaked it up, counteracting all the vicious weather we suffered in the first week!

We got up in the morning and had coffee. We lay on our mattresses in the sun all day and didn't do much at all. It was nice.

Today, the weather was supposed to be worse but it was still sunny and very warm. We gave our bikes a little TLC – Johanna needed some new brakes and the chains needed oiling – and washed our clothes and generally got our stuff in order.

We also tried to catch a fish for dinner, but all attempts failed. We used bread as bait but small fish nibbled all the bread off without biting – we need smaller hooks.

The campsite cost 87 \Swiss Francs for the 3 days. The one in Heiterwang cost 20Euro for 2 nights, but the difference was worth it!

We went out into Sarnen for a drink one night, to a small bar called 'Formula 1 Pub' that looked quite cheap. 15 Fr for a Weiss beer and a bottle of Saure Mosst (cider). Frightening.

View into Sarnen

Free swimming pool at Seefeld Park Camping, soon to be opened

Dinner is served - Mexican!

Free Wifi, even at the Barbecue area

Day 17 – 24/04/13 – Total so far 1074.1km

Zurich – Sarnen

105.1km, 8hrs 11mins, 1638m total climb

Woke up normal time and then moved all the stuff into the sun and had breakfast and had showers etc. but must have taken longer than normal as we left the site at about 9.30. Headed into Zurich as we needed a new mattress as mine had decided to leak in Heiterwang. Think it always did it. We shared the hard floor a couple times each but this was enough!

We detoured off the route and got a new one in Zurich for a very reasonable price (surprising) and then doubled back into the city to have a look. What a clean and tidy place. Almost too clean, every old building has been steam cleaned back to gleaming stone, the overall effect to us was a bit too much it might look better with some wrinkles to show its history but still very nice.

Whilst admiring the vista, we realised that we had just clicked over the first 1000km mark whilst rolling down into Zurich! :)

We followed the lake out of Zurich and had a day following various cycle paths between the lakes which were quite full of other sport cyclists. A lot were over 60, it was a weekday, and looked very fit – what a hobby ;) We enjoyed the polite greetings of 'Gruetzi mitenand' (Hello you two) all day.

We followed the route through the beautiful city of Luzern which reminded us of cycling in London again as it was very busy and you need to be careful to be in the right lane all the time in moving traffic. Watch out for the electric buses which have have overall priority and don't take any prisoners, even old ladies on bikes get shoved out of the way!

The route was fast and as we got nearer to Sarnen we followed the old road as a new motorway was carrying all the main traffic and it was a cyclists paradise, slightly downhill and alongside the lake, into the sun. We got overtaken only by a few sport cyclists, who seem to overtake at great speed then sit 20m ahead for kilometres.

I was checking the GPS as the route split at a certain point and I wasn’t sure of the sliproad-looking bit ahead when first Johanna then another voice called for me to stop! I was leading us up a motorway! Should spend less time looking at the screen and more at the signs sometimes. To be fair the GPS was right, just needed to zoom in a bit more.

The guy that shouted us was a very cool Swiss guy who was cycling in the same direction and led us into Sarnen, his home village was 5km back. He was impressed with our speed on the bikes and how far we had already come, spoke no English but had been on a tour of Scotland already. We three cruised the last 15km together, chatting away as best we could and did OK. Johanna was impressed when the guy (didn't get his name) thought I was Dutch. My German must be getting better :) He followed us right to the camp-site explaining that the area had been flooded a few years ago and the whole camping and new sports arena had been created afresh after the damage. Certainly all looked brand new and modern.

The weather was going to be perfect tomorrow, and we decided to stay for a couple of days. The whole place is brand new. The only negative is they haven’t opened the free swimming pool up yet, so we are missing out on that until maybe the morning when we leave when we might get a quick dip. Free WiFi, huge brand new facilities, soft grass, pitch near the lake. Marvellous.

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1268587 

St Peter's Church, Zurich

Grossmuenster, Zurich

Luzern

Luzern

Home for 3 nights

Day 16 – 23/04/13 – Total so far 969km

Walenstadt – Zuerich

95.1km, 7hrs 16mins, 1505m total climb

We had a lovely big breakfast at the Hotel Bergheim. As we were the only hotel guests, breakfast was exclusively prepared for us, with a mini buffet on the table and only one able set. We ate all of the cheese, ham, yoghurt, bread and eggs that they anticipated one could need - to fuel for the day. The weather had cleared over night and the sun was shining brightly into the restaurant area. We had the most perfect view over the mountains – finally the clouds have lifted!

We ended up having a little chat with the owner of Hotel Bergheim and found out that one stage of the Tour the Swiss goes up the hill past the hotel. Those guys only take 18mins from the town at the bottom to the top! We calculated that was more than 30kph average for that so wasn’t sure about his statistics, but still very impressive since it took us an hour moving, just to get to the hotel, the stage ends up 450m higher!

After breakfast we wrapped up and zoomed back down the hill towards Walenstadt. Bought some more drinks for the journey and headed towards Zurich.

All went well but then after 20KM we hit a diversion (roadworks on the cycling path). We decided to chance it and kept going for about 1km, but we met two other cyclists coming towards us who told us that there was no way of passing the roadworks as the cycle tunnel was closed and there were rock debris all over the path. Glad we met them as it would have been another climb to return from the blocked path.

The only alternative was to turn around (approx. 3km back from where we came) and go up and over the mountain. 350m climb and back down the other side.

The cycle route planned was around 67km but thanks to the diversion it ended up being nearly another 100km. It was worth it for the views, you could really see straight into Zurich and to where we were heading.

After the climb, the route was quite boring for about 20km on a gravel cycle path along the river, but there was a lot of up and down through Zurich farmland en route to the Campsite, which was just on the outskirts, on a lake. We stopped to buy 1.5L of Apfel Mosst on the way in at a farm also.

Nice site, shower’s cost 50Fr (0.4EUR) for 3 Min which was a disappointment but it was clean, and the pitch was good. 21EUR for the night.

Once we set up we decided to eat – two rounds of a Roast Beef sandwich (without the roast beef and a random mixed meat slice instead) with Horseradish and Rocket and ate it at a bench on the water edge with a bottle of red while the sun went down. Satisfying.

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1268607

Tour de Swiss - last stage

                    

View back to our campsite in Walenstadt

Just before we had to turn around to follow the diversion

Day 15 – 22/04/13 – Day off (not really again)

We woke up in Camping am See Walenstadt, and cycled to Walenstadt to buy breakfast and stock up on supplies for the day. We ended up spending far too much money in Switzerland's overpriced Migros supermarket.

We arrived back at the campsite and decided to wash our clothes before heading to our EUR80 chalet in the mountains. Whilst waiting for the washing machine to finish, we enjoyed breakfast consisting of a loaf of bread dipped in Nutella.

This gave us the energy we needed to cycle UP to Hotel Bergheim. Stats of the day: 13.2km, 595 straight up in the last 5km. We just love climbing!

Again this is not added to the total (it doesn't take us any closer to our destination!).

In the end, it is all worth it. The views are beautiful overlooking the whole valley. Shame the clouds are still hiding the gigantic peaks around us. Better weather forecast for tomorrow though...

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1268586

Waking up in Walenstadt

Climb to Hotel Bergheim at 1000m

View out of our window!