One way to the UK?

On the first day, before going rafting, we walked into town to the CoOp and other shops (Swiss Army Knife shop, cheese shop where we bought brie and some other tourist shops). At the CoOp we all bought some chocolate….. and Lis bought ONE of EVERY block of chocolate they had in the store, so people back in Alice Springs make sure you hit her up for chocolate once she gets back to town!!! Following the shopping trip down the main (and only) street in Lauterbrunnen Lis returned to the campsite and Mara and I stopped off for a Hot Chocolate, Mmmmm.

Unfortunately  while Mara and I were freezing down the river, Lis had her paragliding cancelled due to the stormy weather rolling in. We were going to train up to Jungfrau Joch, the highest peak in Europe on day two, but as it snowed overnight as was cloudy as anything we got told not to bother waking up at 0430 as it was pointless going up the mountain for no view so that kind of sucked. Following hot showers to warm up after the rafting and swimming, we got ready to go out again – this time heading to the Hotel and Restaurant Oberland along with Craig and Fran to have a FONDUE! My god I have never seen so much cheese in one pot – we each had the classic fondue which was 200g EACH of cheese. Craig, Fran and I also shared a recommended white wine which went down nicely, especially as the cheese was really quite very strong! No idea what type it was, but we struggled to get through it all! Still a great experience to add to the list!

Oh I forgot to mention that after rafting Mara was drinking a coke (from a can) and she swallowed a bee – argh why didn’t she spit it out!!??! Anyway it left her (and us) quite worried and she had a bad pain in her throat all night but luckily only the usual pain as she isn’t allergic to bees thank god.

Following Fondue we all walked back to the campsite from town, and Lis and I headed towards the Bomb Shelter – dodgy bar at the campsite!!! Well we walked there, headed inside and it stank (sewerage issues in the Contiki building?) so we headed back to our cabin, but stopped on the way back by some Aussie guys from our bus, Luke and Trent (or Moby and Pippi as Lis nicnamed them…) and we all stood chatting for quite a while crammed under two umbrellas! At least Lis and I were rugged up, the guýs were in flipflops and t-shirts!

The next day, as it snowed down to 1200ft overnight (Lauterbrunnen is at about 700ft) the weather was crappy and so we gave Jungfrau a miss as suggested, and instead hiked up to Trummelbach Falls along with Craig and Fran. Passing on the way HEAPS of huge slugs – ewwww, we had to avoid stepping and slipping on them! Trummelbach Falls was amazing! Three main glacial rivers join together inside the mountain, and you actually go inside the mountain to see the twisting falls which have something like 20 thousand litres of water per second surge down them! You never used to have to pay, but I guess because so many tourists flock there now they have added a gate and now charge CZF11.00 (Swiss Francs). On our way back from Trummelbach the weather moved in and it started to rain again, so we headed into town to buy some things for lunch and dinner (decided to cook for ourselves) and we got pumpkin soup with fresh bread, some more brie and parisa. Ended up buying too much cheese etc, so Scott (travelling with Luke and Trent) got given what us girls had left! Washing took up the afternoon (has to be done…) and then about 9pm or so we headed over to chat with Craig and Fran to get their contact details (so we can go white water rafting with them in NZ when we get back to there) and the power went off to most of the campsite! The same little man who had been setting our mouse traps and disposing of the mice (did i mention the mice in our cabin?) had to run around the site trying to reset most of the power! Seeing as noise curfew is at 2200 I bet he was just wishing everyone would go to bed and not need the bloody power on! Uh well, it worked for a bit, then back off, then on again — I think too many people were trying to use heaters which we were told (by reception) are not working! Anyway, Lis Mara and I headed to the Bombshelter and met up with Luke and Scotty and there were heaps of Contiki people there (sarcastic yay!). Lis left when the music changed to stuff she didn’t like and after dancing a bit more Mara also left, and then I was there chatting to the guys and also got sucked into the dancing vortex which is contiki! Uhh well, some of the girls were really quite nice and welcoming (the Aust ones) which was news to me but they still dressed like Contiki girls hehe. I ended up staying there a few hours more and had a great night to finish off Lauterbrunnen with!

Next morning we were all up early to catch buses – either back to Nice like our roommate Phillipa or onwards to Munich.

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