We started the day with a load of washing; it has to be done. Rodney paid and put the washing in, then I went up to load the dryer. The lovely ‘ageing hippie’ on reception, when I asked for directions, suddenly climbed through the window rather than through a door and insisted on helping me! First surprise of the day….
As we ate our breakfast the clouds and mist lifted from the Eiger, the Fiescherhörner and the Wetterhorn mountain tops. Then as Rodney enjoyed his third cup of tea, all of the waterfalls appeared. After clearing up and hanging out the wet washing we wandered up to the base of the Luftseilbahn for a trip in the gondola up to the Pfingstegg at 1,391m. From there we zig zagged the narrow trail, uphill almost all the way, though there was a tiny bit of flat and a couple of downhills, but not much.
There were often sheer drops down to the river in some spots and when we walked above the tree line, the meadows around us were full of flowers and a mixture of grasses. I can’t remember ever seeing such an enormous mixture of lovely flowers growing in the wild. I wish I could have identified them all, some I know, but can’t remember their names, others we had never seen before. There were large and small white daisies, bright yellow buttercups, or globeflowers, purple, pink and cream clover, dandelions in yellow and orange, forget-me-nots, pink achillea, gentian, alpine violets, harebells in a lovely soft blue, something that looked like daphne, and some tiny four-pointed white star flowers, plus so many more that I can’t even remember. We never saw any edelweiss, but I think it may be a spring flower and we would have missed them, so I sang the song instead. I wanted to gather up armfuls of the flowers, but at the same time couldn’t bear to spoil the scenery by picking even one of them.
The views, all the way up and down, are absolutely stunning. It took us nearly two hours to get up to the Berghaus Barigg where we tucked in to a smoked sausage and herb soup lunch. The deck where we sat looked out over the huge Unter Grindelwald Gletscher (glacier) and all the surrounding mountains.
We have done a lot of wonderful walks around the World, but I think today’s walk has to be the most dramatically beautiful for me. Our pictures cannot possibly record the wonderful views we have seen today, it’s just all so …….big! And the fact that we are having perfect weather has made us both extremely happy.
The walk down was steep and slow; Rodney was a bit sore from yesterday’s jog….. In fact, it was quite a relief when we finally reached the gondola for the trip back down to Grindelwald. En route we managed to spot the window/ hole in one wall of the Eiger; you could see it change from blue to white as a cloud passed behind.
We could have caught the free bus, back to the campsite, but decided instead to wander through the churchyard and take a peek at the church. For the first time ever, we were blown away by a churchyard! Every grave is covered in flowers and the whole area looks more like a garden than a graveyard; with the views of the glacier and mountains behind, the effect is spectacular.
After drifting on down to the supermarket and then trudging further down-hill to the campsite, we were hot, thirsty and foot weary; oh, and Rodney wants to add thigh weary. Now we’re keen to look through our photos and relive the day while stretched out in Eileen for the evening.
And the day finished with a rainbow.
The ‘Heidi’ look seems to work really well on the road and works brilliantly well when I can’t dry my hair properly; by the evening I can let them out and look half respectable!!! As for the roundabouts, we cannot work them out. Some seem to be sponsored by local businesses, but others appear to be completely random. The Titanic show was on in Thun when we passed through, so we assume the sinking ship in the middle of a roundabout, had something to do with advertising it. In general we have seen some beautiful and some really creative roundabouts and I really think Australia and England could pick up on the idea; now how can I go about marketing that one…..?
Rodney has just checked the weather forecast for next week in England, I don’t really want to be crossing the Channel again in a storm, and it looks like it might be improving a bit, though not for long. Mind you, we drove mostly through rain all day yesterday and then you should have seen us trying to get 2 loads of washing dry in a campervan…..not fun, but we’ve managed it somehow. Badly missing Max and living in a beautiful hotel, but it is rather fun being back in Eileen. Now, where shall we go next…….?
I thought from your blogs last week,with all the amazing mountain pictures that you could have been Heidi and here you are sporting not quite the Heidi pigtails – but almost. Needless to say my iPad view on Sunday mornings ( with Peter’s coffee in hand) doesn’t quite do the photos justice….but OMG you have chosen a really inspiring route. perhaps you will take the sunshine back to theUK for the Olympics. Love you both xxx
Brilliant weather and wonderful views – I’d love to go back to Grindelwald some day, it really is an amazing place. Thanks from Rachel for birthday wishes and card. Had a lovely meal out down in West Pymble – Francesca drove through the rain – we’re safely home!