S

witzerland

Oh Switzerland, how do I accurately describe you. This place is surreal, it is honestly like you are inside a damn post card it is that beautiful.

We started the day off driving through Bern on the way to Lauterbrunnen. Bern is the capital of Switzerland and here is a bit of a knowledge bomb for those interested. Now don't quote me because this is second hand information from someone who could have possibly heard it in a similar fashion to myself but from certain pieces of information which had come forward whilst strolling through town I believe this 'story' to be true :p. As it goes apparently a hunter who founded the town was wondering what to call the place. He said to his wife I'm going out to hunt and the first thing I shoot I will name the town after, it happened to be a bear, yes you guessed it Bern = Bear. Now the certain bit of information I was referring to earlier was the fact that down along the river in the centre of town there are enclosures which house Bears, different but quite fitting. Unfortunately we are just stopping over here for half an hour but we have sacrificed a bit of time here to spend more over in Lauterbrunnen.

We continued on and towards Lauterbrunnen, it was incredible scenery winding through the roads in between the mountainous ranges, the forest and along the edges of the most unreal dams I have ever seen, truly amazing post card perfect views along the whole stretch. I could tell this was going to be somewhere I would truly enjoy from day one!

We arrived at our accommodation, Camping Jungfrau, at 6:30pm, checked in and made our way to our fixed 8 dorm tent. This place was seriously beautiful, what a location for a camping ground, fwaa I just can't explain it. The mountains surrounding us where so bloody high, I think the nearest was at least 1600m above sea level, the highest point being something like 13600ft (around 4500m) above sea level, wow. The highest of the lot were snow capped, the nights here were cold and the days were absolutely perfect! We had 2 room mates in our tent, Nathan and Riley who we became mates with. We were hungry and craving something homely for dinner. We just made a simple tomato based pasta with a few vegies in it, mmm vegies how I miss you. We were tired that night and knew what a day we had ahead of us so called it a night pretty early without hitting the drinks.

Day 2 was an early wake up, we had a bungee jump organised and man did we have a lot of travelling to do to get there. The train we needed to catch was at 9am so we had to make sure we were organised, had dinner and purchased the correct tickets. We got to the ticket office and got the shock of our lives, the planned 5 hour journey by train and eventually a bus was around 190 swiss frank (sfr), ouch did that put a dint in the wallet, yuk! I would have preferred to hire a car and drive out there, it would have only been a 2.5hr journey and 90 sfr between us. But we got in at 6:30pm the night before and Switzerland being Switzerland had all its car hire branches closed on Sunday. The bungy jump only goes ahead on Saturdays and Sundays so it was this or nothing. This bungee jump was no ordinary jump though, it was the same one out of the James Bond Golden Eye Movie, weighing in at an incredible 220m, showcasing a 7 second free fall this was in fact the highest fixed bungee jump in the world and I wasn't going to let this train ticket get in the way of experiencing it. It was something I wanted to do since leaving Australia and I wasn't going to pull out for anything. No use messing around with the little jumps, we were straight in the deep end going for the biggest and ugliest one we could find haha.

We eventually caught the first train and were on our way to do this thing. It was quite a mission getting out there actually, we had to change lines several times here and there. For the record our schedule went Lauterbrunnen to Interlaken Ost, change lines to Spiez, change lines to Brig, change to Domodossola, change to Locarno. Now from here it got interesting, we were suppose to catch the bus 65 to Diga Verzasca (the damn wall), except at the bus station there was no bus 65 in sight. A mad rush around to find the correct bus, we were eventually pointed in the right direction. The information desk was closed as it was 'siesta time', Switzerland if there was one thing that annoys me, it's your siesta time when everything shuts down for 3 hours. Now we arrived at the dam wall at 2:10pm. Approaching the wall on the way up in the bus my bloody heart sank. That nervous gut feeling started showing its ugly head, that feeling that something not quite right was about to happen. Now I don't know about you but both Ross and I made sure we were flying on empty stomaches for this one, we ate as little as we could and hit the restrooms just before the jump just to make sure something didn't give mid jump and on our way back up brought a special surprise in our underpants :p haha. Ok ready to go, we signed up, signed the waiver, got weighed (not my favourite part, bloody 7kg's I've put on so far haha must be enjoying myself obviously :P) Stood inline waited and watched others jump and some occasionally pulling out. I was pumped, excited, whatever you want to call it, I was ready to go. I was given the brief demonstration and harnessed in. Before I knew it, it was my turn. Now I thought I had this covered but when I got up there, looking down far to the bottom of the dam wall, the nerves started coming on strong. This is totally unnatural and my body let me know it haha. But nothing was going to stop me, I got to the ledge and that was even worse, I was given the 1,2,3 and I pulled the trigger, a thought of what the hell are you doing ran through my head, but I just went for it regardless. I thought the jumping was going to be the hardest part but it was that split second when you are weightless just after the jump, you look down and go holly cow that is so so far down, from there you just accumulate speed. It was an amazing feeling, flying for 7 seconds :D bouncing around after wards, soaking in the excitement, looking around upside down. Wow when I got back to the top I just wanted to do it again. I was wearing a smile from ear to ear and just loved every minute of it.

Ross was up next and he was the opposite, nervous leading up to it but together when he was up there ready to go. He to came back with a grin you couldn't wipe off. What an experience to do together!!! With certificates in hand and the biggest smiles you have ever seen we made our way back to the bus stop to head home.

We know realised what was ahead of us again, another 5 hour trip back home. We should have arrived back at the campsite at 10:30pm, but we met some locals on one of the lines. We chatted to them and they had asked us to look after their bags, they wanted to ride from one stop to the next and beat the train, and that they did. We got to the next station, gave them their bags back and asked which train we were suppose to board next. They pointed and we jumped on for the first time not double checking, just hoped on and off we went. As we had been doing time and time again, we set our alarms for a couple minutes before the arrival time and got some shut eye. We awoke and 5 minutes passed, then 10, and still no sign of our stop. May be we should have twigged when the train we got on said trenoitalia, or may be when people jumping on the train where saying thank you in Italian, the biggest giveaway was that the name of the stations weren't 50 letters long and the stops sounded more Italian than swiss. We jumped off at a seedy little town called Vergiate, the train station had windows smashed, graffiti everywhere, it wasn't looking good. Both our phone batteries where running low and with the little amount of credit left I jumped on the net, looked up mr google maps, and saw how far we had travelled. We were in fact in Italy and half way to Milan.

It was about 9:30pm by now, we decided to try and look for the train times, a meal and possibly look for accommodation. We grabbed a pizza and being in a place where no one spoke English we found it very difficult to get the information we needed. The lovely old lady behind the counter tried hard to help but we just couldn't get it right, she informed us the trains had stopped for the night, sat us down and served us a meal. She gave us information for accommodation but spending a fortune on the bungee, the train ticket and still paying accommodation back in Lauterbrunnen, we were not too happy about this. We checked train times and the next was at 5:55am, this would get us home at 11:30am the next day. We searched down a couple streets for accommodation but with no accommodation nearby and us being pretty lazy, the joke of sleeping on the streets started to become something we were actually pretty willing to do. It was raining slightly but luckily it was pretty warm, we found a cardboard box from a dishwashing machine between a factory and the back of the train station. We placed it underneath a tree to shield us from the rain, created a bifold door and tried to get as comfortable as possible inside whilst still holding tightly onto our bags. A few acorns were dropping and now and then I thought it was may be someone throwing things at us, but we eventually settled in and slept.

We awoke, caught the first train back to Switzerland and were back home at 11:30! An adventure, not necessarily one we wanted but an adventure non the less, another story to add to the list. Back home and sick of having been sitting on trains for so damn long we decided to hit the Seilpark. This was a high ropes course. There were about 7 different difficulty levels / courses. Nathan and Riley came with us on this adventure, Riley wasn't looking the best, he had a massive hangover from the night before and I could tell he was going to struggle. The longest run was about 240m and the highest platform was around 20m high. Very physically demanding and challenging, it was great to get out and work the muscles for once. I thoroughly enjoyed the park!!

We all headed home and had cooked dinner. Still craving home style meals we cooked up some pork steaks, mixed veggies and potatoes, YUMMMY! We decided to have a couple quiet drinks and head out to the bomb shelter later on. The bomb shelter is a little private section of the camp exclusive to busabout and contiki, it's a little bar underground and man do things get messy down there. The ladies off contiki are ridiculous. I guess that's why it earns itself the name 'contities'. Now we had skydiving booked for the day after and I should have held back a bit more on the drinks, Ross did the responsible thing and headed off to bed a bit earlier and I stayed out with the guys. Needless to say the next morning I wasn't feeling the greatest. I thought I had taken it at list somewhat easy but my hangover proved differently.

An early wake up to have breakfast and meet at the shuttle at 8am. This was the day we were going to sky dive. I have been wanting to do this for a long time!! I saw Bec do it a while back and I've been itching ever since. Now what better place to do it for the first time but the swiss alps! We got down to the hanger and were given jump suits, harnesses and paired off into different lots going up in the plane. Funny enough it was Ross and I and this girl named Sandra. She just happened to be from Eltham and knows my brother through village cinemas. Now this phrase comes up too often on this trip - small world. There are so many people we have met from Templestowe, Greensborough, donvale etc. it is just silly. Great to know we will have a few new mates to hang out with back home :D We were all getting the photo and video package so each of us were interviewed at the hanger and from here we all left to jump into the plane. It was about a 20minute flight to get up 1300ft. Roughly the height of the top of the Swiss Alps. There was a bit of banter up in the plane between us, the film crew and our jumpers. They try and make you a little nervous by saying things like oh your harness is starting to fray here, we may have to throw it away after this jump :P. Anyway I was first cab off the rank, the guinea pig of the group. We shuffled forward, my camera man jumped out the side of the plane to flim, arms tucked in, feet tucked back, a 1,2,3 from my jumper and we were away! Enter some fast paced rock anthem, we were spinning and rolling and plummeting towards the ground, a couple seconds later we were in control and flying face down towards the ground. The camera man had so much control just hovering below me. I can't wait to see how the video and pictures come out. 40 seconds of action packed flying and we opened the shute and were gently gliding around. From this point you truly get to soak in and appreciate all the swiss alps have to offer, it's a view I won't forget and an experience that will stay with me forever, 100% worth it :D. Now having a hangover the trip back to the campsite was not the greatest and I was a little quiet but luckily it didn't last long because before you knew it we hired some mountain bikes and were on our way for another adventure.

First stop was the waterfall, apparently 20000 litres of glacial melt flow into the river each minute, beautiful to watch the power of this place. There was a path carved in and around the waterfall which gave you some spectacular sights. From here we trekked onto the cable car and headed up to Murren via Grimmelwald. Up here we were around 1700m above sea level and from here the views were amazing, best of all it was all downhill from here with the bikes. My legs were absolutely stuffed from the ropes course the day before so I was so happy to up here and have this monster downhill course to complete, just freewheel, enjoy the views and some fresh air. I tell you what, I havn't seen better positioned restaurants in all my life, they were right on the cliffs edge and wow was it incredible. Back at the campsite we decided to have another decent meal so we cooked up some chicken fajitas, yum!!

We were going to head out that night, we were tired and decided to hit the sack at 6:30pm for a 3 hour nap. The problem was that both of us set our alarms for am instead of pm and ended up waking up at midnight. It was so cold and we were nicely tucked into our warm beds, it was near impossible to head out from here. We did though get up and download a couple photos to our laptops but straight after hit the sack.

Our last day in beautiful Switzerland we decided to take it easy and relax. We grabbed lunch at the campsite restaurant and tried a Rosti. A rosti potato grated, boiled and pan fried. From here you can serve it as a side or you can make it the main course and load it was heaps of goodies. Ours were topped with onion, bacon, swiss cheese and a fried egg, it was delicious. This is something I will have to cook back at home. We accompanied our meals with a couple wiessbiere's, relaxed and watched some tennis. We kept the beers rolling and did some washing. Returned to the restaurant for dinner and tried something else traditional to the switz cuisine. Ross had macaroni, bacon, swiss cheese and cubed potato with a side of apple puree (interesting mix), I had a farmers sausage, rosti and salad, again more beers for us nom nom nom.

The rest of the night we spent with two ladies, Katherine and Renee. We just had a couple quiet ones at the bar in town, came back to the camp sight for a few drinks at the bomb shelter, the odd gargoyle attempt by Ross and I and more story sharing. A good quality night with simple fun.

All up I have thoroughly enjoyed myself in Switzerland. I have ticked off two major events on my bucket list, the weather has been perfect, the scenery - naturally beautiful and we have come away with a few more stories than we had bargained for, but that is what it's all about in the end right!

-Ryan