Switzerland Trip Day 5: Rest Day

Today we all needed abit of TLC and spent the day lounging around at home. Sometimes it is a struggle to think about “wasting a day” by just resting, but I need to remind myself that it is needed and not a bad thing.

The day started very slowly, and we had breakfast while talking to my grandparents in Australia. It is such a blessing that we can call people from all parts of the world so easily! I remember when we relied on post - what a way to learn patience 😂

We then went for a walk to the local grocers to get some essentials (including a large chunk of raclette cheese). We had to stop to say hello to the local cats 🐈 🐈‍⬛  The boys adore cats just like Graeme 👌

We were delighted on the way and way back to be spraying by the sprinklers from someone’s garden 🥰 Everyone has their time slots when they can take water from the stream that has been diverted along the side of the mountain. 

We then got back, the kids watched The Snowman and some more shows, and we made a cheese sauce with pasta for lunch. 

Afterwards we played some games, ate some fruit and went for a short walk to give some gifts from Scotland to Graeme’s family’s friends. 

Tomorrow we are going to spend some time with some of Graeme’s family’s friends. 

Switzerland Trip Day 4: Gibidumpass

We really stretched the boys today! And ourselves too really 😂👌 I got to see some amazing alpine flowers for the first time. We crossed the pass between the mountains Gibidum and Rothorn. Pretty epic!

The red dot is where we are staying

We started the day with a normal breakfast of overnight oats and eggs, I was so excited for normality 😂 We then started the long task of getting the snacks and lunch ready for our walk and all other essential items. I hung up the clothes that we managed to finally get washed 🙏

Firstly we had to get up the chairlift to Giw, which was such an amazing way to start our walk! I don’t think I would ever get tired of the view 🤩 Before heading up we made the mistake of letting Joshua play in the playpark, because he did not want to leave 😅 

When we arrive at the top of the chairlift we started on up a forest path that was leading to the Gibidumpass. The path to begin with was super steep, so we had heaps and heaps of sweet breaks for the kids. Graeme chose fizzy sweets to give them because he finds them most effective for immediate energy. 

Then we got to a lovely meadow full of forget-me-not flowers, buttercups, daisies etc. There were heaps of little orange butterflies that flew from flower to flower and the kids loved finding them 🥰

Suddenly an icy wind blew as we came to the pass and we all became absolutely freezing! We also made the mistake of stopping for a snack break 😅 We had packed swimmers, so the kids wore their swimmer shirt over their clothes and Joshua had his towel on like a poncho. We also convinced ourselves that when we reached the top the wind will die down. 

We reached the top and met a lady and man walking their dogs and so Graeme said hello and they had come from Austria to look after the animals up on the mountain. What a job! 

We then started going along the side of the Rothorn mountain along the Heido stream and started enjoying the alpine flowers 🥰 Samuel mustered the energy somehow to run, although we had to tell him to not run and be extra careful of the edge. I don’t know how he suddenly had all this energy 😂 Must have been because it was flat and super epic. The wind, however, did not die down 😅 Although we did get a treat of the sun shining every now and then to warm us up before the next ice wind 😂😅

Daniel was asleep at this point, so I covered him with a towel to keep him warm and so he didn’t burn. Joshua was delighted that we were following the stream again!! In this photo Joshua is so happy because he is having a sausage to give him much needed energy.

Graeme had wanted us to reach a hut so we could shelter from the wind and have our lunch. Also because that was where he used to go as a kid when he came on walks up here, but we soon discovered that it would be wiser to not go all that way because the last chairlift down was at 5:30 and it was 2 at this point and we had started after the chairlift at 11. So if the walk had take 

 us 3 hours to get there, we should plan that for the way back (although it was downhill and would probably be much quicker). So we stopped beside the stream for lunch. 

For lunch we had meat, bread, cheese, nuts, dried sausage and various drinks. It was very nice 👌 Daniel woke up but was quite happy lying like this and Samuel fed him. 

After that the kids ran back 😂😅 Graeme and I had to run to hold their hands 😂 Subsequently we made it back super fast. And Old Macdonald has heaps of cats on his farm 😂😂  I was singing it to

Joshua most of the way down and he mostly always chose cats 😂😂

Here we are having one of our few breaks on the way down of my ginger cake I brought from Scotland. 

When we reached the chairlift, in plenty of time, we decided we all needed to reward ourselves with sorbet 🍨 We ordered a raspberry sorbet for Joshua, a caramel icecream for Samuel and a raspberry, pear and apricot trio of sorbets for Graeme and I. We all loved the pear sorbet best 👌

We then made the mistake of letting the kids play on a play area there, and they did not want to go down the chairlift 😂

What a day! We had a lovely soup with sausage for dinner, put the kids down to bed (they were surprisingly hyper and took ages), and then dropped asleep ourselves. 

Tomorrow will be a rest day 👌

Switzerland Trip Day 3 - Visp and Giw

Today was a more relaxed day as opposed to yesterday, and we had it all planned out to go to Visp to stock up on food and do some shopping. However, there was something we had not considered …

The day started out brilliantly and we again had honey on focaccia for breakfast - again it was all we had. We had a lovely chat with my parents and showed them around, and then headed for the bus down to Visp. 

On the bus ride we enjoyed lovely views over the mountain range, vineyards, sprinklers and old wooden houses. The driver blew the horn a few times for us (we call it the de-da-do horn) and we loved it (not just the kids ;)). 

We arrived at the bottom and were all excited to go to the large grocer there - Migros - but it was closed 😩😩 Very disappointing. So we ended up going to a bakery to get bread and the small coop to get our stock of food for a good few days. The cashier was very taken aback with how much we got 😂 

We then went to a local play park and had a lunch of croissants, cheese and pate. We also had a lovely selection of drinks :)

Afterwards we got the bus back to Visperterminen and spent some time recovering. We enjoyed just sitting on the balcony and chatting. Samuel and I were imagining what it would be like being eagles and soaring over the mountains 🤩 

After a good rest, we went out to a chairlift that will take us up higher to Giw. We were planning on going up for a walk tomorrow up there, so we thought we could scope it out. I have been on chairlifts before, but only in Winter in Finland. This was amazing!! 

I went up with Joshua and he was chattering away about everything we were seeing 🥰 We went over a stream and bushes that looked like blueberry bushes.

 

When we got to the top there was an amazing pool that Graeme had never seen before (he had been up quite a few times on the Summer trips when he was young)! I spotted a frog, so we followed that around the grass for a bit and then it jumped in the water, so we decided to follow it and dip our feet in. It was cold, but not as cold as the streams 😅 Very refreshing! 

I had Samuel with me as we went down the chairlifts again. He was feeling very tired and cold as his trousers got wet in the water. 

After we got back we made a sausage soup and then put the kids to bed. We spent ages watching the sun going down over the mountains, so beautiful 🤩

We also put a disastrous load of washing on 😅 It is currently still in the machine 😅 The machine runs on coins, and it only accepts 20 cent pieces which we discovered doesn’t even last 15 mins, so Graeme is going down to the shop this morning to get more so we can finish our load 😅 

Can finally add in pictures! 

Will post again tonight.

Switzerland Trip Day 2 - Visperterminen hike

Today, for the second time, I was overthemoon happy to see Visperterminen after a long trip 😅

The day started waking up to the sound of bells ringing from the village church (like crazy ringing) at 6am. Before the kids were awake!! Graeme and I stayed in bed to enjoy the peace before waking the kids at 7am to start the day right 👌

We had honey on focaccia bread for breakfast - all we had other than sweet treats, and set off for a supposed short walk - it was not 😅

We stopped by the local shop to pick up some croissants, meat and cheese for a snack. After enjoying some fresh spring water (they have taps throughout the village), we headed off on our walk towards a place called Birch.

We just had a carrier for Daniel, so we weren’t expecting to last too long on our walk, but thought we would just try. For context - Samuel is a relatively good walker for a 4 year old, but Joshua is a wild card. Give him a butterfly and he will run, but ask him to walk and he will generally not 😂 Although he does prefer running to walking 😂

The first stretch was a uphill - and just that was a struggle for the kids. But then I think the first stretch is usually a battle of persuasion 😂

Once we got to the top we followed a long road going slightly uphill with meadows on either side. Joshua loved the butterflies - we all did really. We did have constant chocolate breaks, but we made it 👍 Graeme realised he had remembered wrong and we had taken a wrong turn from where he wanted to go (he had been on these walks as a kid), but we thought we could come around back the way he wanted, so we persevered. The views were epic!

We stopped at a sprinkler to cool down, and then after that Joshua fell down so we needed more chocolate to comfort him. Then we continued down towards the village Birch and had our lunch in the shade of some trees next to a small waterfall. It was a much needed break! The day was beginning to get hot 🥵 

Afterwards the kids wanted shirts off, and we started a walk up to a house and then down some steep steps made by rocks. Quite a different walk to earlier in the day! We then got to a beautifully refreshing stream called Beitra which we followed along. The stream was flowing along wooden canoe like chanels, which were created to bring the water from the top of the mountain to the lower towns. 

It was so beautiful we decided to stop for another break. Samuel and Joshua took their shoes off and paddled in the water happily, and then we played the cone game where we put two cones in the stream to see which one would come out first at a particular point. 

We also found a spot abit furter on full of butterflies 🦋 

After our break we continued on following the stream. And on, and on 😅 It was a struggle, and we had to in the end carry Joshua and he ended up falling asleep 😴 

But we made it back to the church in the centre of Visperterminen! We were so exhausted we stayed put for a good while listening to the church bells ringing for a church service.

We then went to a restaurant for some icecream desserts 🥰

The shop was closed, so we had some pasta and sausage for dinner which we luckily had bought the day before. 

Tomorrow will be a much more relaxed day!! 

See you then. 

Switzerland Trip Day 1 - travelling to Visperterminen

Today was a monster of a day 😅😩 I don’t know how we all survived it tbh. Little sleep, constant travel and kids … need I say more 😂

Samuel and Joshua decided to wake up at 1:30am the morning of our trip 😩 The alarm was set for 2:50am for the 3:30am taxi trip to the airport, so Graeme and I were devastated at the potentiality of lack of sleep for us all. The kids slept from 7, but Graeme and I had only just gome to bed a few hours before… 

The taxi was brilliant, and we arrived at the airport a good 3 hours before our flights departure 👍 We had a huge amount of luggage, so that was abit of an issue - but Graeme handled it like a pro 👌

The flight was lively. We were all super tired and the kids ended up watching Curious George the last half of the flight 😅 We tried to go without, but needs must 😅 I had the most lifesaving tea though, so that was worth the screens 😂

We finally landed!!  The border control was seamless because we were allowed to skip the queue because we are disabled 😂 Joshua loved all the barriers - abit too much 😅

Graeme managed to get some incredible Swiss chocolate before we boarded the train - just. People are so friendlier when they see you with a boatload of luggage and an overflowing buggy 😂👌 What a feat!! 

The train was amazing, but I was soo exhausted and wished I could enjoy it more 😅 We went along Lake Geneva to a town called Visp. 

Then we took a post bus (used to transport both people and post) up a mountain to a village called Visperterminen. They used to blow their alpine horn when they went around the hairpin bends because the roads used to be single track and they needed to let rhe cars coming the other way that they were coming, and so Graeme asked the driver to blow the horn for the kids as it was something they were so looking forward to. They loved it!!

I was really flagging by this point 😅 By the time we reached Visperterminen (25 mins trip up the mountain), we were so ready to be at our accommodation 👌

Finally reached the house!!! After that we went to the local shop for food after a shared dinner at a restaurant of an Austrian pancake soup and a snitzel with racclette cheese and chips, and then had our long awaited sleep. I actually went to bed before the kids fell asleep - they were not going to sleep for some reason 😩 . But what a room to sleep in! 

Stay tuned for tomorrows update!