Switzerland Trip Day 8: Gibidumpass with Kathi

Today was such a beautiful day 🥰 It was our last day in Visperterminen and Kathi was staying here as well, so we all thought it would be nice to go up to Giw and see if we make it to Gibidumpass with the kids again. 

The evening before we had seen lightning over the mountains in the distance, heard the thunder as it came closer and experienced a short rain fall. It was very exciting, but also a bit scary with how fast the weather can change. Today the weather forecast was expecting rainfall around 3pm and then a thunderstorm in the evening. So we were planning on being back to the house early after our walk, and also to pack. 

So we set off with a picnic around 9, and was up the chairlift by 9:30. That was a huge improvement on the last time we had been up!! Samuel wanted to sit with Kathi on the way up, well they both did tbh, so we then said that Joshua could go with Kathi on the way down. 

Samuel and Joshua had improved a lot with their walking and were walking much quicker than they had before! They still wanted frequent sweetie breaks, but not as much as before 👌

Loved the meadows 🥰

Joshua loves exploring for bugs 🐜

We actually made great progress! Here we stopped for a cheese and water filling break before starting the final ascent👌

Joshua absolutely loved this bridge!! 

Sang heaps of Old Macdonald had a farm and they again had heaps of cats on their farm 😂

We all made it!! We started walking along the pass but turned our eyes to the dark clouds above that didn’t have any break as far as we could see, so we headed back to stop somewhere for lunch that was less exposed.

We were able to stop at the Shepherd’s hut on the pass as it was super windy and the shepherd happened to be there :) He was just looking after his goats before heading down to look after the sheep. 

This was the outside of the hut. It was quite chilly so were wearing jumpers. 

We then started the descend.

Samuel and Joshua were desperate to put there feet in the water, so we let them for a bit :)

As we continued down we heard the rumble of thunder so were all reminded we needed to be fast to get down 😅

Loved this meadow too much to let a photo opportunity slip! 

Just as we got down, which was 2:45, the chair life closed for an hour 😅 So we decided to go into the restaurant for some ice cream 🥰 I had a Coup de Baileys and it was so heavenly 🥰 I actually had it all to myself 🥰🥰

We then got the chairlift down as it was raining on and off, and it was so lovely and refreshing 👌

 

We then walked back to our house for the last time and had raclette for dinner before heading for an annoyingly late bedtime 😅

Tomorrow we are leaving Visperterminen via Bern to Gruyere where we will be meeting my brother Harri and his fiance Leo. 

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 👌