Our last morning in Lauterbrunnen
was as busy as pack up mornings usually are: stripping beds, emptying bins and
last minute checks. It was really lovely
to have the Oak Hall breakfast provided as well as lunch making ingredients
available for us to make food for our journey.
The majority of the group was heading back to England via coach in the
evening but our family and Kirsten (Parker) set off for the train for our next
adventures.
I was so proud of Annika and Tim’s
skiing achievements. Annika was a bit frustrated that she didn’t have more
opportunities to go faster and for longer but I did my utmost to accommodate
her in the afternoons and we really enjoyed skiing together. Tim, really did
make amazing progress. When I think back to Tim as a little boy with flat feet and aching legs
who hated team sport but was very active to now, when he has wow-ed the
entire ski group with his style and physical form and skiing
capabilities, I feel so proud! When he got his first orthothotics and
his legs stopped aching, I rejoiced! When he succeeded at gymnastics
when he was shunned from sport at school, I rejoiced! When he had a
chance to swim at DCC and then succeed with his swimming squad, I knew
he would "get there". Now, to see him confidently take off down the most
challenging black runs and join with the young men at Oak Hall, it
absolutely thrills me. I think of the people we saw in India with hip
deformities and foot deformities who didn't get good care, so their
bodies grew crookedly. And to think of children who didn't/don't have
encouragement from their carers and just wilt. Thank you Oak Hall, for
blessing us all!
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| Outside Chalet Jungfrau, ready to say our farewells. |
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| Jumping for joy! |
We could have stayed there for
longer enjoying the company, environment and food – as could have everyone – it
was such a wonderful week! Jenny had
alluded to the “post holiday” feeling when we returned to “normal” lives in her
introduction for an evening talk. For us,
the return to normal did not apply, but the kids, in particular, were feeling
really comfortable at Chalet Jungfrau, even after just a week and didn’t want
to move on. Everybody had made us, the
crazy Australian family, feel welcome and they even tolerated Luke’s antics with
exceptional love and patience. It meant
that Karl and I felt we did have a bit of a break from this intense family
time.
So, after farewells we trundled
to the bus stop to get the free bus to Lauterbrunnen Station. Kirsten was travelling to Bern, and it was
tremendously helpful having her help us with the rapid train changes on the
first leg of our journey.
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| Lauterbrunnen station |
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| Train to Interlaken Ost |
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| Poor Annika, here comes the headache |
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| Bye bye Lauterbrunnen |
The outward journey followed the
little river which flows through the valley.
The still bare trees would be sensational in autumn colours. Very early signs of spring are just daring to
show their blooms in the valley in the form of yellow and purple crocuses and
tiny leaf buds. But snow is still in the
air and with a predicted -6 C, Lauterbrunnen was still in winter mode today.
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| Lake Thun |
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| Kristen and the rest of us |
As we approached Interlaken,
along the shores of Lake Thun, we could see boathouses and boats getting ready
for the season ahead.
The lake was still
and reflections of the surrounding mountains so peaceful and majestic.
Through Interlaken we journeyed and then
through Zurich and further east to Bern where we farewelled (and thanked!)
Kirsten.
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| Kristen on her way to Bern Youth Hostel. |
This next train was a double decker
and not crowded so we took upper seats and settled in.
It would have been great to hop off and
explore places en route, but apart from the fact that we were heading for
Bermatingen, Annika had a severe headache and struggled for most of the day
despite pain relief.
We think it was
probably neck related and the past week of skiing and carrying skis and bags
and boots and then also backpacks had caused the pain again.
Not at all pleasant for her and really
difficult on a big travel day.
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| Luke settling in for the journey |
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| Karl settling in for the journey! |
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| Arrival at Romanshorn |
Finally we came to Romanshorn,
end of the line, on the shores of the Bodensee.
The Bodensee!! This lake has
featured in many WW2 novels I have read and it was great to see it…and travel
by car ferry across to Friedrichshafen, Germany. We decided to splurge on a pretzel each on
board the ferry as we had eaten all the Oak Hall food by this time. A salty pretzel was enough to take way the
munchies and get us over to the other side.
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| Car ferry across the Bodensee |
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| It was only a small ferry. |
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| To prove we were there! |
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| Surrounded by Switzerland, Austria and Germany |
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| Pretzels on board |
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| Approaching Friedrichshafen, Germany |
Friedrichshafen, from what I can
remember, was where Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music was required to
report to for service after he and Maria were back from their honeymoon. Of course, he didn’t want to work for the
Nazis and this was the reason for their subsequent abrupt escape from Austria. AND we were there!!! There are SO many movies and books that we
want to re-visit and see the places we have been to.
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| Straight to Friedrichshafen |
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| The ferry turned so quickly and docked with perfect manoeuvring! |
Friedrichshafen, from what we can
glean is the home of the Zeppelin, and we plan to revisit the harbour town once
we are settled in Germany.
There was a
great playground for Luke and sunshine for Karl whilst the big kids and I went
supermarket shopping for essentials before the next leg of our journey.
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| Playing on the Zeppelin |
The supermarket was fun and we
got most things we wanted and spent our first Euros since the Belgium chocolate
at Brussels airport some weeks ago. The
important part of our shopping expedition was that we found Ayran (Turkish
style buttermilk – there seem to be lots of Turkish immigrants in this area of
Germany) and a Backerei! The bakery
goods were cheap compared to Australian prices and we sat in the sun
contemplating our next move. It seems
that most of the small stations are no longer manned and ticket machines have
replaced helpful station masters. This was not helpful for us. We boarded a bus for Markdorf and then took a
local train to Bermatingen.
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| Checking out the Euros |
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| How's this for a parents' nightmare? Impulse buyers beware! |
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| Ein Berliner...mmmmm |
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| The big kids just fitted up in the zeppelin |
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| Just a bit too big for this play equipment! |
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| Waiting for Markdorf bus |
We dragged
our heavy bags and shopping along the cobbled streets and found our historic
house accommodation without difficulty.
We left Annika and Luke halfway along our trek and went back to get them
and more bags. With Annika’s headache
subsiding, we didn’t want to trigger more pain.
Our first impressions of this
area, is that it is a very historic area with lots of old wattle and daub
buildings, including our accommodation, and there are vineyards and apple
orchards on the outskirts of the town. It
is very quiet with a speed limit of 30 km/hr.
We were so glad we had bought the makings of dinner and breakfast with
us as there were no obvious close shops and we were tired after our 8 hour
journey.
We entered our accommodation for
the next month and finally dragged all of our bags up the stairs. The house is a wobbly floored historic home
with wattle and daub interior and exterior.
The rooms are spacious but with little storage space and poor lighting at
night. The kitchen is adequate but like
most of the accommodation so far, there are not enough pots to cook with and
only a small bench space for food preparation.
Our main problem here was no internet connection and no apparent
router. This has been a problem more
than once on our journey and it is a challenge as we need internet for
communication. So we need to sort that
out ASAP. In this case, the host is in
USA, so with no local contact, we are a bit stuck. Bermatingen is really a little village and
there are no internet cafes until we get back to Friedrichshafen, an expensive
train journey away and not feasible over the weekend. We are feeling grumpy with this host as we
confirmed specifically regarding passwords etc emphasising the necessity of an internet
connection.
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Our house in Autweiler Strasse
|
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| The main bedroom |
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| Annika's room |
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| Quirky bathroom |
It was warm and cosy in the house
albeit moldy smelling in the bathroom and we settled quickly in bed and slept
solidly.
SO SO tired!
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| From outside - We have the middle floor! |
