Distance: 53.9 miles / 86.7 km
Elevation: 3,251 feet / 991 m
Time: 8 hours and 48 minutes (4 hours and 10 minutes cycling)
Sobering up
Today was a slow one. As I alluded to in my last update, I was feeling pretty horrendous when I woke up due to alcohol consumption. Because of that, I wandered around Lauterbrunnen in the morning trying to sober up a little before setting off.
I decided not to select an end point at the beginning of the ride, and just see how I get on. Any progress – however small – was still progress nonetheless, and would bring me closer to Geneva. The way I saw it was that the further I could get the better, and it was just a case of getting as realistically far as I could manage.
Interlaken
Not far from Lauterbrunnen is Interlaken. I think it maybe roughly translates as between lakes (or something like that) – certainly the topography suggests as much. The plan was to cycle alongside just one of the lakes called Thunersee to Spiez, before making a beeline for Lac Léman (the lake on which Geneva sits).
I did not quite make it that far, but I made pretty good progress – covering 87km. I basically felt like I was plodding along at times and I stopped many times for plenty of rest ???? the one thing that helped me get further was just the fact that I had no mountains to climb and the terrain was fairly easy going.
There was one hill to complete and I got a bit fed up on it – I sort of knew it was time to call it a day then. I found a nice looking B&B (bugger a tent when hungover) in Chateaux d’Oex. Certainly compared to the environments I’ve seen along my travels, it definitely has more of a rural feel rather than alpine.
Geneva in my sights
This means it’s 122km to Geneva. The weather forecast suggests thunderstorms the next two days, which isn’t very good. The plan is to attempt to ride the entire distance in one go and only get wet once. It should be alright I think.
I am going to go the southern side of Lac Léman and drop in to France ???????? temporarily. This is mainly because I have tons of Euros left and less than £1 in Swiss Francs.
