DAY TWO

The second day of our LVS trip, was very tiring, as we had to climb up a mountain 700 metres and go back down the other side, this took us the whole day.  With our backpacks weighing about 20 kilograms each, our shoulders were in pain after the previous day.  Our group, known as ‘The Macho’ group left school in second place, we had to give the girl’s a chance!  Our first obstacle of the day was having to cross a small river by walking along a fallen log, easier than it looks, trust us (no one fell in).  We also went past a lake, where the slowest members of the group were supposed to fall, so we could accelerate a little, but no one fell.  Around 12:30 we came across a nice patch of grass, and decided to have our lunch.  While the boys enjoyed various amounts of food like Sebastian’s sausages, Gonzalo’s tuna mayonnaise, the girls were just thankful to have a rest for a while. 

After lunch we started to climb up the mountain: an exhausting walk.  After this killing walk up to the top we relaxed for about 30 min just to enjoy the view from the top.  Once we had reached the other side of the mountain we found a water tap and forced it open, as we were all extremely dehydrated.  On our way to our final destination for the day we came across Swiss wildlife, snakes and spiders, which did scare a few of the girls.  It was getting darker and we had almost lost ourselves, Mr. Lineham decided to ask a farmer if we could borrow his land to set up camp for the night.  We were relieved to be able to stop; we all threw our bags on the grass, some landing in cow dung (much to the disgust of Dean).  Using the river water we made our dinners and were very delighted not to be walking for ages.  While going for a midnight stroll Kirsty came along some real Swiss wildlife that gave her probably one of the biggest scares of her life … ED!!!

 DAY THREE

The day began at the farm near L’Arin we were given a series of checkpoints and asked to map our way to each of them.  We decided to trek 3 km without stopping however we got a little sidetrack when 100 m down the road was a small café.  Here we drank and ate ice cream finally to set off an hour late.  After a short while we came across some very dangerous and aggressive…. cows!  As the whole group was trying to find another way to pass the cows, Mr. Lineham showed the cows who was boss.  On our way down to Rougemont Tamara found a broomstick and took a little time in finding out whether she could “Hermione” down the rest of the mountain on it.  Sadly for her she soon discovered that it wasn’t really a magic broomstick.  2 hours later we arrived at a beautiful small village called Rougemont.  The boys had been fascinated by all the German made cars, while the girls were happy with their chocolate that was given to them by a grandmother and her two grandchildren.  We then set off again belly full.  Along the way we took many breaks  one had been to play in the river throwing rocks in and seeing who could make the biggest splash, a different break we took Gonzalo and a rock, and drew his body’s outline to make it look as if it was a murder… The things we think of out there, it was crazy, plus it didn’t help that we were completely hyped up on sugar too.  After yet another 4 hours of relatively easy hiking in the relation to day 1 & 2 we arrived at our campsite a small farm paddock and were fenced in to protect us from the cows.  After dinner some of us went further up the mountain to go star watching while others sat and played cards for pretzels.  By the end of the night we were relaxed and ready to sleep.

  DAY FOUR

It was bright and early in the cow field, and everyone was raring to go.  At about 7am the first heads appeared outside their tents, gradually getting up to make something to eat.  All except Dean and Ed who decided to make breakfast when everyone was packed and ready to go.  Our faithful leader, Seb, was ready to run the rest of our expedition but sensible Sara stopped him at once.  By this time on the trip we were all in automatic mode…. walking as if there were no tomorrow.  We discovered that we had walked 2.5km in 20minutes.  Unbelievable! We reached the highest point of our walk for today and it was all downhill from there, unfortunately for our knees.  Finally we reached civilization and a market that sold fresh food.  Gonzalo fed us copious amounts of balistos much to Edgar’s content and Kirsty shot off to the nearest clothes stall to soon realize that mountain fashion was not quite the change in style she wanted.  She decided that settling with a hot dog would be better than buying a pair of thick, wooly mountain socks.  The train ride home was full of comfort and smelly bodies but when we arrived in Montreux we decided we might as well walk to school seeing as we’d walked so far already.  We unpacked at school, hung up our tents and I hope we all had showers.  Fun was had by all, and tired smiles were all we saw as we said goodbye to the people who had been our fellow companions on this four day expedition to conquer Europe…. Okay just the Chateaux D’Oex area.