Kandersteg

The sun rising over the valley

Kandersteg was a nice village to spend our last few days.  And it was lucky that there was the horse jumping carnival on, since there was daily free entertainment.  I watched the most horse jumping I have ever watched in my life.  It was a strange carnival, as I was expecting the standard to get better as the jumping progressed, I thought they would have different classes of jumper, you know beginners, children, masters that sort of thing.  But it actually seemed that everyone would just jump in all the events they could and since we watched so much of it, we got to recognise all the different jumpers.

I think the best event was a relay race, with horse rider and mountain biker.  The horse would go first and do a round of jumps and then they had to hand off to a biker, who had to cycle around and do their own version of mountain bike skills, so riding over see-saws and between poles that sort of thing.  That was their Friday night entertainment.

Horse jumping in Kandersteg

More impressive Swiss infrastructure

We also caught a bus up into the mountains, it was a pretty scary bus ride.  It was a single lane road, and when I say single lane, I mean if there were any walkers or cyclists on the road as well, they literally had to climb over the barriers so the bus could get past.  On one side you would have the cliff face, and on the other side was just a straight drop to the valley floor.  And this road was by no means straight, we are talking winding through tunnels and the like.  Scary stuff.

And that was our Swiss holiday, just a train ride back to Zurich and the plane home.  It was a great week, and has certainly inspired me to try a mountaineering course over the winter, to perhaps allow for some more winter walking.