We’re on our way…

Several factors (such as a new job opportunity, insufficient space in our one-bedroom apartment, the wish to move on, the dream of a long trip around Europe, Yana’s current age, only having one child, etc) have come together and lead us to pack up our belongings and head off on a big trip around Europe. Currently we are travelling around Germany, somewhat as a trial-run. In August and September we will hopefully move on to Switzerland, France, Spain and finally to Britain.

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting inside our campervan on a campervan-carpark on the outskirts of Hanover. Yana is sound asleep in her bed and Lindsay is a good boy, doing the dishes. This is our trip log so far:

After a couple of days in Munich doing organizational tasks, we headed off to Nürnberg, where we stayed with our friend Silke for a night. It was a very hot day and we biked into the city centre to have an ice cream. Yana enjoyed her first bike ride ever. The following days were spent in my childhood home-region visiting friends and family. Our night in Cologne turned into a very late one. We sat outside our campervan together with a middle-aged Irish couple, who was very hospitable and friendly. They kept topping up our whisky and brandy glasses without even asking us and we felt obliged to empty them. At around 2am we managed to escape into bed. Of course Yana was oblivious of the fact that we had had such a late night and cheerfully woke us up at 7am as usual. After a day of running errands in Düsseldorf, we started making our way over towards Berlin. Our first stop-over on this long journey is Hanover. When we arrived this afternoon, we still had enough time to go for a bike ride along the Mittellandkanal (a canal).

Yana is enjoying the fact that we are both there for her at the moment. We have been trying to keep the amount of driving down and keep a regular routine for her feeding and sleeping times, to make it easier on her. She is very cheerful and chatty at the moment, managed to get her fifth and sixth teeth without any problems and stood freely for about 5 seconds today for the first time.

Tomorrow we will have to find an Internet café so that we can post this blog entry. Check out a few photos of our trip so far and tune in again soon, when we continue our trip report…

A few piccies so far...

Yana enjoying swinging herself upside down under the campervan table :-)















Yana reading while we drive
















Yana doesn't really enjoy our bike rides much, but she did enjoy playing in the sand on the bank of the Elbe river.















Hanging out with Dad in Königslutter am Elm (small town we visited for a night)















Yana loves swings...
















Despite objecting to our dragging her on bikerides, she soon cheers up when we stop!

A week in the Alps

Last week I abandoned Kerstin and Yana and headed into the mountains for a weeks climbing. Organised during a drunken gathering about a year ago, the moment had finally arrived and we (three kiwis and a dutchy) were about to try and climb Mont Blanc (4808m), the highest mountain in Europe.

Everyone flew down to Munich (From Edinburgh, London and Lilystadt (Holland)) and in the campervan we did it in fine road-trip style to Chamonix via various places in Switzerland.

I have just received this picture in the post from the Swiss police taken from a security camera at a building site.










Susten pass - our first bit of tramping. After camping Friday night near the German/austrian border, we headed to Susten pass in Switzerland as a scenic way of travelling to the famous Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger mountains near Interlaken. Unfortuantely the road was closed, but we ignored that and drove up anyway to do some tramping. You can see one of the slips in the photo. We later found out why they hadn't bothered clearing it and reopening the road, when a second one came down later that day. We camped at 1900m and did a walk up to nearly 3000m (trying to aclimatise a little for the climbing ahead).





Nearing the top, we had a nice view of a neighbouring mountain and the slackers who took the lift to the top of it...










Because many of the huts in the Jungfrau region were still closed, we just did a few day walks in the area.










To get to Chamonix we blindly followed our Tomtom which decided the Kandersteg-Goppenstein train was the quickest way there. Fortunately it only cost CH20, so was actually a nice relaxing way to travel.







We had been carefully following the weather forecast in the Chamonix region the whole time (which changed every 5 minutes), and in the end we decided to head up and try our luck - we would be able to get weather updates at the huts. Because it was still quite early in the season, the train and gondola were closed, which meant I was able to persuade the others that we should do it like real men. On Wednesday, we parked in Les Houches (1100m) and walked up to the first hut - Tete Rousse (3200m).

At Tete Rousse we discovered that the Gouter hut (3817m), while not officially open (unlike what the info center had said), would allow people to stay anyway (unlike what the guide center had said), so we headed up the 600m so summit day would be easier and we could further acclimatise. Slightly higher than mt Cook in NZ, this is where we really started to notice the altitude - most of us had cracking headaches for most of the day. According to the GPS unit we had, air pressure was just over 60% that at sea level (at 4000m).

On arrival at the Gouter hut we had plenty of time so went for a walk up to just over 4000m towards Mont Blanc because we knew we would be doing the first section in darkness. This photo is looking east to Chamonix (valley) and Aiguille du Midi etc (mountains on right).






The Friday morning forecast was looking good, so we woke up at 2am ready to make a summit attempt, but unfortuately it was snowing and blowing, so after another false start at 4am, we finally got up at 5am and although we had given up on the peak, went for another walk. This photo on sunrise is roughly the same as the previous. We turned back on spotting the first cravasse and therefore never saw the peak (we had been planning to follow in everyone else's footsteps, and had therefore not carried a rope up). We then walked the 3000m back down to the campervan.

On Saturday morning we dropped Dan off and started on the long drive back to Munich. We stayed Saturday night in Rorschach, Switzerland right beside Bodensee/Lake Constance and hired a boat on the Sunday morning for a few hours before continuing on the way home.