Yearly Archives: 2015

June 6th – second day

Total distance: 40,0 km, of which 11 by bicycle
Total time: 11 hours of which 2 hours resting
Vertical distance: 1275 m uphill, 1165 downhill

Christoph Braendle, our Basle host, joined us today, arriving at Bättwil/Flüh by tram just before 8 a.m.  We started off almost immediately.  It was again very hot and some fenced off fields near Rodersdorf and elsewhere forced us to do some tedious detours.  Beautiful paths once in the forest.  Passed a huge beech tree, 40 m tall, almost a national monument, the “largest tree in northwest Switzerland”.  Just inside Swiss territory, it seems the local inhabitants had to defend the tree against the German Wehrmacht who wanted to fell it during World War II.  Finally finished going round the village of Rodersdorf and were forced to go to the nearest inn for a cool drink.

Next, a lovely ridge walk to the summit of Raemelsberg, with its slender concrete observation tower.  Sally was waiting for us at Chlösterle, where I had to pedal the 11 km to Lucelle for another drink – the others went by car.  After much discussion, Christoph and I decided to walk the last few km, while Neil was taken straight to the hotel for a shower!  I was quite exhausted at the end and could not eat anything solid.  Christoph took the train back to Basle.

Night: Hôtel de la Gare, Porrentruy

Statistics first day – June 5th:

Total distance: 29,7 km of which 3 by kayak and 5 by bicycle
Total time: 6 hours 50 minutes
Vertical distance: 930 m uphill, 800 m downhill

Pushed off in the kayak at Kleinhüningen in murky harbour water, passed the Dreiländereck and entered the current.  Paddled upstream 3 km and found it quite tough.  Current stronger than expected, and obstacles on the bank, e.g. restaurant boat, that forced one into the middle where the current was stronger.  But in the end I managed in well under an hour.  The bicycle part was much easier, since much of it had been reconnoitred earlier.  Later, many detours were needed – fenced off villas on the Swiss side, cultivated fields on the French side, with no path in between (see photo).  Neil joined me on the walk from Schönenbuch, the last 12 km.  It was very hot and we ran out of water!

Night in a B&B at Hofstetten-Flüh.
  

Arrived in Basle in heat wave conditions in time to collect grandson Neil at the airport.  He will be our movie photographer and will accompany me on some sections.  Immediately reconnoitred the Franco-Swiss border on the left bank of the Rhine.  All is a huge building site on both sides of the border and we soon learned that it would be impossible to traverse that part of the Novartis Campus.  So I will have to land the kayak about 1 km further upstream near on old ferry across the river.

Lovely evening with our friends in Basle, Christoph and Elke in their house.

Two days to go!  Tomorrow we leave for Basle, with a lot of luggage and gear, including a kayak and a bicycle on the roof of the car.  My son Roger lent me a mountain bike.  I did 10 km on it on Monday – the first time I have ridden a bicycle for at least 5 years!  Not much time left to train.  There is a problem with the kayaks:  they have not arrived in time from France, although ordered some time ago.  So Passion Nautique in Morges lent me another one-seater which I picked up today.  Again, no time to practise or to train on it.

I will be using two:

A “classic” one-seater kayak, “Solo”, RTM brand, made by Rotomod in France, for river descents (Versoix, Inn), the traverse of the Arve and short distances on lakes.  Weight 20 kg.

A two-seater, “Biwok Evo Hi luxe”, DAG brand, also made by Rotomod, for longer distances on lakes and the descent of the Rhine from Sargans to Basle.  Weight 34 kg.

See www.rtmkayaks.com and www.dag-kayak.com and one of their Swiss agents www.passion-nautique.ch in Morges.