Daily Archives: 7 June 2015

June 7th – third day

Total distance: 7,4 km
Total time: 2 hours 10 minutes
Vertical distance: 115 m uphill, 135 downhill

A bad night with little sleep, due to village festival outside our hotel window.  At breakfast, I still couldn’t swallow anything solid.  Neil also ill (he went out to enjoy the fun outside).  Nevertheless I set off slowly.  Many detours needed as the whole frontier area here is marshland.  Many obstacles – trees across the tracks – there must have been a strong storm recently.  See photo – this was the first of many.  Then the crux:  I followed the only possible “path” on the map but it was completely overgrown and impossible to find without a GPS.  For some 600 – 700 m I battled with brambles, giant stinging nettles (that stung your knees through the trousers), boggy areas, shrubs, fallen trees, etc.  By the end I was quite exhausted and soon contacted Sally to be “rescued”.  Difficult, because of weak mobile networks in this area.

Night: Hôtel de la Gare, Porrentruy

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