Rowkin Rovings Blog

Forgot to mention yesterday that Meiringen was the location where Sherlock Holmes met his untimely death with Professor Moriarty when supposedly they had a punch up and clinging to one another they fell from the ledge down the Reichenbach Falls – some of you might be interested and some might just put that useless bit of info into to your memory banks.

We awoke at 6.00am to the pounding sound of rain!!! Ugh, oh. We got up an hour later and headed down for breakfast to the very limited buffet. Whilst there the rain stopped and we could just make out a speck of blue sky.

Our plan to was to go to Alpnach which is over the famous Brunig Pass from Meiringen. Our first option was by cable car and the second was by train. Due to the threatening weather we opted for the Interlaken/Lucerne express train which is cog rail. The gradient was 12% and is the steepest train run by Swiss rail.

Well, we lucked out big time as at the top it was clear. By catching the train we had obliterated 600m off our vertical climb for the day in ten minutes – well worth the 9CHF each. So it was just all down hill for the day.

We are following Number 9 bike route which is the trans -country lakes route. The sign postings are very clear and apart from a few missed turns we have done pretty well with it.

Cannot describe the scenery – the following pictures have to do it for us.

We only had 35k to do today and took our time going from one plateau to another plateau around Lake Lungern, then dropping more altitude to Lake Sarnen and cycling around it. Spent most of our time with our mouths wide open gaping at the scenery.

Came in through the town of Sarnen…

And then very nonchalantly cycled across one of the military air strips which no doubt had us under surveillance!!

Found this cute covered bridge. Our first of many we guess.

We got into Alpnach very early at 2.00pm and opted to try and go up to Mt Pilatus as the weather for tomorrow is looking grim. Quick showers and the obligatory bit of washing and then headed out on our bikes to the Mt Pilatus train station which was 15 minutes away.

It wasn’t cheap at 72 CHF ($100CAD) but one of those iconic trips that just has to be done.

Sorry for the kitsch photo below but proof of how steep the cog rail is at 48% and the steepest in the world.

Here is the cog set up for those of you who are of the engineering ilk.

Just as we got on the cog rail the heavens opened and we thought ugh oh, our view is going to be crap, but….

we were very surprised as to how good the visibility was.

You can catch a cable car from Lucerne to the top of Mt Pilatus and then catch the cog rail down but we have opted for the up and down option of the cog rail. We got a great shot of the cable car coming up with Lake Lucerne in the back ground.

Our panoramic shots from up here were a bit cloudy but worth adding to the blog.

After a couple of hours we made our way back down and it was starting to get quite late – about 7.00pm. We were being followed down by another cable car so got a couple of great photos.

You also get an idea just how wet it was.

By the time we got to the bottom it was still raining a little too hard to bike back the three k to the hotel so hopped on a train with the bikes. You can see how inventive we are getting with our very minimal wardrobe options.