The hills are alive in Switzerland

Switzerland. It’s enough to make you don a pinnie and sing, “the hills are alive with the sound of music”, as if you were Julie Andrews. The hills, or more accurately, the mountains, or more accurately again, the Swiss Alps are spectacular. After my boyfriend and I have been living in the Netherlands with not so much as a mound in sight, we were foaming at the mouth at those jagged peaks, not realising how much we missed them until we were among them. It was a taster of home but with a distinct Swiss flavour with an after-taste of Gruyere.

We spent a weekend there, staying with a friend in Davos. She lived in a beautiful old farmhouse built in the 1600s located out of the touristy town and in the hills. Their lifestyle seemed idyllic as they were growing their own veges, brewing their own beer and in their backyard was a fire powered hot tub to lay about underneath the night’s sky. She, her boyfriend and flatmate were mountain people with everyone participating in various extreme sports such as rock climbing and mountain biking and the numerous skis suggested winter wasn’t for hibernating.

My boyfriend and I tried our best to fit in and took our host up on the offer to go mountain biking on the first day we arrived. I was quite comfortable on a bike after months of riding in the Netherlands, but add in a terrifying slope with a steep drop on one side, tree roots, rocks, streams and other death hazards and it is a whole different story. The first test was to ride the bikes a short distance down to the lake and the whole time, one thought was going through my mind, “don’t crash” - followed by anxiety that my brain will actually just hear the word “crash” and I was committing self-sabotage. I made it down to the lake, but then decided to end my mountain biking career in favour of swimming and helping make dinner which was a regional dish - capuns - a dough with an assortment of meat and veges, wrapped in chard leaf, boiled, then baked and covered in cheese - it was delicious!

We spent the rest of the time on two feet instead of on death wheels. We did the most stunning hike in the mountains, climbing to 2787 metres at Winterlucke and looping around turquoise, aqua and green lakes on the Joriflesspass. My boyfriend attempted to swim in one, however he said he got a brain freeze from the cold just by going thigh deep. Along the way we passed a family, and we thought it was very brave of the parents to bring their young children on such a strenuous hike, but then we turned round to see the children behaving like mountain goats going off trail and directly down the mountain much more nimbly than us. It seems mountain people are bred to the conditions young.

Direct ice melt. He is a brave soul! 

Having no ride or public transport back to our friend’s house, we were advised to hitchhike as it is relatively safe in Switzerland. Even though we were advised to, we were still apprehensive, and wondered if we should have a code word if we didn’t want to get in the car that pulled over. Only two or three cars went past before we were picked up by two lovely and non-serial-killer Swiss women who had lived in Australia and travelled to New Zealand, putting us to shame at how many places they had been in our home country that we hadn’t. They said they they often hitchiked, so they were following a code-of-honour by picking us up and we will have to pay it forward and do the same.

It was just a weekend, but it goes to show how far your time can stretch when you disconnect from Netflix and Facebook, and all those other time wormholes and embrace the environment that you are in.