Ilanz/Glion

This journey was all about the Furka Pass, 37km of winding, weaving roads through the Swiss Alps. An elevation of around 2 1/2 km at its peaks traveling up and down. It was terrifying, breathtaking, butt clenching and beautiful all at the same time. We both took turns driving the stretch stopping regularly along the way to enjoy the scenery, gives the brakes cooling time and let the many sports cars pass. It’s those kind of roads where when you’re turning corners on the edge and there’s only concrete posts or not even that to guide you, narrow roads, steep hills and blind corners. Fair to say I were shitting meself on more than one occasion! The roads are well maintained and not as bad as some of the mountains in Spain but mucho concentration needed. It meant that although it was only a few km, it took pretty much all day as you can’t do much more then 20-30 mph. We stopped at the Rhône glacier that is huge at 7km in length, but has sadly reduced in size due to global warming. The primary source of Lake Geneva. There was also an ice ‚grotto‘ that you can go through. Made ourselves a van brew and chatted to a bunch of New Zealand lads in a UK van. There must’ve been about 10 of them crammed in. They’d flown from NZ to UK, bought a cheap van off a woman and were driving down to Lyon, France to watch the All Blacks play rugby. The van was apparently a wreck causing them trouble most days. Much joking about swapping vans for size etc then we were on our way. A little lower down the mountain we stopped at an infamous stop in James Bond, Goldfinger to get some shots. There were some cows by the side of the road so snapped them too. All cows here have bells so the farmers know where they are so everywhere, you can hear faint tinkles. Think Gary needs one so I don’t lose him!
A Brit plate Overlander van rocked up so chatted to them for a bit too. They are our age and sold up everything to go traveling. They’ve been all over, some great stories. I follow them now on Facebook. Again, said our goodbyes and carried on downwards. We stopped at a town at the end of the pass called Aldermatt as we spotted a cable car and felt the need to do one. When in Switzerland… not cheap but great views. Not as scary as the one we did at Alton towers years ago. It didn’t travel across a gorge or anything, just up the mountain. Had a swift lemonade and back down again. Wandered around the town, very Swiss and probably completely different in the winter what with it being a skiing town. Avoided the friendly police road stop when we left, they’d parked next to us, probably already checked out the van. They just said hello and off we went. On to our over night stop in Surcuolm. A campsite for a change (toilets/showers). More mountain driving but not too far. More beautiful views and so warm in the sun then a little chilly when the sun went down. Did a quick chat with die Tochter dann die Eltern though connection patchy later on.Read more