Canoeing - Pentecost'07

Well, hi! I've written this entry some time ago and since I haven't received all the pictures yet I've just decided to post the whole thing with my one photos only...;)
Thus, here you go, read, enjoy!

05-25-07 Friday
This past Friday I met my sister Tabea in Zurich. After her first month in the French speaking part of Switzerland she returned home for a scout’s camp. Thus I took the same train as she did. Having arrived in Buchs we ate lunch and later I headed back to Zurich. At 6pm I took the train to Baden where I changed and traveled on by bus. At my friend’s flat we started to pack two canoes and all the food for our planned adventure!

05-26-07 Saturday
The next morning we got up around 7am, ate breakfast and then hit the road by bus and train. In Bern we met Andy and Isabelle – they came from Zurich. Our final destination was Thun.

Well, this photo shows you the red bags (within the canoes, personal gear, and one bag of food!) and our whole crew (except my own personality) waiting for the bus to arrive at the train station in Thun.
There we took the bus and walked some meters, crossed a bridge and then were at the one spot we wanted to be. Right next to the Aare (Swiss river). After we had got the three canoes and all the bags ready we started our adventure. The last time I had been sitting in a canoe was in October 2003. Thus the steering kind of felt weird in the beginning. But luckily it didn’t seem as difficult as I’d remembered it.When hitting a tough part of the river Andy and Isabelle’s boat wanted to swim the wrong way around and therefore they went swimming… Luckily it turned out not so bad and the weather was kind of warm so they didn’t have to freeze all day long. On our way we also did some geocaches (www.geochaching.com), had some lunch and snacks…Isabelle, Magdalena and Marcel looking at a geocache...
At some moment of time we arrived in Bern. I personally quite liked that part. It’s very interesting to see a city from a different angle. It looks kind of different from the river. But it’s lovely – the bridges are beautiful and the old town (including the Berner Münster and the Bundeshaus) looked beautiful! In Bern we also – for the first time on this trip – had to take the canoes out of the water because there was a dam-like thing. After we had carried everything along the river we went on paddling.Later we arrived at another dam but there was an installation which enabled us to carry the boots down the slope without having to carry them by ourselves! Afterwards it didn’t take very long to arrive at a certain island – our campsite! Since it still was very warm I went for a quick swim in the river! How I just loved swimming in the cool water – it’d been so lovely and refreshing! Later we ate dinner (risotto ai funghi e vedure) which Magdalena and I cooked on the fire.fire, tea, sleeping…

05-27-07
SundayI got up at about 5.30am and simply hung around for about three hours. I enjoyed this time which past whilst I was pondering, heating up some water to make some warm tea when it started raining…Later the others got up as well and everyone ate breakfast. After we had packed we went on driving in our canoes. We spent quite a while on the Wohlensee (a long, narrow lake). Because it’s a damned lake it was quite quiet water and we had to work kind of hard to get anywhere. After the dam we quickly found a camping side and put up the tarps.Yes, here you see our campingside of that particular evening!
Later we cooked dinner (Älplermaggarone, Öpfelmuas). As always when eating outdoors the meal was simply delicious!!! Before going to ‘bed’ we drank some tea, chatted…

05-28-07 Monday
After a rainy night and a long sleep-in we –listening to the raindrops falling- enjoyed breakfast protected by a great tarp! At about noon we hit the river for our last few hours paddling. After the first canoe-carrying-around-the-weir certainly every single of us felt warm again. Most unfortunately it didn’t take us very long to get to the next dam which meant the end of this spring’s canoeing expedition. We packed all the wet stuff and then walked to the bus station where we went for some lunch and later took the bus to Bern. There we decided to go to Olten, Baden. There Marcel, Magdalena and Reto went on by bus whereas Andy, Isabelle and I took the train back to Zurich. After all I’d say it was a most daring and adventurous weekend which I liked a lot! Sometimes it’s just a pity someone’s studying and can’t go for such stuff more often…

So, that's been about it - for the ones who are still wondering how our canoes really looked like I've got the following picture:Now I'm really hard thinking about a wisdom to get rid of at this occasion... but I cannot think of any...;)