Adventure 2012: You can ring my bell

P.T.
24 June 9pm
Exhausted. We're all about ready for bed after a long but very enjoyable day. Our 2-day pass on the ski lifts gave us lots of options to get up the mountains, as well as the buses between. We started at a small town (they're all small around here) called Alt St Johann and headed up an open chair lift - rather unnerving if you're not accustomed to heights. And we're not. When you get over the unreasonable fears, it's really quite fun. The scenery is gasp-worthy at every turn. The mountains tower above with incredibly steep faces and ragged ridges. Some of the ski lifts go right up to these heart-stopping peaks. There are only a few lifts running this time of year, however we saw dozens of them heading up the mountains and rolling hills at their base. This place must really go off in winter. I'm putting that on my to-do list. Skiing here would be amazing, there are no defined ski-runs - just lifts heading up in all directions from and through the villages. Skiing down, you would slalom through forests, around barns and past people's houses. Nothing at all like skiing in NZ.

After our first ride up to about 1300m, we walked across to other lifts that headed further up the mountain. About a half-hour walk. On the way, there were the most bizarre musical instruments dotted along the side of the walking track. This was obviously a community project that brought together musical and engineering talents to create the most weird and wonderful musical creations. Ranging from a see saw / xylophone to a bicycle that caused a harmonically-tuned tube to spin generating different notes for different speeds. We also saw huge variations on the violin, a giant-sized swing that works as a wind chime and an enormous flute. There were also a couple of pin-ball machines with cow bells inside. About 25 in all and every one completely unique and a permanent fixture, mostly made from steel. And all designed to be played with, by young and old.

The walk was mostly through forest and farm land. The farms are not fenced, so the cattle run free range. Almost all of the cows wear bells - all different sizes and tones. Some of the bells are huge, nearly as large as the cows head. I thought the cow bell thing was just a stereotype, but nope, they all use them around here. The sound is comical, especially when the whole heard are on the move. Must drive them nuts.

After the walk, we headed up the "scary" lift up to the highest peak in the range - about 2,300m. The lift was a big gondola that holds about 30 people and gets pulled up between pylons, quite far apart and very high, up a very steep face to the top. Sounds very safe, and probably is, but left us all with sweaty palms. The air was noticeably thinner and a bit cool, but the views were nothing short of breathtaking. I annoyed the family by setting up a tripod and trying to get some family photos against the picturesque backdrop. The result might have been a group of impatient faces.

After heading back down, and drying our palms, we walked about an hour and a half to the next set of lifts. After playing with more instruments, and then having to run at the end, we made one of the last lifts of the day. If we had been too late, it was going to be a long walk down... No such fate, so we got down on another open-air gondola and then bused back to our apartment. Going to be sorry to leave Switzerland tomorrow. Hope France can live up to this.