A different pace today after yesterday’s exertions.

Philip and I took our turn to volunteer to in the kitchen after breakfast and dinner today. Volunteering is not only a great way to help keep the costs down of an Oak Hall trip, but a wonderful way to get to know others on the trip. We really enjoyed it. We’ll help again after dinner tonight.

Lots of sunshine again today with a few big balls of fluffy clouds perched on the tops of the high mountains in the distance.

There were lots of options today. Philip encouraged me to go for the tobogganing one. He’s not interested in doing it himself. I was concerned about the cost, but the cable car ride to the top of the mountain plus the toboggan ride down was $40AUD. Bargain! And such fun! I’m so glad I did it.

Going up in the chair lift was like going up in a ski lift. Not that I’ve ever been in a ski lift, but I’ve seen the pictures!

In the photo above, there’s part of the toboggan track at the bottom. The chair lifts on the left, and the gondolas on the right are for further up the mountain.

Amazing views all around – the mountains, the long, green, placid, Lake Walensee way down below, the cows in the meadows with their ringing cowbells, people far below either hiking or mountain-bike riding on the trails, swinging over the tops of giant fir trees.

I kept twisting around and craning my neck trying to take it all in. It was a very smooth ride – very calming and relaxing to glide up the mountainside.

At the top we got on the toboggan and strapped ourselves in. I gulped a bit at the top and wondered whether this was a good idea after all! But too late to pull out now! Quick photo, then I hung onto the controls and didn’t get any photos on the way down because you need both hands to accelerate and brake it.

And off we went. It was so exhilarating – a bit like a rollercoaster ride.

Here’s a map photo of this morning’s ride. The black straight vertical line is the chair lift ride up the mountain. The wiggly purple line is the toboggan ride down to the start.

But you can vary the speed as you hurtle down the slope and navigate the loops and corners if you want to. It’s a twenty-minute ride, so you get your money’s worth! It was such fun. Philip waited at the bottom and took a photo as I hurtled past him.

Philip and I then took a little detour walk to a dairy farm restaurant nearby.

The three buildings on the left sitting on the ridge of the hill, are where we’re headed for the restaurant.

The cows with their cowbells ringing are in the meadows. The milking sheds nearby have been hosed out and cleaned for the day.

Just the farmyard smells and some of the meadow hay still there. I can’t get over how few flies there are here. Cows on working farms are so close by, yet there are so few flies. Compared to Australia!

There’s a big, fancy, well-run restaurant next door to the farmhouse and farmyards! Philip had cinnamon apple rings with ice-cream, cream and strawberries that he said was delicious.

You can’t see them clearly, but the cows from the farm are in the meadow behind Philip’s left shoulder

I realise that the ice-cream is probably not made directly from the cows in the nearby meadows. Far too many government regulations for that to happen. Maybe it is – I don’t know. But even so….! As a diary farmer’s granddaughter, I’m amazed at the lack of flies. And that you’re allowed to have restaurants so close to animals.

This restaurant fits my Swiss stereotypes! Sloping roof, red geranium window boxes.

Back to the chalet for us and we ate our picnic lunch sitting out on the patio outside, looking at the mountains in front of us as the sunlight constantly shifted the colours, the shades and shapes of the mountain face.

This afternoon, I went on another fun local excursion. Taking a gondola (which is an enclosed cable car) ride and then riding it down … far down – to Lake Walensee below.

The gondola ride was twenty minutes and far more exciting than the cable car. You go over the edge of the mountain cliff side and it feels like you’re lurching almost vertically straight down the mountainside. This ride did give me those butterflies-in-the-tummy feeling as we sailed down the mountainside for twenty minutes. Lake Walensee is a very long way down below.

There’s a gondola coming back up on the right

Past the cliff face covered with firs and birch trees, past farmhouses where a lady was hanging out her washing on her lines, past the farm hillsides where they’re mowing or gathering the hay, following a rushing, gurgling brook as it also hurtled down the mountainside past the houses. All the way down to the little town on the shores of the Lake. It’s hard on the photos to get an idea of just how steep the gondola ride is.

Down by the Lake there’s roads and a railway and little town all geared for the tourists. Boats that cruise on the Lake. Families having “beach” fun.

I still can’t get over pebble beaches and that people lie down on those pebble beaches as if they’re sand. Children jumping and splashing in the water like children do all over the world when they’re at the beach. But they can’t play in the pebbles like they do in the sand. So, they mostly play in the water. Paddleboards, kayaks and water trampolines.

A white swan swimming among the swimmers often displayed a threatening attitude to people. I think swans can be quite intimidating.

I went for another swim!

I had been told that the water was warmer here than the little lake I swam in, up in the mountains the other day. I don’t believe them! This Lake’s water was still very cold. The only difference was that the air temperature down at the lake was warmer than up in the mountains.

I asked a lady from the Oak Hall group to take a photo of me swimming, to prove to you that I did indeed have another swim!

But it was a very short swim again. Just a couple of minutes. Then I chatted to another lady while I waded in the water for a while. I didn’t stay long by the Lake. Some of our group stayed there for most of the day. But I’d had my swim, thoroughly enjoyed looking around at the beautiful lake and mountainsides and there was nothing else to tempt me to linger longer.

Going back up the mountain, I was in the gondola car by myself, making it much easier to take my photos. Not having to juggle photo angles around other people in the gondola.

I took this photo from the gondola. It’s showing a little truck on a steep hill gathering up the meadow hay.

I still find it hard to believe what a wonderful day and what a great privilege to be in such a position to experience all this.

I’ve been having a little muse about the value of learning and experiencing new places, the history in those places and looking at the past in context. Not looking at the past in isolation. Sometimes it can expose parts of history that we find very uncomfortable to look at or to think about. (This was more in ancient Italy and some of the historic homes in England.) I think it’s about learning to think about some things in a more complex way, more constructively with interest and knowledge, without enforcing agreement.

I don’t think it helps to look at the past and impose the lens we have developed today with pushing our thoughts and values onto different past eras. After all, when people from the future look back at our times, they will have different ideas, perceptions and prejudices to what we have now. We all live in a particular time and place, and where we are in time and space shapes and moulds us. It’s that “chronological snobbery” rearing its head again.

I think it’s important to be connected to our histories. Being connected to it, being connected to beauty and nature makes our lives better. Provides new perspectives and helps us see the context and landscape we sit in. No one is an island.

It is also a privilege and a duty to pass on nature, beauty, history and values to those who come after us, and learning about them is the first step in being able to do this. Having time away in different places gives room and space for thoughts like this.

Or maybe I’m just trying to justify our holiday time away!! Motives – especially mine – are always very mixed and muddy!