On December 18th, Bex thought she was heading for the ski haven of Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland, to enjoy some fab snow, and enjoy cooking for 50 over Christmas week, but the journey itself turned out to be very extreme – and when later in the week, Jamiroquai’s ‘Travelling Without Moving‘ came out of iTunes shuffle – that should have been our anthem!
Even getting to Oak Hall’s base in Otford was hairy – this was the car park at Clacket Lane Services. Well, one of my aims is to get onto one of those driving days where they teach you to control the car in dangerous conditions… could definitely have done with that on Friday!
Well, the coach clock is telling the right time – about this time we should have been through the Eurotunnel, but as they seemed to be having some issues (and as we later discovered, many people spent the night trapped in the tunnel without light/food/heat, so was glad wasn’t in there), we decided to head for Dover… Shortly after we thought we’d made a wrong move as we joined a VERY long queue…
The lorry is heading back the wrong way to join Operation Stack (never knew what that was before)… this was an amusing moment, around 9am, Ed Farries, our ski instructor, had slept very well – pulled up his eyemask – and woo-hoo, we’re still in Dover!
12 noon, moved around 2 miles! Why, oh why, didn’t we get the skis out of the trailer and try riding down the rails… maybe it would have been the presence of the Police… to whom we were offering hot coffee and chocolate biscuits as we passed by. Made a change for them from the people yelling at them!
2pm, we’ve moved a little further, and the kids are being amused by Hannah Montana! We finally got on the ferry 5pm, and arrived in Lauterbrunnen around 7.30am, which meant those guests who felt able after 2 nights on the coach were able to ski-up and out… most got out by 10.30am, leaving us free to start cooking…
Really – if we’re talking extreme – that was it… my friend flew back from New Zealand in the same time as it took us to get from Otford to Lauterbrunnen!
Tags: Extreme, Skiing, Travelling
