Grabs Lims - part two

Ernst and Murray on a coffee break

The road up to Wildhaus in Toggenberg Alps

I love to camp - but count me out 

Our horse and sleigh ride

Rosemarie and Ernst kindly took us for a drive this afternoon.  We visited the old part of town and also a really old mill.  The walkway up to it was of course covered in snow so was a bit slippery to negotiate, it followed a stream up which was all frozen including the water falls, it was really pretty, and it had deep holes where the stones had washed away the bottom.  We then went to the alps that “Heidi” from the storybook lived in, the school she went to and the old village railway station, it was really interesting.  Right at the top of the hill was huge park that I guess was kind of dedicated to her.

At Heidi Alps

The front entrance to the hot pools

  We then continued through the villages until we came to Bad Regaz.  There was flashing bright lights at the end of the drive to a casino, and the baths looked amazing.  Lantern lights lined each side of the driveway and up to the underground parking area.  On walking in it became clear this was no ordinary AC Baths or DeBretts – not that there is anything wrong with either of those places.  The place was massive with huge big white arches inside and out, a huge outdoor pool, with bubble jets scattered around and reclining seats in the water, a waterfall, a whirl pool that when you got in the current it took you right around a pool off to the side of the main one.  The snow was all around the pool and it just looked picture perfect.  Inside there were five more pools, at 17 degrees plunge pool, a 39was degree, a 32.5 for exercising, a 36 for soaking and massage and the best one was at 34 degrees.  It was a big pool and was designed so that you could move around the pool visiting different massage stations.  Down one side there were 8 massage jets at different levels of your body and opposite on the wall (outside the pool) was an illuminated arrow.  Every two minutes the arrow flashed and this meant that everyone moved along one jet – amazingly everyone did it, it worked like clockwork!   After you had been to these jets, there was a section with foot massage pads, several different water spouts, more reclining chairs and then these really cool armchairs that you stood in and they wrapped around you with loads of tiny jets.  Real cool!

The next day we decided to work all day so that we could have Friday off.  We started about 9 and finished about 5.30, getting all the wood cut and stacked we were wrapped and so were our hosts.

Delwyn at the splitting station

The house and more wood 

The two huge stacks

Murray showing off his hard work

We woke to a perfect day.  Rosemarie and Murray decided on skiing and Ernst and I decided on snow shoeing.  We all caught the bus up to Wildhaus their favourite ski spot.   They took off skiing and after putting our snow shoes on we climbed about 150m straight up to we could join the track. When I say track I mean the designated area for walking.  Sometimes it was a track and sometimes not really.  Walking in these contraptions was really easy both up and down hill.  It just felt like you had hugely oversized fluffy slippers on.  The scenery was spectacular; the track meandered its way up the mountain sometimes through the pine trees, blue sky, jet vapours, and so quiet.  There were little ‘summer huts’ scattered everywhere and we met a few people along the way.  About 3 hours later we headed down to a mountain cafe at about 1200ft and waiting for the skiers.  We had been getting texts from them and one of the t’s had broken down so they had to walk up it in the deep snow – which Murray said later was the easy part.  He found the skiing really difficult that day, it  was deep snow and you really needed to lean back and try to lift your ski tips up at the front or you would end up stuck.

Views for miles

Coffee stop

Snow Shoeing at Wildhaus

Hard day for both of us - but fantastic!

Sleighing

Murray and Rosemary

By the time they got to the cafe he was stuffed. We all had to walk down a bit of a hill until they could ski again and we just continued on down the track to our next meeting point.  The skiers were well ahead of us so it was decided via txt they would go home and get the car and bring some sleighs up for us to have a go on.  After we met up again to be quite honest I was thinking I really can’t be bothered.  We had walked for around 3.5 hours and around 15 kms,  Murray looked terrible and I thought maybe we were pushing it a bit.  But man am I pleased we took our ‘man up pills’ and got on those sleighs.  It was so much fun.  The very next day there was to be a big sleigh race with big sleighs that carry 5,6 or 7 men, so the track had been groomed and was pretty fast.  My sleigh was a plastic one and Rosemarie and Murray choose the traditional wooden ones.  It was so good and a great way to finish a perfect day and in fact a great way finish another awesome helpx experience.  We are off to Gudo tomorrow.

Note to self – sell skis and buy a sleigh !

Really high snow in parts

Log house built for the view