Car Troubles and Switzerland

Sunday morning we picked up Jen & Jordie from the airport and we hit the road. Took the ferry to France and drove towards Switzerland to get to some rivers. On Monday we just about made it to Colmar and the radiator blew a leak. BOO! We coaxed the van down the hill and got it to a radiator mechanic. No paddling for us as it would take a couple days to get fixed L. So until Wednesday afternoon we wandered around Colmar checking out the sites.

Colmar

So Wednesday we got the radiator back into the car and we made our way to Uster (near Zurich), Switzerland to visit my Aunt and Uncle. They hooked us up with a place to stay, loads of food and good company. The next morning we took off making our way to Thun and the rivers close by. All of us were itching to get paddling but unfortunately the rivers we checked out were low. The boys did end up running the Engstlige, but said that it was a boulder bash most of the way down.

Visiting family.

Friday we managed to hook up with a local boater, Simon, and he took the boys on the Wiesse Luetschine. They came off the river with smiles on their faces so it must have been a good run. Saturday Jen and I finally managed to get on a river, the Schwarse Luetschine. A sweet little run that had a train shuttle right back to our van.

Jordie on Wiesse Luetschine.

Saturday afternoon we took the tram up to Gimmelwald and then wandered around up there trying to catch a view of the Eiger… unfortunately the clouds were not cooperating so all we got was a partial glimpse.

View from Gimmelwald.

It rained all night so when we woke up most of the rivers were high. We decided that we would start heading towards Austria as the rivers in the area we were in were either to high or too low. We managed to get a run in on the Sanna before we set up camp for the night.

Today we pulled a few wood ticks off of each other and headed to the Oetz river. We ran the lower Oetz and now we are about to go swimming and have a shower to clean our the grim off of our bodies as showers have been in short supply.