The French Alps

Last night after Mum cut our hair, we were visited by a couple of Jehovannah’s Witnesses. She told us the world was going to end soon and that we needed to be prepared. She had a discussion for a while and she left us with a magazine in French. We were parked right next to the train tracks so we got out and waved to all the trains passing by.


We spent the next morning hooked into some free McDonald’s ‘Wifi’ down the road and had pancakes.

Mum almost booked some tickets home. We drove towards Chamonix with an awesome view of Mount Blanc and all the mountains surrounding it. We drove out of the valley where we went shopping in Le Fayet and up some switchbacks to St. Gervais. We parked between a large indoor ice-hockey arena and a steep little gorge. All the houses and cabins had little barriers on the roofs to hold on the snow so it didn’t pile ground and block the doorways. We walked through town, past the tempting treats in the Patisserie and the Chocolatier. We looked in the town church and had chips in the gardens. All the trees were Autumn red and we could see the mountains. We went looking for the tourist office but found a lit up map and touch screen information point instead. We worked out where we wanted to hike tomorrow and walking back to the camper we pasted the tourist office which closed while we were at the map.

We were going to climb up the mountain railway track to a glacier about halfway up the mountain but instead we drove 12km up to les Contamines to a parking lot surrounding by little log cabins. We set off on a very steep gravel 4x4 track in the shade of the mountain so it was freezing. After two hours we reached a cluster of cabins with slate roofs and a pond called Le Truc. We could walk up to the almost retreated glacier but instead walked down to Miage, another little settlement. We pumped some glacial water with our filter and had lunch on the grass. After some more lollies we walked up the last part of the hike. It took two hours up steep switchbacks and a rocky track. We were out of the shade and in the hot sun. It was hard to breathe because the air is thinner at a higher altitude. We reached the summit of Col de Tricot (alt. 2120m). We were only in the saddle of a huge hill and Mount Tricot but we had a great view of the railway cut through the mountain and the same glacier we were going to walk to but from the other side. Mount Blanc was hidden behind other peaks. There were lot’s of Paragliders on the hill next to us. We were out of water so we had lollies and a rest. We walked back down but lost Mum and Dad still halfway up. Back at the stream in Miage we filled our water bottles and numbed our sore feet in the cold water. Some horses came and said hello to us and the sun had moved behind us so we could see the snow capped peaks better than before. Mum and Dad’s knees were starting to hurt and we continued up then down to our camper before dark. We drove back to our spot in St.Gervais for the night.

Mum and the girls walked to the library to try and play a board game because all the books were French But it was closed. We drove back down to Le Fayet and did some shopping. We drove on a 2km long viaduct that shot straight up the valley to Chamonix. We went through some short tunnels and under an avalanche chute. Chamonix was like a ghost town and everyone was building in the off season. We couldn’t get the camper in the town centre and it was only full on ski apartments and rental places.

We drove up the Chamonix valley with Mont Blanc on the right. We saw lot’s of cable cars, gondolas and chair lifts hanging to the slopes and some of the gondolas went from peak to peak. We drove up to the end of the valley to a little village called Le Tour. We parked in a gondola car park on a big lean. We had lunch and walked towards Mont Blanc until we had a view of the Chamonix valley. We thought it was just around the corner so we kept walking. We turned around after half an hour and moved our camper to the parking lot of that trail. We were below another glacier that had almost retreated and we couldn’t play in the creek because of a risk of flooding. The girls made a stick hut and the boys went running up the track we walked before. Mum cooked us roast pork for tea. We were also parked below a grassy ski slope so we did a ‘snow dance’ before we went to bed.

We decided to walk up the small mountain behind the camper and next to the Glacier. We headed off towards Mount Blanc for the second time but cut back up a steep track towards the Glacier. After two hours we reached a cairn, rock shelter and a tent surrounded by alpine blueberries. There were steep bluffs above us the blocked out the view of the glacier and the camper was smaller than an ant. We were above the end of the Le Tour Gondola and behind that was Switzerland and Mum was trying to tell us one on the mountains was the Matterhorn. We caught a glimpse of Mount Blanc before it was covered in clouds but next to it was one of the hardest mountains to climb in the Alps. We were looking directly into the sun so it was hard to see the Chamonix valley and the mountains. Instead of going back the way we came we did a round trip down thirty switchbacks. We stayed another night in the park at the start of the trail and the girls rebuilt their hut.

Today Mum and Dad watched people climbing on the other side of the valley that we walked up. We were going to walk up there today but the weather wasn’t good and we were too late to start. Mum made garlic bread and pizza out of pre-made pastry. We drove back down to Chamonix and watched Paragliders land next to golf course. We talked to a guy and we want to go paragliding now. We drove down the big viaduct and back up to St. Gervais to dump.  We watched Man on a Horse and Cart lead a heard of goats down the main road. We left the Chamonix area and drove towards Italy.We‘ve decided to not take the Mount Blanc tunnel to Italy but go around in the mountains instead.

William's Birthday

We drove to Lake Vouglans which looks like a big zig-zag on the map. We stayed in a little bay with a floating marina and club house that had hot showers and water. The level of the lake was extremely low so the fishing platform and part of the marina were high and dry. On the second day at the lake we had a massive spring clean of our little camper and did washing with the hot water. After lunch we played in the creek and made a dam. We got really muddy and found little crayfish under the rocks on the banks. It was fun and Mum gave us some lollies that we bought in Germany which pop in your mouth.


We spent the next day doing more cleaning up and then went to a Mc Donald’s for internet but the connection was weak so we didn’t get much done. We drove to another France Passion. It was another goat’s cheese farm, we missed the afternoon milking and parked in their paddock. Our hosts were Olivier and Annie Brochet and they had 4 children. We met them and they were happy to show us their operation in the morning at 6:30 when they milk and make their cheese.

On William’s 16th birthday Mum and Dad got up early to milk the goats and watch Annie make some natural goat’s cheese. When us kids woke up we gave William our cards made out of magazines, some body wash and a bag of lollies We had Bacon, Eggs, Pancakes and Honey (there wasn’t any Maple syrup.) and watched a mountain bike rally go by. William taught us how to play a new card game and we all went to the goat shed after lunch. Some of the goats were half black/half white and had shaggy coats. Thomas and Anneke followed the youngest boy (also a William) around and helped remake their chicken hutch and catch all the chickens, ducks and geese and clip their wings so they couldn’t fly. We spoke a little French, some English and a lot of sign language. Maddy was very interested in and liked to cuddle the little Bunny rabbits and Guinea Pigs, she wasn’t happy that they were sold for their meat. Dad, William and Johanna milked the goats and Mum ran around translating for everyone. In the evening some of us walked and rode donkeys up the farm to a stone barn where the Billy Goats were kept.

For William’s Birthday dinner we had Chicken (a substitute for lamb) peas, potatoes and homemade mint sauce. Anneke and Thomas decorated a cake with nutella and lollies shaped like fried eggs. Annie invited us to stay another night in the paddock so we did.

The next day we gave Annie a jar of the Blackberry jam we made in Normandy and we said goodbye. We really liked the set up and simplicity of the way they make their cheese and their close relationship to the land.

We moved on through the foothills of the alps. The trees were all Autumn colours. We stopped for lunch at the top of a small pass with a view of the alps and what we thought was Mount Blanc. We drove on a rickety bridge over the Rhone river. We were going to stay the night at a Aire on lake Annecy but it was quite hot and we were grumpy and tired so we went shopping in Annecy. When we came out of the supermarket it was raining and we had trouble getting under the canopy at the petrol station but we didn’t damage anything. We got oil and an oil filter at a Auto Dealer and drove back along lake Annecy to another Aire that was bigger and less cramped.

In the morning we played on the slippery skate ramps and walked on the jetty of the very clear and light blue lake. A police officer asked us (in French) if we witnessed the robbery of the nearby tennis club that we were unaware of. We drove to a service point south of Geneva and had hot showers and Mum cut the boys hair.

Black Forest to France

We left the Bavarian Alps and drove west towards France, in the rain. We stopped at a German/Swiss cheese farm out of Fussen. They sold huge wheels of dry, holey cheese and we bought some nutty flavoured Swiss Emmenthal. It rained all night and some of us were not feeling well.


We kept driving out of Germany and stopped for lunch on lake Constance. We could see Switzerland on the other side and a huge gray Blimp up in the sky. We drove in camperstop in Donaueschingen where we walked to the spring full of sparkling coins. It is claimed to be the beginning of the Donau river which runs all the way south to the Black sea.

The next day we hiked the up and down the Watach gorge. The rain briefly stopped but the track was very muddy. Sometimes we walked right between the small river and the cliffs or otherwise we were in the trees. Every five minutes we’d break our ‘hiking sticks’ and find a new one on the ground. After two and a half hours we reached a log cabin, had Turkish bread, salami and cheese for lunch and then walked back to the camper. We had to wash our shoes in the river which was feezing.

The next day we drove through the black forest. We stopped at a little waterfall and the leaves were falling off the trees like snow. The views from the windy roads were spectacular. Most of the trees were green and orange but not black.

We could see France from a high hill and drove down to the border not passing any villages. We stopped a ‘Lidl’ supermarket before we crossed over the Rhine river into france and bought as much muesli, bagel crisps and bacon as we could carry. We also recycles all our plastic beer bottles in a special machine and the girls got lots of cardboard boxes to make things with.

Even though there in no border between the Schengen countries we knew we were back in france. We drove to a historic town. The gothic church looked creepy and bony, lit up purple at night. The next day Mum got up earlier than usual and went to the Wednesday mass in French. We climbed up the closest hill and saw ruins of a castle of another hill, smoking factories to our left and the town below. We took a shortcut through some grapes back down. We drove for the rest of the day and got some French bread and cheese at a supermarket. We drove through some very green farmland to a ‘France Passion’ goat’s cheese farm. Our hosts had sixty goats and made seven types different cheese. We watched them milk their goats, make their special cheese and feed the whey to the pigs. There were kittens everywhere and we played with their three grandchildren.