A week in Switzerland

Photos by Eva

I had made plans a little while ago to head to Switzerland this month, with the intention of going to some herding clinics that Lynn Leach was across from Canada teaching and to make another big road trip out of it. Well I booked the herding clinics, made some plans, and then discovered I had got dates mixed up for work and booked some work in for that time also. So being the crazy person I am, we still went ahead with the trip but I had to cut it back to a week and only 2 days of herding. It turns out its probably just as well as my car is still broken and I had to take a hire car which adds $$$$ (or should I say pounds but the symbols not working on my keyboard..). None the less it was an absolutely brilliant week ago.

So after finishing work on the monday morning I headed to Folkstone where we boarded the eurotunnel (basically a big drive-on train). 30 minutes later we were in France. From Calais we headed SE and stopped overnight in a Belgian town that had not much going for it.

Tuesday was spent driving - heading through some countryside of Belgium, through Luxembourg and stopping in Luxembourg for lunch just because I could! And then on as far as Strasbourg that afternoon.

The walls of Luxembourg:

Wednesday I decided to take a little detour and we cut across through the Black Forest in Germany. I dont know what I expected of the Black Forest but it wasnt what we saw. It was beautiful and not nearly as dark and scary as I anticipated :) Certainly not Hansel & Gretel material, at least from what I saw. And then stopped at Konstanz on the German/Swiss border for lunch. By wednesday evening we finally arrived in Switzerland.

Driving through the Black Forest:

Konstanz:

Switzerland at lastt..

We spent 2 nights staying at a lodge in Grinswald, a town in the Bernese Oberland near Interlaken. It was a truly fantastic experience. The surrounding countryside picture-perfect, the weather perfect, and lots of glorious hiking. Im going to upload the photos in a seperate post as theres far too many to chose from!

Friday afternoon we headed back north to Bischofszell, near Zurich for some herding. Here we were greeted by a wonderful group of other cattle dog enthusiasts, and got to catch up again with Lynn. What a brilliant weekend. The clinics were hosted by the Uttingers at their beautiful facilities - their property was right on the river, by 2 bridleways. They had a restaurant Gertau, some rooms to stay, and stables for horses of people stopping for lunch. And most importantly, herding facilities! The clinic was full of cattle dogs and a lone kelpie. Most of the dogs were new to herding but it wasnt long before they were doing some nice work.

I was very happy with Hollie , especially by the sunday when really picked up her act and was doing some very nice work. And after working on the taxing stuff, the easy stuff seems easy. Im just sorry that we didnt get to stay for longer and more training. And as for Tooheys? Well some things will never change..

Photos thanks to Eva:

So finally sunday night one tired person and 2 exhausted dogs started the 9hr treck back to Calais to catch the eurotunnel back to England in time for the following weeks work.