In search of magic

On Saturday we reluctantly packed up our beautiful little Gite and prepared ourselves to set off on the next stage of our adventure. It was bittersweet to leave Fontainebleau; the beauty, richness of culture and amazing climbing that Fontainebleau offered astounded me each and every day and I know that I will forever look back on these three weeks fondly. Fontainebleau really was, in every sense, the perfect start to our holiday; I cannot recommend a trip here highly enough, and if you are in the area Gite Kailloux is a perfect little retreat after a long day on the blocks. But as the old adage goes, 'all good things must come to an end', for if they do not you may never know the magic that is just around the corner. Off we set in search of some more magic...

We headed into Paris on Saturday afternoon, Josh again handling Paris' traffic like an absolute champion, and soon we were back at Gare de Lyon and car-less again. The plan was that we would head straight to Gare du Nord and drop off our packs and the enormous Gandalf the Red (Josh's new Moon Pad - which is also amazing if you are in the market for a new bouldering pad) and then go see some sights before meeting up with Heidi at 8:00pm. Onto the tube it was....we thought we were doing amazingly when we boarded the train that would deliver us directly to Gare du Nord, the less time we had with our stupidly HEAVY packs the better, however we did not get there without a couple of hiccups. First, there was the moment that I realised that Josh couldn't climb the steps of the train without potentially severely injuring people with the 50kg pack and giant boulder pad that were strapped to him and I couldn't lift my pack up from where I had set it down upstairs without his help...now is the perfect time for me to mention how friendly, accommodating, helpful and genuinely nice every French person we met was to us; look lost, someone helps you (IN ENGLISH!), can't lift your pack, someone lifts it for you (WITHOUT YOU EVEN ASKING), it seemed like help in Paris was only the next person away every time we needed it! Crisis averted! We both managed to get off of the train with our packs and we were again on our way. Upon emerging from the station we soon realised that we had exited at the wrong station, but thankfully tube stations in Paris are quite close together and we were only about 300m from Gare du Nord and relief from our packs.

Once we got to Gare du Nord the confusion continued, I had found a luggage storage place in the station on the internet the previous night, however as I searched the station (which might I add is not exactly small) the luggage storage place was nowhere to be found. I left Josh with the packs and continued the scouting mission alone, attempting to recruit the help of anyone I could with my terrible French. The first person I asked, a soldier, advised me that there was no luggage storage in the station. The second, the information booth worker, told me to go upstairs. The third, the upstairs information booth worker, told me downstairs....and on and on it went until I came back to tag in Josh. It turns out, with exception of the soldier, all versions were correct, the luggage store was downstairs, however you had to take one specific escalator to it from upstairs haha...I would never have figured that out! So, after 2.5 hours, we had managed to navigate to Gare du Nord and find the luggage store, in mere moments we would be without all our bulk and free to peruse the streets of Paris with only a day pack....well, so we thought....

At the luggage store we soon found out that Josh's pad was far too big to fit in even the biggest of lockers and no amount of negotiation was going to convince the guy to store it elsewhere, so an evening out in Paris with Gandalf it was to be, at least we were not carrying the packs any more.

Gandalf negotiates another tube system!

Having already explored London with Gandalf we were confident that having Gandalf with us would not stop us from seeing anything we wanted to and so we headed out. Our first stop was Avenue de Champs-Elysees, as we strolled from Champs-Elysees-Clemenceau to the Arc de Triomphe I think more people were taking photos and staring at Josh with his giant red pad than were looking at the actual sights, I don't imagine many boulder pads have walked the Avenue de Champs-Elysees from top to bottom. We took our time taking it all in and sat at the Arc de Triomphe watching the traffic from 12 roads chaotically force themselves around the seven unmarked lanes of the Arc de Triomphe roundabout...in one word it was hectic, and we were thankful to be merely observing it rather than participating in the madness.

Arc de Triomphe

Once our feet were rested we walked back down the Champs-Elysees towards the Louvre through the Tuileries Garden. The Garden is magnificent, the sculptures and impressive arches the adorn each and every corner combined with the beauty of a seemingly ever stretching sculpted garden full of spring blossoms was awe inspiring, it is little wonder that so many people chose to spend their Saturday afternoon lazing on the deck chairs circling the fountains. We continued onto the Louvre and sat beside the ponds watching people around us until it was time to head back to the station and make our way to Gare de Lyon again to meet Heidi. We sat on Gandalf in the middle of the square outside the main entrance until we saw Heidi come out of one of the far doors, it was clear she had spotted us when she burst into laughter at us on our massive, bright red pad! Being the trooper she is she was not deterred and into the night we went. First stop Moufftard, somehow Heidi managed to negotiate with the owner of an awesome Sushi restaurant to store our pad in their shop across the road so that we could eat there. The food was amazing, the company was even better! After dinner we headed to Saint-Michel for drinks, fortunately there was a 24hr bar that, in spite of their super overpriced menu, provided us with a comfy place to hang out until it was time for Heidi to leave us to catch the last train home. Despite her numerous generous offers to have us stay the night Josh and I decided that the late start of the train system in Paris on Sundays would make for a stressful morning and so, instead, into the night we continued. We made our way over to Notre Dame, as it was only a stone's throw from where we were and sat in front of this magnificent structure for about an hour just enjoying being with each other in this beautiful city before we headed back to Gare du Nord before the trains stopped for the night. Across from the station was another 24hr cafe that we hung out at enjoying the warmth, coffees and a delicious Creme Brulee. After a couple of hours passing time outside the station playing Yatzee, the sun was rising over the city of Paris and the station was open. We collected our bags without a hitch and made our way to Gare de Lyon to catch the TGV to Zurich.

We boarded the train, stashed our belongings (we made an effort to board as early as possible to find room for all of our stuff) and found 'our seats' seats 100 and 101 upstairs, it didn't take long for us to realise that we had made a mistake, this was a first class carriage and we had second class tickets, oops. Off the train, with our bags, we were an obstacle to everyone trying to board, and then back on on the second class carriage. We moved around the luggage in the store trying to make room for our bags and the pad and tried to find our seats, are you kidding, we did it again!!! This is carriage 15 we are seated on 17 - until this point I hadn't even realised the carriages had numbers haha! Okay off again, shit the train is leaving in like 2 minutes, Josh ran from one carriage to another with our gear as I ensured we were actually on the right carriage. Somehow we managed to find an almost empty luggage hold that fit our packs perfectly with Gandalf resting against (I am almost certain the pad would have been an obstacle for almost everyone exiting before Zurich haha), we collapsed into our seats just as the conductor blew his whistle signifying that the train was leaving and fell into a well deserved sleep for most of the four hour journey.

Once we were in Zurich it was my turn to do the talking, Josh did amazingly in France with his French and so the bar was set high. My German is bad at the best of times, but in Switzerland it is as if they are not even talking German. I made my way to the ticket office, after a failed attempt at using the automatic ticket machine, and tried to buy us tickets to Ausserferra via Chur and Andeer. The lady at the ticket counter told me that the bus from Chur to Andeer was by reservation only and that we had to be there at least one hour before to try to reserve a seat, that is if there are any seats available which there may not be. She also told me that the train to Chur was not direct, that we needed to change at Landquart. With this information we headed to our designated platform and awaited the arrival of our train. All of the information on the boards seemed to suggest that the train terminated in Chur and that we didn't need to catch a second train at all - we decided to recheck with the conductor on board. In my terrible German I asked if we needed to get off at Landquart and catch another train to Chur (not being able to pronounce this cities name did NOT help! After many attempts I now think it may be pronounced 'Core' or something along those lines). The conductor confirmed that we needed to swap trains at Landquart and so once we arrived we disembarked and looked around for the train for Chur. That cant be right, the platform we got of at said Chur and had a departure time one minute after we arrived. I asked a lovely older lady which was the train to Chur and much to our disappointment she pointed to the train that we had just got off that was now leaving the station! Crap! Fortunately, the lady found us another train to Chur that was leaving in 15 minutes and walked us to the platform, what a legend!

As the train we were on began stopping at every station we became more aware of the time, we had hopped off of the express train and were now on the 'stop-at-every-station-even-if-it-is-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-and-no-one-is-there-train'. We had four stations until Chur and 15minutes until reservations for the last bus out of Chur closed...normally the thought of spending a night in a station wouldn't upset me too much, we had our sleeping bags, our thermarests and all of our warm clothes, BUT we had already spent the whole night awake in Paris and all I wanted was to get to our end destination and have a good night sleep. We rushed up to the bus station and I ran over to the ticket office where I was advised that reservations for our bus were closed! Damn! As I explained that we needed to be on this bus to get to our destination in my bad German, the lady looked something up on her computer and suddenly, somehow, we were allowed on the bus without a reservation! Awesome!!! Lady Luck is certainly on our side! We had an hour to wait before our bus left, and honestly I cant think of anywhere more beautiful to be stuck for an hour.

Hanging out at Chur waiting for the bus

We got off at Andeer and waited for our next bus, the last of our journey, to Schmelzi. The 10 minute bus ride took us into the heart of a snow capped mountain range. As we got off of the bus at Schmelzi and looked around we knew the next chapter of our adventure would be filled with Magic. The sound of the water of the rapid stream below us was only outdone by the booming of the waterfall that fed into the stream directly opposite from where we began pitching our tent. The pine forest was lush and green and there was still enough snow on the ground for a snowball fight. Here we were at our new home, Magic Wood, aptly named actually, and all our sadness about leaving Fontainebleau dissipated instantly.

Unfortunately, we were counting on there being somewhere to buy food at the campground, the website suggested that there was a shop open until 10pm, we have since found out that this is peak season only, and so we had no food with us. We had seen a guest house on the way to camp from Andeer and so we decided to try to walk there, after getting within meters of it (not knowingly, the mountains obstruct your view of what is nearby) we turned around and decided to try to find food in the morning.

The next morning we headed to Andeer to do some grocery shopping and to feed ourselves for the first time in about 36 hours. We had been told that shopping in Switzerland is SUPER expensive, but this is not at all what we found. Certain items, such as instant coffee are extortionately priced but everything else is pretty much the same as Australia...a pleasant surprise.

After something to eat we headed out into the forest to look around, it had rained overnight so it was far too wet to climb but the beauty of the forest was beckoning us, so we decided to get out into it. There are not enough adjectives to describe how wonderfully beautiful the forest is here, not in my vocabulary at least....it is magical, enchanted, vibrant and alive. Walking along the little paths through the lush forest makes you feel as though have been transported into a fairy tale, that any second an elf or talking deer will come around the corner, as though dragons exist and live in the caves in the mountains ahead, as though anything dreamed could also exist here in this place.

I have not yet had the chance to climb here, Josh has managed to get out onto the blocks once, but conscious of not re-injuring myself I am waiting until the rock dries out almost completely so to avoid slipping and potentially hurting myself. We have been here for a week today and though I have not climbed, I have also not been wanting for things to do, the people sharing our camp from all around the world are awesome and card games at the cosy and convenient Edelweiss Gasthaus help pass the rainy times. This place is truly magical and once again I find myself in a state of disbelief at how lucky I am to find myself here!