Summer Time, and the Living is Busy !

Summer Time, and the Living is Busy !!

 Well it seems that since summer finally kicked in she sure has scored good points for effort. With a full week of blissfully hot days and not even a thunderstorm in sight, I feel blessed to be living the dream ;-)). The question often arises, “Where did all the time go?, and such is life here in Interlaken. When the heat is on , so to speak,  it’s always a braai somewhere after work,  fulfilling days in Chli Schliere Canyon, and big nights at the annual Trucker and Country Festival. This weekend I got lucky and scored two days in a row in ‘schliere’, every guides dream. With the water warming up ( a little…) it was great fun hurling ourselves like human lemmings into the fresh mountain pools. Schliere is composed mainly of bedrock limestone, and the character  of the canyon is such like a series of pot holes, with the river pouring itself from one to the next in a stunning array of cascades and waterslides. Guiding through the schliere has to be likened to a controlled lemming march. At times we have two full groups running back to back, that’s 25 guests and 5 staff. Now imagine a train of thirty people clad in wetsuits and helmets, lifejackets and harnesses, lining up on the edge of a 10 metre cliff above a waterfall,  and jumping into the refreshing waters below. As a guide you can sometimes be at one ‘station’ when 25 excited participants line up one by one. Feeling slightly repetitive one deals out the same instruction to every guest, “Put your left foot here, your right hand on my shoulder, and jump just right of where the waterfall lands…. Ready…3-2-1- JUMP!” Somehow though it never get’s boring as everyday it’s meeting new people, and everyone has their own little moment in the canyon which is always funny for the rest of us ;-)). Weather it’s botched jumps, or perfect backflips, everybody has something to add to the trip. We had some classic ‘sky divers’ on Sunday, jumpers who tend to lean too far forward as they jump, adopting the sky diving pose as they plunge towards the pool, and score 10/10 from the guides for ‘bellyflop’ of the day! Bellyflops can also be of benefit, as they help out with a full sinus flush, although they also encourage the stunned beaver look, and definitely bear the brunt of a rather bruised ego! But hey, the amount of humour ( after the initial gasps of shock), by far out-rule any concern for the discomfort of captain skydiver. These photos I took with a 10mm lens, so it picks up an almost 180 degree perspective. Pretty sweet I thought, if I may say so myself.

It’s been a couple of weeks now since the big Greenfields Rock Festival was in town, so what good timing for the Annual Trucker and Country to hit the same venue, the old airfield just on the edge of town. And word on the street is that town and country rocks the hell out of the greenfields gothic freak show. Well one things for sure though and that’s that there was no shortage of freaks walking around the T&C festival either.  Tight cowboy outfits, mullets, tattoos, big bellies and bountiful boobies were out in full force, along with an incredible selection of beautiful machines, from motorbikes to massive trucks, classic cars and countless cranes.  It’s a people watching paradise as all the motor-heads strut their stuff with an air of freakish eccentricity ,  and then there’s line dancing! Jeesh I tell ya, you got to see it to believe it. With bars by the dozen and of course the bumper-car  arena, it’s all round humour, good clean fun some say.

Summer time, too good.

Surfs up in Interlaken!

Surfs up in Interlaken!

 

If the local council here in Interlaken had a few kayakers on their board, then this place would be surf city! Come on Simon, you’d make great Gemeinde material  ;-))

Interlaken,  contrary to popular belief, does not mean  ‘inbetween the sheets’ as one would imagine with all the shenanigans that go on here, but rather  ‘inbetween the Lakes’,  as it is a town that  sits on the flood plain between the Lakes of Brienz and Thun ! The name Thun might ring a bell for some of you as the location for the 2009 World Championship Freestyle Kayaking event.  Well, almost exactly the same set up occurs here in Interlaken. With at least 50 cumecs  squeezing through control gates down man made canals,  it’s not hard to let the imagination wander into the potential of artificial  surf waves.  At certain times of the year,  in spring and autumn usually, when the rivers are low and the lakes reach a particular level,  an epic wave  forms bang slap in the middle of town about a minutes walk from the post office and just upstream from the infamous Anker Bar. Well, with the summer solstice  having just ticked over you may be wandering  why I would be able to write about this amazing phenomenon now ,  but with the weather  we’ve  been having here in the Alps this year, it’s not far off feeling like winter is already approaching!

 In any case,  local swiss guns Simon, Marc and Phil  were heading through town to paddle a secret creek on the weekend when they spotted the ‘Anker Wave’ absolutely going off.  A quick detour to switch their quiver of creek boats for play boats found them back in action and big smiles all around. The following day conditions were still good and Outdoor Interlaken guide extraordinaire  Timmy Flowers joined in the big air carnival  where the boyz were throwing down some pretty stout moves.

The wave is super fast, being squeezed out from under a set of wooden gates down a concrete ramp, and just where the concrete ends into deep water a massive wave kicks up with a testing entry diagonal and a very fast and bumpy ride on an ever changing face. There was just enough foam pile on top of the wave to keep you in the pocket and no shortage of speed and bounce to get some good air.

 It was bloody cold though I must say, and with a consistent slight drizzle it wasn’t exactly the best conditions to take action photos,  but I reckon they came out alright. The sun came out briefly just at the right time to warm up and refuel with sandwiches and tea,  big thanks to Annie,  and the session continued.

Looks we might have to wait till September before we can surf this beauty again because as I write this it’s blue skies above and the big orange faced guy in the sky is smiling his radiant waves upon us. Yay, summer is finally here!!

 

Switzerland Rocks!

One of the big bonuses of working a season through the European summer is all the Rock Festivals that go down,  and what better way to kick off the ‘festive season’ than a personal invite to see AC/DC on their World Black Ice Tour. You see, sometimes in life it’s not about ‘what’ you know, but rather ‘who’ you know! It was whilst helping out Region X Rivers kayak school in Chile that I made a good connection with none other than ‘Rockin’ Rich’,  an old time metal head that shared an interest in kayaking.  And so it came as a pleasant surprise when he contacted me and said that he was on tour with AC/DC and that he could organise a few free passes. Bloody lucky for that because word was that the concert in Switzerland was sold out within 10 minutes , and tickets were only available on E-Bay for $300 a piece!  Nothing like free passes to fire up the mood,  and it wasn’t  difficult to persuade long time partners in crime Rayno and Timmy to take the afternoon off work, so with six pack in hand we  journeyed to Bern on the comfortable upperdeck lounge of the punctual Berner Oberland Bahn and met up with Rockin’ Rich at the Roadies Bus Park.  A quick tour (and a beer)  of their ‘on the road luxury bus living conditions’ found us being escorted in through the back entrance  of the stadium and shown our ‘exclusive’ seating within the security fence at the base of the sound and camera tower! Nice one Rockin’ Rich, we owe you big time my friend ;-)) Rich did however state that we had to be on best behaviour as the tower was sensitive to movement with the camera and microphone mounts….. Best Behaviour!!! RIGHT! It’s an AC/DC concert for crying in a bucket! Anyhows, we managed through the support act, old time swiss rockers KROKUS, who funnily enough used to be bigger than AC/DC back in the day, and word has it that AC/DC actually opened for KROKUS on one of their earlier tours! We even kept a check on our behaviour a fair bit into AC/DC, with only a few sideways glances from the security guys,  but it all became too much when the band fired up THUNDERSTRUCK, and our itchy feet could no longer resist a good stomping. Thus we were  politely escorted out of our ‘V. I. P.’ zone and into the mob. Well I can only say that things became a bit blurred from here out, but it was happiness all the way and I can for sure say that those guys still rock for a bunch of old aussie buggers!

It never rains it pours they say, and just as I was recovering from AC/DC it was time for the annual Greenfields Festival, a three day rock festival which pulls in about 25000 rockers who camp in the old airfield on the edge of town, where  for three days about 40 bands play, and the airfield is turned into a mini instant city with bars, clubs and restaurants…and thousands of freaks dressed in black and ready to let rip. Outdoor Interlaken run a small stand there with a skateboard ramp,  where people can book activities, or even win free skydiving and canyoning trips. It’s always good to be involved with events like this because once again I was able to organise a crew pass and free license to PARTY!! The line up was stout with British legends The Prodigy headlining on the Friday night, and German freaks Ramstein doing their thing on the Saturday. Ramstein do quite the unique act and if you’ve never seen them before you should atleast check out one of their shows on You Tube to get an idea of what I’m talking about. Half the fun is just being in amongst  the crowd,  where  people watching is a highly entertaining activity.  Apart from seeing some really cool acts from all the bands, it’s great to be partying at such a big festival with the other guides and staff from the outdoor companies. We’re a pretty tight knit crew here  and so we work hard and play hard together... Good times!

Plans are already in the making to see some other concerts this summer,  so stay tuned and I’ll keep you posted.