DAY 78 WEDNESDAY JUNE 10 - THE FOG STARTS TO LIFT

We woke up and the fog was still there.  In the paddock behind the chalet there are four cows with bells around their necks.

We could hear the bells but they were invisible when only 50 meters away.  We have this house under control now.  The TV needed to be put under the domination of a set top box and is now behaving itself, even playing DVDs without outside help.  The washing machine does what it is told as long as we turn the water tap on more than one turn.  The stove refuses to cooperate unless you close the door.  This is the first time we have had to grill our toast with the door shut, but it worked well.  The Wifi is excellent but needs a lesson involving 26 alphanumerics before starting work.  We hope the owners do not mind if every time we take something from a cupboard we forget where it came from and return it at random.  All in all we feel so comfortable here that the fog has persuaded us to lie back and just think about going out.

By 10am we decided we needed more butter for lunch so we made another supermarket raid.  On the way we saw an empty cafe/bar which turned out to be open and stopped for a morning coffee/banana juice.  They had no cakes and the boulangerie is closed on Wednesdays so we fed ourselves on fig and apricot biscuits all day.

Malcolm braved the tourism office, hoping to do better than yesterday, and actually did so.  A woman and man were keen to assist and sold us an excellent map of the local walks for 3 euros.  Of course the Bouddi Walks brochures are only $2 but we have already got our money's worth out of the Thollon map.

The Telecabine is in the middle of town and is designed to get people to the ski field.  The unusual name suggests a "beam me up" procedure, but it is just a series of nice gondolas that hold up to 10 people on seats that take 6 in comfort and these are whisked up to 1600 meters on a cable in a few minutes.  The thick fog deterred us from jumping in, but since the telecabine is only operating on weekends and Wednesdays, today is our only chance, as we can ride the bus down to Evian on Saturday and Sunday.  So we put it off till after lunch and did a local round walking tour instead.  For those in the know, we went to Les Effales and along the forest track to the Reservoir, down to Chez Jacquier and out to Lajoux and Grand Roc.  By the time we got back we were really ready for lunch.  The forest was quite thick and enjoyable.

The wildflowers were mostly pastel shades and delicate but incredibly prolific.  There were masses of buttercups and even yellow ranunculus and white blossoms .

 We passed a few neglected buildings, one of which had trees growing on the roof.

  At Grand Roc we came to the Point de Vue, about which we had a negative point of view ourselves, but we will try to get back here when the fog lifts.

On the way back we passed a grotto which has been dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes and is the scene of local catholic ceremonies.

After this walk we feel well orientated to the town and are ready to venture further.  So at 2:30 we paid 5 euros each and hopped into the slowly moving "cabine",  which then speeded up and we were overlooking the town immediately.

  At the top we found the views south to the alps were much clearer than the views north over Lake Geneva.

We walked a kilometre to the Pic des Memises along a path with a long drop on the right.  The view here at 1674 meters was well worth the climb.

  We thought there would be very few people coming up here today, but when we started back we were passed by a group of about thirty seniors heading for the Pic.

  Then behind them were another two groups of the same size, so we congratulated ourselves on beating the rush as we so often succeed in doing.  The last three in this cavalcade were stopped on the track while the man talked on his mobile.
  

The two ladies were bored so they kindly practised their English on us and Malcolm practised his French.  They had travelled from Marseille, which seems quite a long bus trip.

The challenge for us was to descend 560 metres on a very steep rocky track to get back to Thollon.  The sign said one hour and it took us exactly that, but we took it very carefully and slipped on the stones regularly.  It reminded us of that horrible hill in the Watagans on the Great North Walk.  The knees were feeling sore when we got back to the Chalet and we flopped onto the lounge.  We were very pleased we did not miss the telecabine trip; it was beaut.