2 July 2025 (sunny and extremely hot) 42km

Was woken at 3am by Roger breaking camp. Are you bloody joking me? He asked us last night what time we were leaving and when we said 6am, he said that was good for him too.  I listened to him rustling plastic bags around in his backpack and watched him traipse back and forth to the toilet in that time period, eight times. The people in the vans that he had to walk past must have been pissed off. Trying to keep him quiet as we said goodbye was a bit of a mission.  We broke camp at 6.05am and headed straight into a 1.5km nightmare hill.

Imagine (for those living in New Plymouth) Bayly Road for 1.5 kms with a fully laden bike, virtually right away. Attempted the first part and thought,   "I'm going to injure myself here ‘cause I haven't warmed up at all.  "We both pushed our bikes up. 

We were not impressed breaking into a sweat before 6.30am as this was supposed to be our cool morning ride time. When we got to the top we could see Geneva spread out before us and lac du Leman glinting in the morning sun, which just meant one thing….time to "relax, cos it was all downhill from here!" Yeehaa! 7.5 km of it. And like most cities, they had their bike routes well marked out so we made our way easily to the lakefront. On a tiny little bridge on a bike shortcut, we crossed into Swiss territory.

Unfortunately, Geneva is more the hub of the government sector and big business, a bit like it was forty years ago and nothing much has changed. It certainly has none of the charm of Annecy that we could see.

The women's football Euro finals kicked off today in Switzerland. We cycled past the fan zone which I imagine will be pumping tonight.

Took a couple of photos and rode alongside the lake heading toward Montreux.

Speaking of photos. We apologize for the lack of quality on some but sometimes with poor WiFi it's just easier to get them on the blog via Messenger, which means a drop in quality.

The further out of Geneva we got, the better the riding became. We needed some breakfast and after we'd reached the 20km mark for the day, we came across a Manor supermarket, which was also our first visit to a Swiss supermarket. We had stopped off in Geneva to get some Swiss francs and got 500 of them for $1000NZ.

Looking at the prices in this very upmarket supermarket, we decided to forgo our usual punnet of blueberries as they were $13NZ!! And when we handed over a 100 Swiss franc note to pay for our shopping, even though that is the equivalent of $200NZ, the cashier didn't bat an eyelid. 

Ate our breakfast at the shady tables outside and then decided to treat ourselves to coffee. Costing about $8 a piece for a cappuccino, they were disappointingly watery. But we certainly enjoyed our extended sit in the shade.

Set off again on the V46 Lac du Leman circuit and were at an elevated height so the views were good.  Riding amongst crops with horses also prominent in this area.  Warming up by now and by the time we made Hermance, it was time for a swim.  Hermance is a beautiful old village with an abundance of guest houses. Architecture is stunning.

At the bottom of the hill was the lake with a designated swimming area, but we're Kiwis, so we went over by the loos, where we'd just changed and had a lovely clear swimming spot to ourselves. 

Ju here: while Pete was busy taking a photo of a church, (again), I was checking our route and saw we were very close to the lake and there was a toilet down there. When he came back from his photo jaunt, I said I really needed the loo, pretty sure that once he saw the beach, I wouldn't need to say anything. Sure enough, by the time I came out of the loo, he said, “there's a beach just there, but the water looks pretty good here.” 

“Doesn't it?” I agreed.  Is that manipulative or just knowing your spouse better than he knows himself? But shhh….back to Pete.

Even the toilet looked quaint.

Enjoyed a good hour there and feeling refreshed (wefweshed...as Madeleine Kahn would say...you've got to know Gene Wilder movies for that one) we headed back up the gentle gradient to continue. It wasn't long before we passed the abandoned border control hut and we're back in France.

In the village of Chens sur Leman we were going to buy lunch at a restaurant, but it was only pizza, and they wouldn't have "Sans gluten".  Visited a Spar store (not the Travelocity gnome Georgina) and picked up salmon, lettuce, rocket, tomato, pear and Creme Fraiche. Mixed them all together and....delicious.

Cycled to a park around the corner and sheltered under a pergola from the sun, all the while watching the thunder clouds roll in from the other side of the lake.

Then it was into the breach.  Funnily enough, the breach didn't last long.  39kms in we rode past a camp in searing heat and decided to call It quits.  So, very little cycling today, but we've got lots coming up.

Camp has a pool and wifi (but they charged two euro each phone).  We did get power banks charged, but reception here closes at 6pm so not sure how effective that will be.  Seems to be a lot of permanents here and a lot of teenagers.  In smaller, out of the way camps, we leave phones or chargers in the bathrooms overnight.  Wouldn't take that chance here. 

Our site is hard packed dirt which I'm not sure we'll get pegs in and stone, which as you can imagine is rock hard.  Set up the inner, but left fly off for now and over to the pool.  Quite busy at this camp but grabbed two loungers in the shade and went in. Nice enough, but it ain't glacial that's for sure.  After another dip, we indulged in ice-creams by Nui which are like Magnums. No earthshaking flavours though.

Have noticed all the showers are at a preset temperature so will be hot or at least warm. A quick check of the disabled one and we found our cold shower so we'll be in there before bed to cool off.

Something I've noticed when putting the date and weather in at the top of the page each day. As soon as I type S and then U, sunny comes up on predictive text and as soon as I've selected that, “and extremely hot” comes up without me typing anything!

At 6.30pm we grabbed cold showers and cycled into Messery in search of a restaurant. I had to practically drag Pete as anything with Mess in the name and he didn't want a bar of it. I am convinced that's the prime reason he never really appreciated the skills of Lionel Messi, he kept wondering just what state his house was in.  Anyway, Messery yielded nothing so after just a short 3km ride, we were both drenched in sweat, so another cold shower before seeing what the camp restaurant had on offer.

It was a Swiss specialty of baked cheese with salad and prosciutto….and it was bloody delicious and perfect for a hot night. Or maybe that was the iced wine and cold beer that were perfect. Whatever, we were thoroughly glad we'd come back to camp to eat. It also meant we didn't have to drink and pedal, plus that one cold disabled shower was always in our sights, just waiting for us to finish dinner.

After telling the waitress how much we enjoyed the meal, she sent the chef over, who was also her husband of three months. We picked up a distinct Scottish accent and sure enough, his parents are Scottish but he was born in Switzerland. He told us the dish we had was called malakoff, and was invented in the Crimean war between the Swiss, the English and the French.  Then he tells us his new wife, the waitress, is a good singer and was on the Voice. And it just happens to be karaoke night tonight.

So Pete put his name down to sing and after about six French songs by different people, he got up in the restaurant and sang Yesterday, by the Beatles which was very well received. Two tables were even singing along, even though it was in English.

Then the waitress got up and sang Amy Winehouse, Back to Black and absolutely nailed it. What a voice!  Great evening and we rounded it off with a call to Toff, by which time it was cool enough and dark enough to sleep.