This morning we caught the same bus at 09:36 to Spiez. There we had a 15 minute wait before catching our train to Oberwil where we planned to hike.
We got to Oberwil at 10:45 and the temperature was already 27 degrees! We began our hike up to the mountains through farm roads and fields. It was quite steep and the sun was hot! It was nice once we reached the forested trails. After an hour of hiking, we reached the foot of a small hiking trail that went up to some caves. Sandra and Terris had never been there so we had no idea what to expect. It was incredible! We first hiked straight up a hill and came to a cave with 2 picnic tables, a fire pit, grill, firewood, matches, and cooking utensils. It was a perfect place to have lunch, perched in a cave on the cliffs.
After finishing our lunch, we continued up and explored 3 more caves that dug through the mountain. Some we were able to hike through, others we hiked in and back out. One of the caves was 20 meters up a ladder! It was huge and had 2 levels. It looked like a great place to camp and was a nice cool retreat from the hot sun. The last cave we explored was the largest and went down. It was only 10 meters up a ladder and it had a solar panel that powered lights throughout. There was a rope we had to use going down and back up because the rocks were extremely slippery.
Around 13:30, we started making our way back down to the main walking path to continue our hike toward Weissenburg. We came to a huge swinging bridge that connected the path between the mountain pass. We were so high up that we could barely see the river below our feet. It was an amazing view. After crossing the bridge, we made our way down the trail to the water. Ari and I went swimming in the glacier water. Our feet were numb, but it was so refreshing after a long hike in the heat.
We didn’t have a lot of time to swim because we had to continue on to the the train station. Our train was every hour and we had 40 minutes to get there. We continued down the path to an old archeology site of a hotel that once stood. The rocks still standing were quite impressive. There were also more places to swim in teh river but we didn’t have time. Also, we saw 2 naked men sitting on the rocks below so we decided it wasn’t a good idea to take another dip. We continued on past a picnic area with a field and a lookout tower. Before long, we arrived at the train station.
We timed our hike perfectly and had 7 minutes to wait before our train was scheduled to arrive. It wasn’t an actual station, just a shack, so we had to push a button to let the train know to stop and pick us up. It would have been awful to forget to push the button and watch the train rush past. It only comes once every hour.
We arrived back at Terris and Sandra’s before 17:00. We relaxed and did laundry before dinner. It was another great day in Switzerland!