Swiss O Week - Day 2

Tuesday, 14 July 2026

Today we had lateish starts again which meant that Jon and I could jump in the car and do a quick trip to France for some supermarket shopping as the prices in the small swiss supermarket in Morgins were like shopping at Hill Street Grocery but everying is in Swiss Francs.  The French one was much more palatable although it was still AUD $300 for a few days worth of food.  

After a quick turnaround we headed off to the event, picking up Dani along the way. Today's adventure involved a 30 minute drive, then a long chairlift up to the event centre.  What we forgot to factor in with our timing was that we had a 10 minute walk to get to the chairlift from the parking (consequence of late starts) , then a 20 minute wait in the queue at the chairlift - not because of orienteers but because we were clearly at the french epicentre of downhill mountainbiking and there were hundreds of people going up with the chairlift with their bikes as well as us.

Once at the event centre, I had to leave fairly quickly to get the next chairlift up to the start of the long and very steep walk to the actual start. I had no time to spare but then I made it worse for myself by forgetting my whistle and having to rush back to our gear to grab it. Luckily I was only turned away at the chairlift, not at the start!

At the top of that chairlift we had a steep descent followed by a lung busting long climb up and up and up. 

By that time I had resigned myself to being late to my start for the first time ever, so I didn't further stress myself by looking at my watch or attempting to run the uphill.  Amazingly though I made it with zero seconds to spare - my only resting time was the 4 minutes they give you in the pre-start area. 

The start flag 

The orienteering itself was pretty cool - at least the downhill parts - it was very very tough going and despite the huge climb to the start there was still a fair bit of climb in the course. I think I enjoyed it? I definitely enjoyed finishing it!

Here I was procrastinating as I had to go down and then up to the right of the outcrop in front of me.. 

Zali chose not to attempt the run  today - put off by the climb to the start plus the climb on her course, and spent the time sketching on her ipad - I love her sketch of the view from where we were sitting. 

The cows at the last control.  A little while later they wandered calmly through everyone at the arena, crushing at least one compass along the way! 

After we all made it back we chairlifted back down to the car and spent the rest of the afternoon doing as close to nothing as possible.