Friday 12 July
25km (64km) – 670m ascent – 1940m descent

In the 8 man bunk, we were on the top bunk and had carefully placed some head torches on the shelf above us in case somebody needed to get up in the night. In my efforts not to wake a single person I took a head torch and didn’t turn it on until I was out of the room and also tried not to make my sleeping bag rustle too much. Mother was a different story; grappled for the head torch and as a result caused it to come crashing down – onto my face. She then proceeded to flick through every single light mode (bright, flashing, slower flashing ect.) shining it directly into my eyes (in an effort to find the dim mode – she claims) both leaving and coming back to bed. As for the rest of the day, it is safe to say the guide book essentially lied. As did the road signs. “Oh it’s only 6 hrs 45 mins to Samoéns” – we walked for nine. As for the road signs, well I’m relatively sure it was “2 hrs to Samoéns” for about 4 hrs and Mother and I began to formulate plans as to how we might ‘accidentally’ cause people to depart from their bikes rather rapidly in order that we may steal them and ride off to town (it was either this or hot-wiring cars). Early on in the day an attempt was made to cover my sunburnt patch; apparently that failed as I am now a little blistered and I was quite sure I would have no toes left after the approximately 3 hour descent, but we made it! And all trudged into Samoéns pretty much dead. Here’s hoping tomorrow will be a little less harsh on the feet!

A bit late updating due to a lack of internet…