We have decided to make the journey back less tiring. We start in the valley shortly after 8am in 8°C weather. It is pretty cold, but the sun is shining. Indeed, it is warmer further down. We have to take our heavy clothes off again in Brig.
Here we take the train to Kandersteg. We could buy 2 train tickets, but neither the website nor the faqs say anything about bikes and what we should do with them. After half an hour at the train station Klaus finds out that a regular train ticket is needed to be able to bring both bikes. The trip to Kandersteg takes 45 minutes.
The path goes steeply down-hill from there - over gravel! For kilometers it is too dangerous to ride, because the wheels slip. We need to push our bikes down-hill. It is too slow for us in the long run, and we find our way back to the street instead. We come across a very small bridge that is just wide enough for our bikes and bags. On the other side of the bridge is the Blausee (Blue Lake in English), which is filled with tourists.
On the street we are able to continue more quickly. The terrain is glorious. Landscape-wise, today is definitely the nicest day so far. When the path does not go as steeply down-hill as before, we take the bike paths recommended by the app again. But alas, the app chose the shortest route and did not take slopes into consideration. So we end up coming to an area where our wheels have to go roughly 500m steeply uphill. But even that is soon accomplished, and we are rewarded shortly after with bike paths in glorious surroundings. We ride along the Emme River through the Emme valley. Emmentaler cheese comes from here. . .
We finally arrive at the campground in Burgdorf. We set our tents up quickly, and then we go to a pizzeria, where I have time to write this report. We want to get as close to Bad Säckingen as possible tomorrow, because we want to enjoy the sauna at the thermal bath there again.