Some thoughts on being adventurous

I've always called this trip an adventure rather than a holiday.  It's about experiencing life and different places and trying things in a different way.  Of course you may do these things during a holiday too but I tend to think of holidays as specifically relaxation and taking a break from normal life.  So having set off with adventure in mind I thought now that we are entering the latter weeks of our time here I would share some thoughts and experiences related to being adventurous.  Hopefully they share with you some of the ups and downs.

By the way, if you're interested, I read a great book which Melle bought me for Christmas Adventure Stories for Adults.  I really recommend it as not only does it give some great ideas but also, I think, shares the spirit of adventure.  It was so good I finished it before we even set off and now Melle, having read her own books, is enjoying it too.

So one of the things I've tried to do is different things every day.  Obviously this was quite easy in the early stages as we travelled through Europe in Homer stopping in places we'd never been to before.  Our first stop was in a little town in northern France called 'Bailleul' which had been levelled to the ground during the 1st World War and so was steeped in history from that time.  As our car park for the night was just behind the war memorial in the centre of town (see pic below) and we spent our first morning in France having a walk around the town and we visited a coffee bar where we were welcomed by all people we met.  Our first use of 'Bonjour' was certainly very positive.  During the second day we went into Belgium searching out someone who could fix our kitchen tap - which had broken and was leaking badly.  After throwing ourselves at the mercy of a local Motorhome supplier were directed to a great little independent company BJM Tech who supplied and fixed a new tap and also sorted a dodgy lock on one of our cupboards for free.  I'm not sure if they just felt sorry for us or it was because they just normally provide brilliant service but we'll always remember them for reminding us of the kindness that people can show.  When you're adventurous sometimes I think you get to see this more often whether it's people on ski lifts, in picnic places or in campsites.  Funnily enough I think you also see more of it when we are in adversity during the colder and snowy days in January.  Being adventurous every day has felt more difficult as time has moved on and weather conditions have improved too.  Inevitably as you become more settled you can easily slip into a life with less adventure, which might be as simple as having the same wine or beer at the same bar when you go out or choosing the same cheese at the local supermarket.  It took a while but there probably aren't many of the pistes within any of the resorts in Grand Massif that we haven't skied and of course there are a number that we have skied on more than one occasion.  It's certainly been great exploring the skiing resorts and we are still adding new adventures including picnic spots and this week we've started to try to visit new resteraunts for a morning coffee.  Although again when you find a really good coffee bar you do start wanting to go back every day. 

As we have become more confident with Homer, and I think he has become more confident too, we have also ventured a little more out of our comfort zone with places we've adventured to.  Of course you'll be aware of visits inspired by friends, to Genveva, to La Clusaz and to Switzerland and last week, perhaps buoyed by the success of these visits and maybe also by the good weather we decided to drive up to Col de Joux Plane.  Follow link for more details but essentially it's a very high mountain pass, often included in the Tour De France cycle race (which is of course in the summer), near Samoens.  We had heard you can go by local bus and we were going to do this but the times didn't suit so I quickly said 'let's just drive up in Homer'.  Like me, you might think this should be fairly straightforward if a local bus goes up there but we hadn't realized that it's 12 kilometres away and that the road goes up and up through many many many switchbacks and there are often sheer drops along what feels like an increasingly narrow road.  Near the top there is an impressive marked walk from the car park to the superb view from mountain top over Le Giffre valley and as far as Mont Blanc (see pics below) but I spent the whole of that walk there and back worrying about the drive back down the mountain.  The journey down was fine btw - see time lapse video below for proof we made it in one piece - and I've reflected since that I needn't have worried but perhaps should've done a little more research in advance!

This week perhaps reflecting on the learning from the mountain drive, and after saying for a long time I wasn't interested, I decided to ski the black run at the top of the Tete De Saix mountain.  Even though I have skied black runs before I can tell you my heart was beating pretty fast and adrenalin pumping when I looked down the run from the top.  You can watch the result in the you tube clip below - note my little whoop of joy after I got to the bottom.

After starting our adventure on a campsite and then spending a couple of weeks in the Aire at Sixt Fer-A-Cheval we have also been enjoying the experience of finding local places to stay off grid for the night (see pic below of Homer and friend in Samoen leisure centre car park where we've stayed quite often).  These were probably also inspired a bit by our trips to Geneva and La Clusaz and have meant that we have been able to experience more of the communities that form the whole of the Grand Massif.  It can also save us a few euros which allow us to enjoy a meal and a drink out occasioally too. Last week we stayed in the gondola station car park in Vercland which is a 'commune' slightly uphill from the main town of Samoens.  Not only did this provide us with a queue free trip up the mountain in the morning, there is also a great red run into the town so it was virtually ski in ski out.  And we enjoyed Apre Ski in the local bar and a night out for a lovely meal there on our second night - see pics below including one of Melle trying to drink her own bodyweight in beer blanche 😁.  The only downside was lack of services and poor mobile signal meaning we couldn't get good enough wifi for Melle to teach so we had to come down to the main town the next day.  A first world problem we can live with I think.

Finally I would say that it is difficult to be truly adventurous every day.  We are incredibly lucky to be able to go on this adventure to fulfil an ambition of mine to spend a season in the Alps - both skiing and experiencing everything this community and environment has to offer. But we are human and we do have times when we feel a bit low and it’s important to recognise these too.

Inevitably a lot of these moments are linked to friends and family and one person who keeps cropping up in these thoughts is David Tozer.  Dave was a very special man both to us and, we know, to lots of our friends and other people too. Most particularly, of course, his wife Kat and children Rachel, Frances, Elizabeth and Daniel who I'm sure we are all thinking about a fair bit too.  Dave was a man who loved life and battled through lots of challenges of his own but he never showed this. He was always positive and gave time and his enthusiasm to others freely. He loved life and spread this love to so many others. And it’s so cruel that a man with so much love for life so suddenly to have lost his own life last December just before Christmas.  Maybe it’s because he also loved the mountains that we think about him a lot but I’m not sure that’s completely true. Dave was much more than that and his infectious enthusiasm for pretty much all social activities has been written about by many before.

Anyway I didn’t want this to become another eulogy about Dave, I’ve written one of these before. But just to share that we feel down sometimes and that I think this is, unfortunately, life. It’s the ying that goes with the yang. We are experiencing some amazing adventures here and we’re hugely grateful and aware of how privileged we are to do this. But occasionally we also have low times - when we can be sad and anxious and worried - we’re human and these feelings are also part of life and our adventures too.  We think it's important to share this and perhaps you can relate to this too?

This weekend, partly because the forecast is more heavy rain in Samoens and also to use one of the free day passes we have to explore other ski resorts in Haute Savoie region, we are hoping to meet up with some friends from earlier in the trip in Saint Gervais which is part of the Mont Blanc Massif.  No doubt we'll let you know how this adventure pans out in a future blog......

This blog was written by Chris