DAY 210 - SOLOTHURN TO WALDENBURG: 19.2 MILES (38,800 STEPS)

18 November, 2011

19.2 miles (Total: 2063 miles) –38,800 steps (Total: 4,437,001 steps)

There is that moment in the Western movie when all seems lost as the last few hardy souls, who have circled their wagon train and are hopelessly outnumbered, take pot shots at the Indians who are obligingly galloping round the outside. Then the bugle sounds and the cavalry, resplendent in blue uniforms and yellow neck scarves, gallop in and chase the presumptuous native peoples off their own land.

Well, that is how it felt when Tom Hall and Stephen Bates arrived in Batterkinden, to lend a hand for a few days; albeit riding in a Citroën C3 and wearing ‘Walk for Truce’ t-shirts and shades enough to frighten the natives out of this rural Swiss frontier village. Stephen is one of my two cousins, lives in Ashford, works in London and is an academic by instinct as well as by training. If this was an episode of Thunderbirds, then Stephen would be ‘Brains’, carefully analysing all the available options and asking the pertinent questions.  Tom Hall is married to my other cousin, Sarah and is a high flying consultant commuting between palatial home in Newark and office in London. To follow the Thunderbirds theme through then, Tom would be ‘Scott Tracy’ the cool and urbane principal and leader of the International Rescue brothers.  I would probably fit the role of ‘Parker’, Lady Penelope’s faithful, calm, mildly irritating and utterly boring chauffer and butler. The cast was complete and so ‘Thunderbirds were Go!’

Taking to his responsibilities for identifying food and supplies with a particular flare Tom, a connoisseur of fine food and wine, managed to find a fabulous restaurant and of course showed up just in time for lunch….

I should say at this point that it has been a humbling experience to see the way in which family and friends have rallied around in my hour of need (whilst I am unable carry my rucksack on account of my fractured arm and recovering dislocation of the shoulder), all beautifully choreographed by Gary Streeter back in London.  Without my rucksack I am able to travel further and faster each day and so the support teams are really a turbo boost to the walk and the analogy of International Rescue is probably not too far off the mark.

Over lunch we were able to pool our talents enhanced by a few glasses of wine to find a short cut over the Jura hills to Solothurn and so Tom and I set off to try and find the equivalent of the North West Passage whilst Stephen took the car on to meet us in Solothurn. We quickly discovered that an added bonus of Tom and Stephen was that language communication took a quantum leap forward in both French and German, even if our English relapsed mostly into our Geordie mother tongue. All this added to the joy of the reunion as they brought with them news from home and gifts too.

We reached Solothurn just as night was closing and then returned back to Berne where we were booked into a single room, being keen to control costs as a mark of respect to ‘Austerity Britain’. I pondered that news of ‘Top Tory Peer in three in a bed (room) shock’ might spark a few lines of interest in the walk in the press back at home—it is a standard rule of party politics that the only time you are actually called a ‘Top Tory’ is when you have just done something which has brought the Party into disrepute or been sacked. In fairness ‘Unknown Tory in three in a bed (room) shock’ doesn’t quite sell even if in this case it would be more accurate. Wait for that front page splash this weekend in the Gateshead Post!

Heavily incentivised by the snoring of his room-mates, Stephen located a fabulous deal of £30 per room per night at Hotel Ibis in Mulhouse, France including buffet breakfast. Even if it was going to require long drives at the beginning and end of the day, none of us required much persuading of its virtues. It proved to be an inspired choice, especially as a decision to change the route out of Switzerland at Basel up the French side of the Rhine rather than the German, meant that if we kept to schedule then I should end up in Mulhouse by Monday evening