A day of rest and housework.

Last night's temperature dropped to -11.5c, and during the day got up to the staggering heights of 0.3c. We still had a basin in the bathroom blocked, and then the kitchen sink began to stop emptying. Chris managed to open the front locker box, with the help of hot water, and tried pouring hot water back into the caravan through the waste pipe, all to no luck. So we had our showers, filled up the water tank and had a think while we had breakfast.

We found it amusing that Chris phone's weather forecast app believes we are at Folkestone Ski Centre. We are therefore very impressed with the facilities here; it is all so lifelike!!

It was a gorgeous morning again, and we had planned to go to Italy for the day, but we could not ignore all these water features in the van. So decided instead, to head for the closest town of Visp, where there was a supermarket and buy some salt. This, we hoped, would melt any ice that was stuck in the waste pipes.

Visp is at the beginning of this valley, just 30 minutes away. It was nice to finally see the route that we had driven up in the dark on our arrival. The views were still stunning, but as we dropped in altitude, the temperature increased and the snow disappeared. We also saw the new road that is being built, which the Sat Nav (Penelope) wanted us to originally drive on. It is a tunnel which misses out Visp, a bridge that crosses the valley, and then another tunnel which continues East, avoiding Visp. Basically just a bypass, but with the added difficulty of digging through a few mountains.

View from centre of Visp

At Visp we thought of leaving the car at some on road parking; but as we were not sure what the signs meant, we though it safer to park in the multi-storey. Although narrow, this turned out to be very nice, and just a short walk away from the food shop. Here we found the salt we needed, a huge bag of toilet rolls (far too expensive, but cheaper in bulk), some bread, chicken and salad. We had problems finding the eggs we wanted, but when we did eventually find them, we were surprised to find trays of hard-boiled eggs for sale. Not something I have seen for sale in England, which made me begin to think of what you can buy where? Ten years ago, it was very difficult to buy fresh milk in France, and sliced bread was impossible to find. But now, both are available. In France, it is easy to find huge bags of plain crisps at very cheap prices, but in the UK you have to pay stupid amounts of money for crisps with strange flavours. The same goes for yoghurt, which in France you can buy by the bucket load, but in England you can now buy in a reasonably sized pot which lasts a few days, but a few years ago these were non existent. Ofcourse Joe already knows about the many more flavours of Tic-Tacs you can find in Europe, compared to Great Britain.

Once back at the car, the parking was the reasonable charge of 1 CHF, and we headed home for lunch. While we ate, we left the dissolved salt solution sitting in the sinks, and before we finished out teas and biscuits, the kitchen drain made a wonderful gurgling noise, and the water disappeared. Success, although the bathroom one is still blocked as I write this. During the afternoon Chris did some clothes' washing while I did some OU study. At three o'clock the sun went behind the mountains, and the temperature began to drop again. The washing that is hanging up in the awning is already frozen, but it is dry!