Saturday June 18, 2005, 75 km (47 miles) – Total so far: 4,724 km (2,935 miles)

We’re back into the high Alps today for our spectacular ride to Innertkirchen passing numerous lakes and great views of lush green valleys.

We followed a cycle route that started off fine, but as we began the climb of the Brünigpass the nice road turned into a gravel track. Not an ideal surface for cycling up mountains on, but the scenery was fantastic.

We passed through Meiringen where at the nearby Reichenbach Falls Sherlock Holmes met and defeated his greatest enemy, Professor Moriarty, dubbed by Holmes the ‘Napoleon of Crime’. There’s a Sherlock Holmes museum in the town, a road called Baker Street and a statue of Holmes himself.

Innertkirchen is a small village surrounded on all sides by high mountains, we’re camped in a nice compact little site fairly near the centre.

Tomorrow we tackle the 2,165m Grimselpass. I hope the gods are kind and the great weather holds. I don’t fancy another Groβglockner experience, there’s loads of snow still about so we need it to be sunny.

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A nice church at Giswil

Looking back at Giswil from the climb to Lungersee

Agata is on the road below the haymakers

Snow capped mountains

My bike next to a wall of logs

The gravel section of the Brünigpass, difficult to ride on

The view from the climb of Brünigpass

Looking back at Lungersee from Brünigpass