High On A Hill Lived A Lonely Goat...

“Ode-lay, ode-lay, ode-lay-ee-oo!”

Okay, the first thing you should know about Switzerland is that The Sound Of Music is from Austria. It’s Heidi that’s from Switzerland. Suggesting that the Von Trapp family is Swiss is like suggesting to a Kiwi that Bonecrusher is an Australian horse. Here’s what Switzerland is famous for: chocolate, watches, Swiss Army knives, dairy cows, St. Bernard dogs, the Alps and melted-cheese with potato. Yup, melted-cheese and potato is the Swiss national dish! More on that later but the saga continues…

Phil, Malcolm and I made the drive from Evian, across the border, through Geneva, skirting around Lausanne, by-passing Montreux, through the Rhone Valley and 1,500 metres up to Crans-Montana. Now, for anyone that’s done the drive through Hamilton, skirting around Cambridge, by-passing Tirau, through Putaruru and on to Tokoroa this drive is nothing like that… but it does take roughly the same amount of time. “Are we there yet?” is a universal road-trip cry. So to is: “Can we stop for ice-cream?” but in Switzerland it’s also a tourist attraction because in this country stopping for ice cream means stopping for Movenpick.

Our next official stop was Crans-Montana a famous ski town half way up the Swiss Alps. Roger Moore is a regular to Crans and many years ago famed New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield spent a couple of seasons in Montana where the altitude helped her tuberculosis. The Swiss even have a plaque and fountain dedicated to Mansfield, honouring the great stories she wrote during her time in Crans-Montana. Now, wouldn’t it be nice if the Aussies put a plaque on the steps of the Sydney Opera House honouring New Zealand band Crowded House and the farewell concert they preformed there?

New Zealand connections aside, we were about to be given the full-on Heidi-styled Swiss treatment. It began another thousand metres up the mountain with an alpine-horn serenade. And then we travelled to something like 2,500 metres, nearing outer-space, to get up close and personal with a herd of dairy cows. The Swiss and the Indians must be the only cultures to hold livestock in such high regard. And in Switzerland “high” is the operative word because a farmer with his herd of 70 odd cows will have one queen… and the queen is the cow that stands on the highest point of the mountain. The queen cow gets to wear the biggest bell round her neck and generally gets treated by the farmer as, well, a queen. To further illustrate this point your average cow in Switzerland is worth around 4,000 Swiss Francs; but the queen would never, ever get sold… but the calf of the queen is worth 40,000 Swiss Francs! So when tennis star Roger Federer returned to Switzerland after winning the 2003 Wimbledon title and the Swiss gave him a queen cow he actually landed the golden goose. The million dollar Wimbledon winner’s cheque is nothing to be sneezed at but neither is a dairy cow that produces you 40,000 Swiss Francs each spring.

And what of this melted cheese and potato I hear you ask? Well, the dairy cows eat the grass from the Alps, they then produce milk, which is churned into cheese, the cheese is salted each day for two months, and then it makes its way to the dinner table for the finest Swiss meal – raclette. Raclette is simply the local farmer’s cheese which is melted and then a thin slice is scraped off the block onto your plate and served with a potato. So the nation that gave the us the world's most intricate watches, the world's most delectable chocolate, and the most world's efficient banks has basic ol’ cheese and spuds for dinner.

Cows, cheese and altitude… if you wish to experience the picture-postcard Switzerland I suggest you go to Crans-Montana, point your nose in the sky, drive a little higher, take a right at the space shuttle Discovery, and keep driving towards the sound of the cowbells. Failing that you could always go to Heidiland. Yup, Switzerland has a theme park based around their most famed movie character. Just don’t go there asking for Leisl, Gretl, Briggita, Marta, and Louisa Von Trapp… it’s all about Heidi.

I should end it here as I’m struggling to resist the urge to use an “udder” pun. Our next destination is the Swiss-Italian border… it’s a long drive but thankfully we stop for gelato.