What's the most vexing aspect of having young children? I could now wander
away for an hour or so and let all the parents fill the page themselves. For
me, however, the most irradiatingly nigglesome change has been walking very
slowly. For seven years.
Consider, then, the mule-trekking holiday. In a nutshell, you give your small
children the four strong, fast legs of a mule, and hit speeds in excess of
0.27mph. By putting a child on a mule, and leading the mule around on a
rope, walking distances of previously unimaginable scale become possible
again. Up to six miles a day! It's mind-blowing.
So here we are in the Jura mountains in Switzerland. We are rolling up for our
first day of mule-trekking, eager for long walks, picnics of “hearty local
fare” on mountainsides, and mule-based fun. The idea is that over eight days
we cover more than 30km (20 miles) of hills and meadows, walking each day to
a new hotel or inn.
Alas, our guide has broken his leg just four days before we arrive. The travel
company Families Worldwide pulls out all the stops to keep our holiday on
the road and manages to draft in a last-minute replacement: Toni.
“He knows the area very well,” they say, sounding slightly worried. “He runs
his own trekking company. We could arrange another holiday, if you like.
Whitewater rafting?”
But the children have been shouting, “Giddy up! Whoa, there!” for the past
three months, and so we press on to Switzerland via Eurostar and train to
Geneva. And here is Toni, coming out of his farmhouse to greet us.
Now I don't set much store by first impressions, but Toni looks ominous. He is
wearing an ironed beret, knee-shorts and is smiling and shaking his head at
the same time. He has a lunch for us, of very awful, wet, supermarket
salami. And his English is as ramshackle as our Swiss-German. I have a
feeling that Toni does not bode well for our raggle-taggle, monolingual,
Waitrose-whore family.
Still, the first walk - from his farmhouse, across a wooded hill and to our
“basic but cosy” log cabin - is great fun. With the children on the mules -
Dora, 6, on the gigantic, moody Turi, and Eavie, 4, on the tiny, stupid but
jovial Pino - a mule trek on a sunny day is a wonderful thing.
The children love the mules, plaiting their manes with flowers, and we have
relaxed holiday chats. After a four-hour walk, the log cabin is, indeed,
basic - mattresses on the floor - but the wine is good and plentiful; and
the view, with the snowy Alps in the distance, is like being slapped by God
- in a good way.
The next day, we walk from the log cabin to a farm that has an “aerial
playground” of rope walkways in the trees. The children, who are too young
to play on it themselves, take pictures of Daddy looking scared. This
mule-trekking idea is proving very enjoyable.
But the food is terrible. Toni insists on cooking for us every night from a
selection of granulated sauces, salami and 8-per-cent-sugar yoghurts. The
presence of UHT milk is baffling, given the volume of cows in Switzerland.
By Day 3 my husband, desperate for fresh vegetables, escapes to a nearby
village, finds a deli and comes back with bags of lemons, brown rice, plain
yoghurt, chocolate, flapjacks and broccoli.
These bags are greeted with dismay by Raphi, a gorgeous teenage punk from
Zurich who has arrived to help Toni, and to translate. “I think Toni may be
... offended,” he offers diplomatically. “He likes to cook.”
And Raphi is not wrong. That evening, despairing of a dinner of pasta and
Uncle Ben's sauce, I tiptoe into the kitchen and try to cook some green
beans and broccoli. Toni catches me. I am dragged into the dining room, in
front of the other guests, where Raphi translates that I am Toni's guest,
and that he is very offended that I have not told him what I want to eat.
It's a fair point - but I have no idea how to tell him that he needs to
rethink his attitude to nutrition. So I sit in the garden and cry, and eat
my broccoli instead.
However, with a rucksack of contraband food, the next few days are wonderful.
The longest walk - from the log cabin to Chasseral, the highest mountain in
the area - is perfect. Mossy woods, wildflower meadows and then to the top
of Chasseral, and a view across to the Alps.
As evening falls, we descend into an isolated valley to sleep in a hayloft and
- hurrah! - the owner cooks dinner for us. It's just cheese, bread, ham, and
strong wine and coffee, but it's fresh, home-made and perfect. In the
morning, we eat breakfast in the hot sun: cups of chocolate milk, more of
the bread, cheese and ham, and a basket of boiled eggs. It is totally
Heidi-tastic.
The next day, we follow a stream down into Saint Imier, a sleepy watchmaking
village between two mountains. In the afternoon, the children's suburban
buttocks finally rebel against being banged around on mules, so we cancel
the last day's trekking and send Toni home.
We spend the next 48 hours wallowing in Saint Imier's beautiful outdoor pool
and playground, and eating pizza. There are no two ways about it - this was
the best holiday that we've had, even though we are a bunch of picky,
greedy, foodie buggers. I can't recommend mule-trekking with small children
enough.
But I say that safe in the knowledge that the guide we should have had will be
out of hospital by the time you book your holiday.
NEED TO KNOW
Caitlin Moran and family travelled with Families Worldwide (0845 0514567, www.familiesworldwide.co.uk),
which offers an eight-day Swiss mule-trekking trip in the summer holidays
for £1,099 per adult and £869 per child aged 4 to 12, including
transfers but not travel to Geneva.
Getting there EasyJet flies from 12 UK airports to Geneva (www.easyjet.com)
from £32.98 return. Return train fare from London to Geneva with Rail Europe
(0844 8484070, www.raileurope.co.uk)
from £115.
