After a gloriously refreshing night of undisturbed sleep thanks to super-fresh air and no noise, I wake super-refreshed even after a boozy night smoking multiple cigars.
Seb and I meet downstairs for breakfast with fresh Zopf and home-made jam and honey which we eat enjoying the same incredible view on his balcony. Life could definitely be worse.
Enjoying the honey, I was unaware that he had started beekeeping and asked him about his experience and what it took to have a few hives. He offered me to have a look!
Very interesting to see the bee colonies and taste super-fresh non-centrifuged honey. Some day I also want to take up beekeeping – one of my neighbors on my road is also a beekeeper and we buy our honey from bees that live just 300m away from our own house. Zero kilometre economy. I also know a beekeeper in Vienna – harvesting honey from Vienna’s rooftops. It’s a very rewarding hobby and also very important given the decline of bee populations worldwide.
After some more food and discussions about sustainable living, I bid my farewell to Seb and Sandra and make my way back down to the valley. I didn’t fully charge my pack overnight, as I will be getting a fair amount of energy back on my way down and would feel very bad using my brakes instead of regen on my way down.
The drive is impressive – steep and the views even more impressive than on the way up.
Regen fully engaged for most of the decent, I get over half a kWh back into my batteries. I cut it quite finely, as at the end of the decent, my inverter was at 410V, TW560’s regen cutoff … which is thankfully higher than most inverters.
From now on, my main target for today is to get back home quickly as my family has arrived home in the meanwhile (after staying in Sète en-route back to Switzerland after seeing my pictures and hearing about the place)
Max SPEEEED!
With a high pack voltage, I easily zoom along at 95 kph in cruise control and enjoy the sun and fresh temperatures in Valais.
At the end of the motorway in the German-speaking part of the valley I start climbing towards the Furka Pass. A very nice mountain pass over which I’ve driven multiple times already.
One memorable place to live in Switzerland lies along this road… 🙂
I continue climbing towards Furka Pass, a mountain crossing I’ve driven across many, many times and always love the drive. Especially when you come from the Valais side, the view of the glacier (better: what’s left of it) is always impressive. Really looking forward to crossing the last pass before heading to Andermatt and from there taking Switzerland’s main north-south motorway all the way back to Zurich and eventually home.
With me being on a normal mountain road, eventually, I realized something that I lost a little after 3 weeks off: it’s a Sunday, a beautiful one, too. Resulting traffic is awful. Throw a bus or two into the mix that need the full width of the road in the hairpin bends and you have a crawling, endless, band of metal on its way across the pass. No fun at all.
This is why I decide – nice weather or not – to take the Furka Oberalp Railway and cross the pass on the car train.
The ticket is moderately priced and with virtually no wait at all, I can get in line for the next train to arrive.
No foreign car in any of the lines…I wonder why 😉
I’ve already written about how much I love sitting in my TWIKE whilst it is travelling on a car train. It’s just so weird to move forward whilst not driving.
Before entering the tunnel, the train takes us through some otherwise untouched mountain scenery – very relaxing and beautiful.
Just 20 minutes later, we pull into the Realp station where we’re back on the road along the very straight Urserntal valley that ends in Andermatt – home of the famous Chedi 5-star hotel. I could write about it at length and what I think it’s done for the valley…not today. Maybe next time I cross the alps and blog about it.
Entering the road leading down to the motorway which itself is the main road to the Gotthard pass I get another taste of what a sunny Sunday afternoon can do to traffic here in the mountains:
A good hour later I finally make it onto the motorway and push on at max speed…
…until I don’t due to traffic. Not only is this a beautiful Sunday, it’s the last day of many of Switzerland’s Canton’s school holidays. Not all is bad, though. I sit in the sun listening to some exceptionally relaxing music and am enjoying the very nice surrounding mountain landscape.
I push onwards home 100% on the motorway – and enjoy the usual attention from fellow motorists and their kids waving and smiling at me and TW560.
With the battery’s voltage slowly going towards empty and given that I started with less than 100% today and recuperated exceptional amounts of energy, my controller’s range calculation was a little off and I had to rely on my own calculations, assumptions and experience when it came to deciding to stay on the motorway or slow down a little and consume less in order to make it home on one charge.
Turned out that I was able to stay on the motorway and made it home with about 5km range left.
With this, yet another epic TWIKE adventure comes to an end!
Time to check today’s stats and overall trip counters!
My consumption today is low because I started at 1600m and ended at 400m. Whatever the consumption between, the overall consumption will be low 🙂
Overall, TDE2019 was quite an achievement at low-energy intensity light electric vehicular travel: 3487km at 136kWh! I drove to Spain – 2023.7 km / 75986 Wh – with less energy than the smallest Tesla battery holds!
I start unpacking and I’d like to mention one of my longest-standing travel items: my cable-box. It’s been with me since the very beginning – every trip, India and all – has taken a beating and looks very worn but still holds up and will be part of my next trips to come!
Another thing: Before leaving on TDE2019, I had decided not to get new tyres for the trip. Assuming that there would not be too much snow or rain during my trip, I wanted to put another ~3500km onto the tyres because I hate new tyres. They consume much more and the ride is much less stable than rock-hard worn tyres at 8 bar.
Let’s see what effect TDE2019 has had on the tyres…
And…
Time to get a new set!
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