GIN Walkers – 9 July 2025 La Cure to La Givrine
My hips not being great for steep climbs, I proposed a short walk up in the hills to avoid the heat in the plain. It started at La Cure so Paul Sochaczewski, Tim Goodyear and Richard Flett boarded the train from Nyon and picked me up (Mike Muller) at Trelex. We were joined by Robert O’Riordan at St Cergue. At La Cure we were met by Mark Warren who had come by car. Peter Drew cancelled at the last minute due to a bug biting his foot.
The weather was ideal – a bit under 20 degrees with sunshine and blue skies. Accordingly the 6 of us struck out from La Cure railway station at 11.30 hours protected by Nessie the cairn terrier.
We followed the road up through an area of chalets and then crossed the road to go through the Bois de la Pile (see map below). Coming out of the forest we sauntered through some fields being grazed by cows and walked under a path which could have taken us to the Couvaloup de Crans. We continued through La Trélasse before arriving at the car park of La Givrine which is famous for being built after 35 years of pfaffing about between the Swiss and French authorities.
We were lucky to have dined at the restaurant La Givrine. Because normally they are closed midweek. I had contacted them via email to verify this information (they don’t have a website) and they proposed to open exclusively for us if we would be a minimum of 8 eaters. We would be 7 + Nessie and this was acceptable (in the end only 6 because Peter withdrew). The food was typical mountain fare and quite acceptable to our taste buds.
Paul had ordered mushrooms which lead us to discuss the Australian lady who had managed to kill several members of her family after serving a dish with poison mushrooms that she claimed had been bought at Woolworths. Apparently Woolworths is alive and well in Australia and some other countries, unlike most of her dinner guests in question. She was found guilty.
This led us on to discussing how to kill somebody and get away with it. One example is to stab somebody with a sharp knife made out of ice. But you need to do this in a sauna so that the evidence melts away quickly. Or how do you get rid of the body? An example was evoked from the film Snatch which involved hungry pigs. Such lighthearted discussion was in order to avoid spending too much time discussing the perils of AI.
I forgot to take a picture of the group, so here instead is a photo of our body guard.
The walk was about 5km (up 127m and down 90m) and took 1.5 hours.
Thanks to Tim for theses photos taken on the day.