Every so often I get in a car to walk somewhere different. For two or three days we have been in the fog. Yesterday the fog was so thick that when I was driving I decided to slow down. I wanted to be able to stop in half the visible distance.
When the wind is still, and fog forms, there is another advantage, if you get above it. The water on lakes is flat. It’s so flat that the lake becomes a mirror. This is great for photography.
It’s a lake that was dug out when they built the A1 motorway. The quarry that was left behind became a lake. For a long time cars could drive around the lake.
The loop around the lake is good for walking, cycling, rollerblading and more. It is around 3.6km long and there are plenty of parking spaces beside it. If you want there is another option.
That option is the Voie Verte as it is called in France. There used to be a train line from Nyon to Divonne but it was destroyed to make way for the motorway. Some of the tracks were pulled up and it went wild.
Eventually they cut all the overgrowth, tarmaced the road, and gave it to cyclists, walkers and more. It’s a way to go from Crassier to Divonne without putting up with cars.
The advantage of this lake is that it is a flat loop. You can use it to run, cycle or rollerblade laps. You can use it to run a specific distance without having to invent a route along roadsides and more. It’s a way of working on endurance without the challenge of undulating terrain.
Aside from the lake there is a model solar system that is to a scale you can walk along. It gives you an idea of how much space is between the planets in the solar system as well as the relative size.
On the opposite side of the lake you have a reconstructed aqueduct for children to see how water was taken from Divonne to Nyon at the times of the Romans when Nyon was Julia Equestrius.
The lake is a tame simple walk that can be used for a number of things. It also has the advantage of being tarmaced. This means that even people like me can go for a walk without getting muddy shoes.
Today I walked down from a village towards the Léman and passed by the UEFA headquarters and football fields before walking by the car Park to the Colovrey Swimming pool. There were very few people, except a few cyclists. The road was good. I went down to the water and took two or three pictures before heading back up.
I walked by the lake because, on a windy day a few days ago I saw the lake, and felt tempted to go down. At the time I didn’t go down because I hadn’t decided on that walk, but also because it could be a little more physical. A second time I was tempted but chose to play Ingress instead.
This time I walked down from one village, along a route I seldom walk along, during the pandemic, because people walk along that path, two astride. In normal times this would be okay, but during a pandemic this is irrational behaviour as they always chose to sacrifice one of their own, rather than be safe.
If you’re not afraid of dogs, or people walking side by side then this is a nice walk to enjoy, especially in summer, when the days are long and there is plenty of time. At this time of year you have to be home by 17:20 or so or the sun will set as you’re walking.
I am still doing what I can never to use the car to do sports. I can use it for shopping and chores, but not for sports. I can walk or cycle, but without using the car to get anywhere, at least until this summer, or the pandemic ends. By pandemic end I mean 0 new cases per day for several months in a row. We are far from that for now, so driving will be avoided.
Ducks going out for afternoon tea on the Lac Léman. A mother duck and her ducklings.
With the weather system that we have had over Europe a lot of rain has fallen. So much rain has fallen that it has swollen rivers and flooded plenty of regions. In Switzerland, because almost everything is on a hill flooding might be noticed in some parts of certain cities, but in theory it is easy, within meters, to be safe from the flood.
Today in the port of Nyon you can see that the boats are much higher than usual. Normally they would be one to two meters lower than they are in these images. According to a conversation I overheard the lake rose by seven centimetres overnight, i.e. enough for the lake to be level with the access platforms.
In some images, you see that the petrol station is now partially immersed in the lake. I don’t think that there is a risk of pollution when it is at this specific level, but I am not certain. What is certain is that the lake is at an interesting level compared to usual. Flooding is occurring for properties that are close to the lake, or below lake level.
Some cantons have banned access to the water, probably due to silt, sediment and other detritus found in the water. In contrast, the water from the Léman, in so far as I could see, looked clean. This is positive. If properties are flooded by this water, they will find clean up and drying easier than if the opposite is true.
In Neuchatel, due to the waters rising so much, they intentionally flooded a parking. Les images de La Maladière inondée. I find such events interesting. It’s interesting to see how high the water can get. It’s interesting to see how people respond, and it’s interesting to see what curiousities result from the excess of water needing to be dealt with.
It would be interesting to see the Pont Des Machines in Geneva, to see how high it is, and to see whether all the sluices are open.
In the middle of summer you may go sailing on the lake and find that there is no, or very little wind. On such days you may spend long periods of time hoping for the wind to pick up and get from point A to point B.
On other days the lake looks like in the footage above. After two days of constant wind the lake has been churned up and the waves are nice and large. They crash into the rocks and sometimes over them. The beaches are eroded and so you get this silty grey water.
A few years ago we went diving with this type of waves and it feels like getting into and out of the sea rather than getting into and out of a lake. The first few metres of the dive have very poor visibility but as you move further out to where the water is deeper the weather above goes unnoticed below. It might be darker but other than that it would be an ordinary dive.
When I lived by the sea I remember experiencing some very strong winds. I remember that the waves were so big and the wind so strong that the waves would crash onto the beach wall and the water would spray across and onto the seafront buildings in Weymouth. I also remember walking towards the town and walking against a wind so strong that I had to lean into it. On such days you could almost lie against the wind.
Although the wind of the last two days was strong and consistent it was not strong enough to have that kind of fun. It was enough to buffet me as I tried to get video of the waves splashing up and over the port walls.
I thought that I might be told that I was not allowed to film by the lake side due to the festival preparations but they said nothing. The festival that this infrastructure is for is the Caribana Festival. It’s the first music festival of the season.
If you like medieval castles[/caption]
The Rolle Ingress mission starts at the castle and has you walk towards the centre. You then walk along the main street and through an arch back towards the lake side. From here you walk along the lake for a short distance before heading back in to town and the last portal. As this mission requires hacks and nothing more it is a perfect farming mission. The distance is relatively short.
