The day had arrived, we were off to finish this journey we started nearly two weeks ago. We were excited at the prospect of celebrating our achievement and relieved we had chosen to bypass the Europweg.

On leaving St Niklaus we encountered lots of driftwood that had faces carved into it – seemed to be a bit of thing for this area.

Our hike was undulating taking us past an impressive rock slide (although must have been terrifying for the locals at the time given the scale of it), up past horse paddocks and along past a golf course.

A donkey had started to follow us out of town but thought better of it.

We farewelled our last homeless snail – slugs had been quite prominent on the hike!

It was a beautiful day and it was lovely to see some schoolkids out in the park barbecuing and playing games. We managed to interpret what was being asked when a Swiss Army knife was thrust into our face by a group of little girls who were struggling to operate the device!

After four hours hiking we rounded a corner to see it …the long awaited views of E Matterhorn! With smiles from ear to ear we marched into town bumping into Cassie and Steve and then later Keith!

We did a little jig, which Steve filmed. A few people started to stop, I think they thought we were starting a flash mob!

We arrived to our lovely hotel to enjoy a welcome drink and petit fors; quite a contrast from the cabanes!

We ended the wonderful day with a celebration dinner at a traditional Swiss chalet restaurant – we figured we’d walked enough to earn raclette!

We had done it! I had been scared about my fitness for this hike and yet the hike turned out harder than I had I imagined (thanks for that Lee) and I had handled it better than I thought I would the lesser imagined hike!

I could not have done it without my wonderful walking companion Karyn, she had been a rock for me – encouraging me the whole way and providing stimulating and humorous conversation. We had lived in each other’s pockets for more than two weeks and had come out great friends. Already talking about the next trip!

As for the ‘mission’, I may not have finished with an ass of brass or the Elle McPherson legs I have yearned for my whole life but I had finished with a great appreciation of these legs that can take me to the top of alpine mountains and down again. The challenge from here was to remind myself of this going forward into the next chapter of my wonderful life.

What an adventure! Thanks to everyone who liked the posts and sent messages – it meant more than you could ever realise.