I left a cold Dublin one morning and arrived in a hot Zurich that afternoon to be greeted by Swiss IFYE co-ordinator Ursula Spillmann, who gave me a briefing on what was going to happen in the next three action-packed weeks.
She then got me on the correct train to head off to meet my host family. Two hours later I arrived in Brunig Hasilberg, where I was met by Monika Von Bergen and she took me up a long and winding road to my eventual destination, HAAGGEN.
Here Monika along with her husband Peter and children Ursina, Rebekka and Leandra run an alp farm. This was no ordinary alp farm with an altitude of 1961m, with grazing happening at an even higher altitude. This is considered high, even in Swiss terms for milk cows, and I awoke one morning to find three inches of snow on the ground, in mid July!
On this alp farm the Von Bergen's have an agreement with four farmers from the lower village of Hasilberg, to take their cows from mid June to the end of September and graze and milk them in the alps. In exchange for this the farmers are given a percentage of the cheese, and they continue to pay the veterinary fees.
To classify as a true alp farmer and sell alp cheese the cows must be grazed on the alp and fed only hay in the winter time and the cheese must be kept for one year before selling. The alp farms each have their own community group which will organise the alp and give cow rights to graze the cows, for which certain fees are paid to the community. Although the government gives the alp farmers subsidies for farming the alps, making the cheese, fencing and maintaining roads.
All the milk on this farm goes into their own cheese production, with cheese making 20CH (£10) a kilogram, and currently 60Kg is being made a day by the milk from the 34 cows. This alp is only farmed from mid June to the end of September under canton laws. During ski season my family also run a restaurant which can accommodate up to 200 people for lunches. In this area most farmers would subsidize their income with the high influx of tourists during this time.
Whilst staying with my host family I got the opportunity to see and learn many new things - my visits have included a trip to Interlaken, a well known tourist destination, to Ballenberg, a museum of the traditional Homesteads of all the Swiss regions in the past in a collective village.
I also attended the incoming weekend for all the exchangees in Erstfeld, where we completed workshops and tasks and various games. We also got a tour to see the construction of the new Gotthard Rail link which will be the longest tunnel in the world at 57km when completed and being a civil engineer, this was a highlight of my trip.
During my incoming weekend I met up with Madlen Niederberger who stayed with us on exchange in 2003, and at the end of my exchange I stayed with her for two days just south of Lucerne.
Her parents were also dairy farmers and several years ago, built a state of the art barn, comprising all under one roof, from machinery shed to hay storage with drying facilities, feeding passage and milking parlour, and all this for 20 cows. But this is typical of a lot of Swiss farms with modern expensive units for a milk price of 70 cents (35p) per litre.
On Madlen's farm the milk was then taken morning and evening to a nearby collection point in the village. I got the opportunity to help with making the hay on the farm, raking up, then lifting with a self propelled wagon and putting into storage using a gantry crane in the barn.
Madlen also took me to see around the city of Lucerne, set on a lake which is also very scenic with its famous wooden bridges and views over the lake, where we took a boat trip and visited the modern transport museum. I would like to thank my hosts, Swiss IFYE and YFCU for giving me this fantastic opportunity.