The river Aubonne in Switzerland

Dwight Peck's personal website

The mouth of the Aubonne

The Aubonne River from source to the Lake of Geneva

Alison has come from Chile to visit the Old Dad and Kristin, and we've been out poking about looking for the sources of the Toleure and the Aubonne rivers.

You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

There are no watercourses in the Swiss Jura mountains -- rain and snowmelt filter down through the porous limestone and burst out at the bottom.

The river Aubonne arises in the village of Bière, home of Switzerland's largest military training ground -- this is Kristin on the hiking trail under the military rail and road bridge across the ravine of the Aubonne at the edge of Bière.

The river Aubonne in full spate ("full spate"?) with the post-Christmas snowmelt

The Aubonne is a fairly steep little river that's carved out a wide valley from Bière, down past the town of Aubonne itself, and out into Lac Léman, or Lake Geneva.

Part of the Arboretum of Aubonne, a national nature-education site, this is a covered bridge over the Aubonne where it's joined by one of its tributaries, the Toleure.

Kristin and Alison watching rivers merge, etc.

The Toleure, on the far side, coming down from the other side of Bière, in a ravine between the villages of Bière and Gimel, joining the Aubonne and flowing out to the left of the photo.

A small pond in the Arboretum, with a little lake off to the right formed by a modest dam on the river. We're parked at the Arboretum and we're going home now, then Alison's off to Texas first and then back home to Santiago, Chile, but we really want to see where this Aubonne goes from here on.

Alison's visit

So, sans Alison, we're in Allaman, 9 January 2012, in front of what's actually a rather up-scale restaurant on the Route Suisse, the Route du Lac.

Down the little track a few kilometres towards the lake

Full spate

Kristin on the well-channeled banks of the Aubonne. Both sides of the river are fortified by gabions of rip-rap and stones grown over with trees and what not. Virtually no watercourse in Switzerland still flows in its natural state.

The mouth of the Aubonne

Kristin and Lac Léman, looking towards Geneva on an overcast day

Contemplative?

A very small marina at the mouth of the river

A few modest pleasure boats and evidently a working fishing operation

It's very unlike the yacht roosts of nearby Nyon, Rolle, and Morges.

Kristin and what appears to be a small Viking boat.

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