Day 30 Epilogue

Finish at Old Windsor:

At the finish at Old Windsor

The Outright winners, Geoff Oldholm and John Doble

The finish function and presentation dinner was held last night in the former Chapel of Beaumont Estate, an historic property which features, among other things, a glorious chapel, now used as a function centre.

Day 29 Vale (Wales)

Today, the final six competitive stages, held on a Military Training area in Wales about 100km north of Cardiff.

Check out the strength of the wind..

The most notable feature of this place is the weather.

Bleak, raining, windy, cold miserable. 

The wind was so strong that when it was raining (70% of the time), the rain is driven horizontally by the wind.
At one control, when Mark wanted to get out he wasn’t strong enough to push the door open into the wind.  He actually did a seven point turn to turn the car around so he could get out. 

The stage itself was just one piece of road that got used twice in one direction and 4 times in the other.
It was wet to very wet tarmac, very bumpy with unpredictable crests.  Chicanes were used at strategic spots to slow cars down.

As expected, the Porsch in 3^rd spot soon ran us down and took 2^nd spot from us, with Geoff Olholm and John Dobie first, having led for most of the way....

There is only the drive into Windsor left to do and that is tomorrow.

Looking forward to seeing Mary and Anne there.  Then on with the next part of the holiday. (Mary will take up the story from there, on her website, www.boddylines.com.au)

Day 28 Ferry to Vale (Wales UK)

Loading cars on board the ferry to Portsmouth

Sleeping on a ferry is pretty easy for me especially with after a few glasses of red wine. 

The weather is now decidedly cold.  We reached the hotel here in Vale in Wales, after driving from Portsmouth before lunce and now have the rest of the day to fill and not much to do.  The hotel is a golf resort but neither Mark nor I do that!

It’s blowing a gale but not raining at the moment.  I’m told by the locals it could rain anytime and yes, they believe it will rain tomorrow.

It felt strange at first driving on the left of the road again after so many days of driving on the right.  Roundabouts need to be thought about and at the first toll booth I got ready to pay before realising that paying is now done on Marks side of the car.

I continue to get ribbed/paid off/ridiculed about losing glasses.  Yesterday I discovered a pair had been cable tied to the bulbar.

Only five stages of rally to do tomorrow.  There is to be another crew briefing tonight but we already have a bulletin saying five stages tomorrow and none on Sunday. 

Day 27 Le Mans & Normandy & ferry ride

Waiting at Caen for the ferry to Portsmouth.  The boat doesn't load for 3+hours.

Crews and cars lined up outside the museum at Le Mans.

Another tourist day - so we went to the Le Mans circuit and the beaches of Normandy, where the D Day landings occurred...

Updating this blog will be a bit uncertain for the next day or so.  My internet assistant (wife Mary) who uploads this stuff in web format for me, is also on her way to London, and so probably won't get a chance to add to the blog....
Normal service will probably resume when she gets to the UK.

Day 26 Lyon to Orleans

Informal Transit again ...

 Leaving the first set of toll gates this morning, we got a round of applause from some of the rally guys who were comparing notes on how hard it can be to get through the toll gates sometimes.  Credit cards seem to nearly always get rejected, which was not my experience in previous years.  If you pick a lane that doesn’t have provision for cash you have to call for help and wait for some one to come and take cash from you and open the boom gate.  And we’ve all be caught out!!

We then went in convoy to see the Saint-Etienne Cathedral in Bourges (below). 

Day 25 Lyon

Nothing to report today really. 

470 Km drive from Nice to Lyon.

Lyon is bigger than expected.

Organisers have advised there will be just 5 stages on one day in the UK.

Day 24 Tourists in Nice

What did we do today? ::

Day 22 Brescia (Italy) to Nice (France).

I wasn’t going to do a blog today as there’s no rally to talk about but there are a few things I can report on.

Mark in a relaxed mood in Nice

Last night was like it was the end of the rally.  It’s a week until the rally recommences in the UK, so it's like another rally that will start in Wales in a week's time. 

The Belgians were shouting gin and tonics last night.  The hotel ran out of gin but the Belgians went and brought their own supply in from a service van. They insisted on big glasses and kept topping them up.  I staggered to bed and slept until 6 am.  Dead to the world as they say.

Brescia to Nice is only 417km of motorway so we left the motorway to take a shortcut which looked like a major road on the map.  It turned out to be very slow and twisty, but looking at old waypoints on the GPS, I noticed we had been there before in the London to Cape Town rally (2012).

The GPS let us down a bit getting through Genova (known to us as Genoa - without the 'v').  A key turn we had to take was immediately after a tunnel, and it takes the GPS a little while to get satellites again after a tunnel. Having missed a turn, we were then faced with leaving the motorway at the next exit, (12km further on), pay the toll, make U turn, (ie get to motorway on ramp on the other side), rejoin the motorway, take another ticket, drive 12km back, leave motorway, pay another toll.

This happened nearing Genova.  

The beach at Nice, near our hotel.
I suspect there are better beaches elsewhere

Then later as we approached Nice we ran out of Euros to pay tolls and the toll machines were refusing all our credit cards.  We stopped before the next toll gates and I went to find someone to negotiate with.  While I was doing, that the service truck arrived and gave us €20 to get us through. 

After that we missed another exit and again went through the exercise described previously.

In general, navigation didn’t go smoothly today, but it was a day that didn’t matter. 

Credit cards were also problem at petrol stations in Croatia.  None of our cards would work except for my Amex card which required a signature.  At toll booths, none of our cards work.

Here's how things look at the end of the stages so far:

Staying at Nice again tomorrow so I am yet to work out what I’ll do to fill in the time. St Tropez and Monte Carlo are close.