Jimbo4x4 said:
Pics! pics! pics!
You asked for it
On the Friday evening we (me & Ray) met Gary and Angela part way down to Portsmouth when we realised they were only a couple of miles ahead of us and then we traveled down in convoy to meet Steve & Kev at the ferry terminal.
Good job I got the height right on my booking because it was a tight fit where the loaders wanted my truck:
Pulling away from Portsmouth:
We had a sleep on the ferry and then on Saturday drove the approx 475 miles south to a camp site Steve had picked out on the net which turned out to be really nice:
Then on Sunday it was approx 50km to the RV and our first taste of the raid with stickers going on the trucks and a briefing from Chris on how things were going to work:
Everyone else seemed to do just fine but we had to go round the 1st section of the test route several times before Ray started getting the hang of the road book and we got to the village above the RV:
then it was follow the remainder of the road book to Sunday nights camp site by the river.
Day two involved a bit of going round in circles but we drove some nice tracks, saw some sights, had a paddle through some water and climbed mountains
and a very small but pleasant camp site at the end of the day. It was quite chilly on this site though, I think it was about 3500ft ASL or not far off and you could feel it!
Day three involved less going round in circles, more driving nice tracks and ringing a bell along the way. I bet the villagers are sick of hearing that bell
Onwards and upwards we climbed past broken ski lifts until we eventually saw a little bit of snow at about 5300ft ASL:
It was very scenic, shame I'm not a better photographer:
Saw some nice horses:
Found a nice picnic spot:
Gary fancied a dip in ice cold water
Stopped in a little village for a bit of shopping and a coffee before going on to the Gite we'd be stopping in:
Day 4, Wednesday, was a fairly easy drive down the mountains to the river Tarn for an afternoon of kyacking for most people:
shopping / bars for a few and a detour to the Millau Viaduct for me & Chris:
day 4 we drove up along the top of the Tarn gorge for a while:
and then moved on into another valley
passing Asterix's tomb or something like that along the way:
Day 5 was a bit more fun, we had to double back at one point to give some assistance to a stranded LR driver and then play catch up which we eventually did. There were always plenty of nice places to stop off along the way the whole week:
Part of this days route was 'the rock'
a bit of a squeeze in places with the RT and Foxwing on but not too bad. We had an audiance of pilgrims who started off looking unhappy to see a 4x4 and then got excited when they realised where we were going and rushed back to the bottom of 'the rock' to take pictures
One of them even took pictures on Ray's camera for us to save him having to get out and gave us a little clap at the bottom
We'll have to wait for Ray or someone else to post pics of that section, I don't have any.
We stayed in a nice hotel for our last night on the raid, near an interesting bridge and had a nice evening meal and a drink or three:
Day 6 was just a mornings driving about to get us up and out of the hotel - saw a bit more of the bridge:
A bit more climbing up mountains:
before a final fairwell in a village somewhere.
In the afternoon we drove up to Amboise near Tours and found a nice camp site on an island in the Loire that Angela had spotted in a guide book:
There was some sort of balloon event going on:
Sunday morning we had a stroll into Amboise to see what we could waste more money on
and then drove up to the ferry terminal ready to come back:
bit more space this time
departing:
Portsmouth in the distance:
Ray getting his Mr Bump presentation (he was a bit accident prone!) from Steve & Kev:
Backing into the parking spot:
Then it was back up the motorway and home for about 12:40am.
