Day 13 – The tour draws to a close…
I’m sure you’ll all be devastated to hear that this is going to be the last update for this years “Tour de la Liberation – The extended Version”, but as everyone knows, all good things must come to an end… and so must this!
Another early start today – breakfast in our Silverstone guest house at 7am, and by 8am we were saying our tearful goodbyes to our lovely hosts, and also to Benjamin, as he jumped on his bike to begin his trip to catch the Fast Ferry back to Jersey.
Having gone our separate ways, we headed for the M25 – via the M1 – two of the last motorways you really want to be anywhere near at rush hour on a Monday morning… however, traffic was flowing well most of the way, and we soon arrived at the Dartford Crossing, paid our £1 and crossed over to the “other side” (in this case, Kent!)
On the way down to the Chunnel Port, we passed some of the trucks last seen at the race track…
After around 150 miles and 3 hours of driving, we arrived at the Folkstone port and followed signs for France…
After checking in, we had a cup of courtesy coffee (well, I suspect we should have paid for it, but try as we might, we just couldn’t find anyone that wanted to take our money off us, and we did have a train to catch!) (besides, it was horrible coffee anyway)
20 minutes later, we were driving onto the Train once more…
….and after a most relaxing 35 minute journey (it was so relaxing, I slept through it, but Mike assured me we had arrived in France before we drove off), we soon found ourselves back on the lovely empty French roads…
And crossing even more spectacular bridges…
(the above bridge is here, in case you ever want to visit….) (It actually croses the River Seine)
We passed a few other interesting things en-route, namely one of these…
…and also this place…
(you probably can’t see it, but trust me, Mont St Michel is in that photo!
With constant referral to the on-board technical support team…
…and a couple of fuel and coffee stops, we pressed on with our journey and eventually turned up at a Hotel Ibis 2 miles from St Malo’s port, where we discovered our room had a most spectacular view!
Today’s journey saw us leave the UK after breakfast, get to France in time for lunch, cover a total of 474 miles (not including the Channel!) and drive for 10.5 hours, so what better thing to do after all that than wash the car!!
The Jet Washes in France are FANTASTIC! You show me one anywhere else in the world that actually gets the dead flies of your car instead of just giving them a shampooing…… I don’t know of any local ones, that’s for sure! What we really need, other than 100 Octane Shell fuel is one of these…
After steak and chips in the hotel restaurant, we have now retired to our room to write up the final update and start uploading.
Facts, figures and thanks
The last 13 days have seen us cover 3493 miles, in 9 countries (France, Monaco, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, Holland and England), and burn 711 litres of fuel.
We could give you lots of other boring details like Mpg, average cost of fuel, and all sorts of other weird and wonderful things (yes, we log everything!) but you can’t have them; they’re highly confidential.
We would like to take this opportunity now to thank a few people, remembering of course that this whole event has not been in anyway enjoyable for myself or Mike; it’s been a chore. A long hard slog. But it’s for charity, and a very good one at that – and far be it from us to get in the way of fund raising by having fun ourselves. So we’ve put up with each other as best we can; driven hundreds of hard miles, some times inches away from certain death. Seen beautiful sights and places. Used some of the worlds best fuel (I would have been more than happy with LRP..), watched some fantastic motor racing, and had some fabulous weather. Absolute hell, I’m sure you’ll agree.
In true Oscar fashion, we’d like to thank a few people who’ve helped us along the way.
I’d like to thank Mike for his superb Navigating.
I’ll need to check, but I’m hoping Mike would like to thank me for my ( not so superb?) driving. (The Driving was, as always, the best a bloke could ask for ! – Mike)
We’d like to thank Garmin for continuously providing GPS information to Microsoft Autoroute, via the superb Dell Laptop, that hasn’t crashed once, despite the exceedingly demanding conditions, heat and rough roads)
Therefore we’d like to thank Dell for making computers and Microsoft for writing software.
I guess we should also thank the Americans for putting up all those GPS satellites in the first place.
We’d like to thank Mitsubishi for selling me a superb car in which to do the trip, that hasn’t faltered once (and is now for sale; should you be interested, mail me on garry.taylor@jerseymail.co.uk)
We’d particularly like to thank Yokohama for providing rubber that kept us on the straight and narrow (just) particularly in the Alps, where one small slip-up would probably have been the last, and Brembo for their superb brakes (I never thought I’d hear myself say that!)
We’d like to thank Sony for music provision. And Philips for inventing the Compact Disc.
Particular thanks goes to the person who first invented Air Conditioning.
Obviously, no end of thanks goes to Shell for providing 100 Octane fuel in Germany, 99+ Octane fuel in Czech Republic and Belgium, and almost 99 Octane fuel in the UK, and 98 Octane fuel in france. No thanks to them for providing 97 Octane fuel in Jersey.
Thanks to the Austrian police for being so understanding, and even the French police, for not locking us up.
We would also like to thank Darren for providing us with a totally useless radar detector… (Daz mate,…. Demand your money back…)
Thanks to Ben for coming over and giving Mike some relief (from Navigating….), and thanks to Laura for letting him come over!
Thanks to the mad Irish Priest who ran onto the Silverstone track and made the race so exciting, and thanks to DC for overtaking on our corner! Also, thanks to Bernie Ecclestone for being so supportive of the British GP. Not.
On a more serious note, a big thanks to Chip Somers for providing us with another fantastic Tour de Liberation, and to everyone involved this year for being such lovely people!
To everyone who has sponsored us this year, our enormous thanks; we’ll be coming to see you all soon and rid you of your money!
A huge thanks to Geoff Vibert and his team at CTS Computers not only for their continued and generous sponsorship, but also for letting us mutilate their Website on a daily basis!
Thanks to the Apperly’s for looking after us in the UK for the weekend.
And finally, thank you to all of you who have been following our progress, and for putting up with our ramblings for nearly 2 weeks.
This is obviously a good time to mention the 2004 Tour de la Liberation, which at present may be going to Barcelona or Strasbourg.
The objective of all this is obviously to raise money for the Bush Hospital Foundation, and they don’t let us go on the trip unless we do, so it’s your choice; help us with our sponsorship for another year, and we’ll give you exciting daily updates. Or don’t, and we won’t. Ok? (Hmmmm… Just a thought, but would it be more effective to say “Sponsor us for next year and we’ll give you the option not to get our emails..! - Mike )
Well, that’s it folks, you can wipe your tears away, the speeches are over. And so is Mike and Garry’s Extended Tour de la Liberation 2003, Jersey to Monte Carlo.. and beyond.
Goodbye until next year.
Garry and Mike
Day 14 Update
Due to a problem with accessing the Website last night, we've subsequently returned to Jersey safe and sound, and i'm doing this from home over ADSL.... SO much easier! Not to mentioned cheaper! Farewell till the next one