DAY 4

Day 4 of Le Tour de la Liberation

After last nights website update, we finally managed to get to bed at 4am.

Unfortunately due to a combination of the heat and no connection to the amount of Beer consumed, i awoke at 5.30am (this time i couldn't blame Mike's snoring) feeling like death!

All in all, not a good way to start our final days' boost for the championship challenge!

So without breakfast, and after a trip to the local Hyper market to stock up on fluids for the day
and ingredients for a picnic lunch on top of a mountain, we didn't actually get on our way until
10.30am.

Our first stop was in Italy, in a town called Oulx - our late start unfortunately landed us in the
middle of a large traffic jam of people waiting to pay their tolls for Tunnel de Frejus (12.9km long)
- all in all, we spent an hour in the traffic.

Eventually on our arrival, we managed to track down the answer to the first question quite quickly,
which was "Park at the big eye. What time does your bell end say it is?" The following picture should
help you work out that the answer is 12:30

Onwards to our next destination, where we once again found the answer to the question fairly quickly
- "Two heads are the key to this clue. What goes in both directions?" The answer to this was "water"
as the picture shows - a bronze plaque with two heads and a key...

Destination Number 3 involved some fabulous mountain passes, where we drove to the peak of Col de
d'Izoard, which is 2360m high.. (this wasn't actually on our designated route, but we saw it on the
map and couldn't resist the challenge!)

The actual location of clue number 3 was in fact Col de Vars, so we made our way there to get the
answer for that question.

By this time, although extremely tired and hungry, we still had some way to go before reaching Monte
Carlo, so we shelved the Picnic on top of the mountain in favour of making hay whilst the sun was
shining, and pushed on with the driving.

The petrol situation was dangerously low after the fast blat up the mountain side, so we took
advantage of crusing gently down the other side, and eventually managed to find something vaguely
resembling petrol!

On then to Clue Number 4 - "A mountain of Lemon pie!" - which turned out to be Limone-Piemonte. The
question once here was "Why are Skodas dangerous in this town?" - The answer was to be found engraved
into an old piece of artillery in the town square...

Unfortuantely, it transpired on leaving this charming little town that crash number 2 of the trip had
occured; this time a run in with one of the groups' Porchses, and yes, you've guessed it.... a
Citroen... which came off far worse than the Porsche.... and there was a very friendly Italian Subaru
driver on hand who witnessed the whole thing, and did everything he could to help make sure the
Police were clear that it was the Citroen driver who was at fault!

Alas, the Police in Italy all seem to go home at 6pm, and as by now it was 7pm, they never arrived, so a great help they turned out to be!

On to the final clue of the day, "What will Brian tell you?" - Answer... The time.

We finally made it to our 5 Star accomodation for the night at around 9pm. We weren't quite last for a change - mainly due to some cunning navigating on Mikes' part that got us to the hotel ahead the of Lotus despite them being in front of us as we entered Monaco!

Due to our previous days lead of 100 points over 2nd placed Jenny and Peter, it transpired that
provided we got just two answers correct, we would be un-catchable.

However, not being ones for an easy life, we fully intended to try our best to get all the days questions correct..

This we succeded in doing, as also did Peter and Jenny, so as you have probably worked out for yourselves, our lead was maintained and we were declared winners of the 2003 Tour de la Liberation.

Our reward for our work was regaining of the infamous "Dart Trophy", and two silver salver's, as
pictured below..

The final standings for the 2003 Tour de la Liberation are as follows:

1st Place - 765 points - Garry and Mike in the Evo VII
2nd Place - 665 points - Jenny and peter in the Caterham
3rd Place - 600 points - Charles and David in the Porsche
4th Place - 575 points - Henri and Tessa in the Mazda MX5
5th Place - 555 points - Anne and Sue in the Porsche
6th Place - 520 points - Mike and Hazel in the Morgan
7th Place - 500 points - Rosy and Peter Atchinson in the MG Midget
8th Place - 465 points - Jenny and Geoff Cornwall in the Ford Ranger
9th place - 445 points - Eoghan and Mike in the Lotus Elise

This years trip has been declared a total success, and thanks goes to Chip Somers for his patience
and creativity in setting this years tasks, Seth Somers for being a wonderful Clue Master, and Heidi
for ably assisting Chip in all ways possible!

Thanks also go to Dr Mike Marks for organizing the trip and to him and his son JP for acting as
Marshalls for the Tour, with rather more crashing going on than in previous years.. Lets hope this
isn't a start of things to come!

Plans are already being made for next years trip, which will hopefully be making a welcome return to
its usual May spot, with a destination of Barcelona looking to be quite likely, so we'd better get
collecting this years sponsorhip so we can then make a start on next years!

Our next few days destinations are yet to be decided, however Italy, Austria and Czech Republic are
high on the list of possibilities. We'll keep you updated on our progress as we go along.

Until the next update, we'll leave you with the view from where we ate our evening meal.

Bye for now.

Garry and Mike