Day 04 – Carcassonne to Barcelona…

Today saw me up at the crack of dawn and outside washing the car by 6.35am. You’ll need to take my word for this as Mike was still in bed, (You expect me to get up at 6.30am after we were updating this website until 1.30am the previous evening??!! Mike) …so we have no photographic evidence!

However, I took a few pics of other clean looking cars whilst I was there..

After the Tie breaker question that had been threatened for the previous day or so was over (we had 2 minutes to name as many items of fruit as we could!!) our first clue of the day took us to Axat, where we soon discovered that one of us would have to get wet feet! We had to find a fax number that was located on a “little island”. (At the time the clue was first set, I don’t think the river was a torrent, as was the case today!!)

After successfully getting the fax number off the picnic bench, we headed to our next stop of Ceret (Map clue: where a Greek island gets confused..), and decided to take the mountain roads, instead of the direct and boring Motorway route! 30miles of cross country Tommi Makkinen style rally stages didn’t seem to fox Mike, who was successfully holding on not only to the laptop but also to a video camera and a digital camera, whilst still reading me out pace notes, however I did succeed in managing to make myself feel extremely car sick!!

But there were nice views to be seen in between the corners!

At Ceret we had to visit a museum of Modern Art in order to find our answer, then we stopped for a relaxing meal in a local Pizzeria, before proceeding to our final clue of the day. We were supposed to go via a high Mountain pass on the French/Spanish border, but due to bad weather, this clue was cancelled, and we were advised to take the safer Motorway route. In fact, the Motorway wasn’t much safer; with visibility being minimal, this stint proved extremely tiring, not helped by the fact that my early morning car wash episode was starting to catch up with me!

However, we did manage to safely navigate ourselves across the border…

Our final clue destination of the day found us in a town called Figaro, where we had to negotiate more railway lines in order to find the answer..

Having eventually worked out what we thought was the answer, we then headed to our hotel for the night, eventually managing to navigate our way through Barcelona’s rush hour traffic, and at last found ourselves at the final evenings base, the Gran Hotel Havana, where we checked in to our plush hotel room, and were delighted to see it had a high quality stereo system…

..and a fully kitted out bathroom accessories box..

A quick glimpse outside our hotel room revealed the following view..

..and also reminded us of the excitement yet to come this weekend..

..whilst a quick glimpse inside the room revealed that we would not have to rely upon 9.6k GSM Data this evening!!

After a very long and tiring day that had some fantastic driving, (that is to say the routes were great, not that my driving was necessarily fantastic!!)(I thought it was fantastic.. Mike), and some wonderful views, we assembled for our evening meal, and subsequently the final standings were revealed!

Final Results after Day 4.
1. Garry Taylor/Mike Nolan                        585
2. Brian and Spencer Scholfield                  553
3. Peter Crespel/Chris Evans                       528
4. Alex Ohlsson/Andrea Mursell                  526
5. Frank Le Maistre/Alex Johnson              475
6. Mark Taylor/Robert Jones                      474
7. Matt Barnes/Steve Barnes                        465
8. Guy Le Souer/Edward Bennett               455
9. Henrietta Marks/Ruth Smith                   454
10. Paul Fox/Ian Ireland                               447
11. Peter and Rosy Aitchinson                     444
12. Peter de Bourcer/Jennifer Bridge         420
13. Mike and Hazel McLoughlin                 407
14. Geoff and Jenny Cornwall                    403
15. Robert Sinclair/Morgan Watts              295

We were delighted to find ourselves winners for the 4th time, and to be awarded not only the much treasured and coveted Dart Trophy again..

..but also 3 day Grandstand Tickets to the Barcelona Grand Prix, so that we can watch Michael Schumacher lose once more!!

To our very great surprise, we also won the over-all Tour prize which is a combination of Clue points scored and money raised for the Bush Hospital Foundation, and have been awarded a fabulous trip to South Africa, all expenses paid trip to Cape town, to include Whale watching and many other exciting things!

The next prize went to Brian and Spencer, for an extremely well deserved 2nd Place, finishing only 32 points behind us, and we have donated our “extra” Grand Prix tickets to them for such a fantastic job. Spencer also won the judges prize for the most outstanding individual on the trip.

We cannot let this moment pass without a special mention for Paul Fox and Ian Ireland, who not only kept us thoroughly amused with their antics, but were the people responsible for the idea behind the Accumulator Car Raffle that a lot of you purchased tickets for. This idea raised almost £50,000 for the Bush Hospital Foundation; well done guys!

A huge thanks also goes to Chip and Heidi, for once again organizing a thoroughly enjoyable tour, and we very much look forward to doing it all again next year!

As it is now 3.35am, we’re going to upload this little lot, and bid you a farewell! Tomorrow will be spent doing the Tourist “thing” in Barcelona, however as we have paid for 24 hours worth of Wireless internet access, expect an update tomorrow evening!!

Until then, it just remains for us to say a big thanks to everyone who has sponsored and followed us on this year’s trip, and a big thanks once more to CTS Computing for their continued support on the Tour.

Adios.
Garry and Mike