Day 03 – Bergerac to Pau

Welcome once again to the 2006 Tour de la Liberation!

Here we are already on Day 3, and what a lovely view to wake up to when crossing the courtyard to get to the dining room..

Breakfast was the usual affair – but at least the coffee was hot this time!

After saying a quick hello to the other residents of the hotel…

..we made our way to the courtyard for the days instructions…

Today saw the re-introduction of an old favourite – a Paper Plane competition! Contestants had 5 minutes and a piece of A4 each to build a plane, points being awarded for the plane that flew the furthest.. We managed 3rd thanks to Mike's excellent design and wrist action (my plane was the same design, but didn't fly as far.. go figure!)

Some planes flew better than others – had points been awarded for planes hovering the longest, some people would have done much better…

…equally, had points been deducted for planes that started further back than the point from which they were launched, things also may have been very different for some!

So, first challenge of the day out of the way, and moderately pleased with our 3rd place, we set about the usual days location clues, which seem to be getting harder and harder every day – either that or we're just getting less and less sleep.

First up was "Visual aid gets muddled with blind and backward Tim" – Eymet soon became the favourite answer to this location clue and we hit the road with the usual chanting of "drive on the right, drive on the right…"

The usual beautiful French scenery was there for us on our journey..

and we soon left Jim behind to catch his plane…

Arrival at Eymet found us looking to see "How many dishonest people does it sound like there are in town?"; a coffee and cake later and we were still none the wiser, but eventually found what we thought seemed to fit the question…

It transpired that we did get the right answer but not for the reasons Chip had intended – he had seen a wrought iron balcony with two Lyres contained with in the metal work. Personally I've never heard of Lyres so it's just as well there was two 'Badi's' in town!

We even made a new friend before leaving…

After saying our "Au revoirs", we headed onwards in blissful ignorance to our next town – "I get amongst the French women after almost a house" – and soon found ourselves arriving in Houeilles – where the clue "Get Religion! If you switch on the flowers what number of lilac do you get" let us once again to head straight for Church!

A quick search of the premises (that even Jim would have been proud of) led us to a model of a Church on a table which seemed to have an electrical cable coiled up underneath it. A quick check to see that no clergy were watching, and we plugged it in to a socket just below some flowers, hoping the answer would light up like a Christmas tree. Sure enough it did – although this had nothing to do with the lights inside the model that came on, but more something that was sneakily written on the plug socket flap..

Why on earth French electricians mark their sockets with Lilac nail varnish remains a mystery to us, but it worked well, and off we trundled to clue site no.3, pleased that for once we were running 2nd in the pack! (not that it's a race of course..)

Town 3 – "This holy man has recently arrived" led us to Saint Justin; the location clue got more and more obvious as the day went on, although it took a few attempts initially to work out how it fitted – and even once we realised how well it fitted, we nearly went to the wrong one, as Autoroute had a St Justin in fairly close proximity to Saint Justin. Top marks to Mike for noticing this BEFORE we got to the wrong one though….

Arrival saw us grabbing a leisurely 3 course meal and once again losing our time advantage in favour of our rumbling tummies! Itching to get hunting for the clue, we wolfed down our food and began walking around the town square, looking for "What does the dull host prop up?". After a lot of searching, which considering how small the square actually was is quite embarrassing – we eventually found a brick propping up a Wheel barrow…

It actually says Dulhoste on the brick although it's not easy to make out from the photo, so you will have to trust us with this one…

Happy with our answer, town 4 was next up – "Have some French rice to see the French" – led us to a small town called Riscle, and we found ourselves looking for a Bull Ring of all things, as the clue was "If you were a young cow at the bullring what would you be doing?" A walk around the permiter of a Bull Ring stadium led us to look closely at all door fittings etc, and on close inspection (and after a little French translation by Mike) the answer became blindingly obvious!

Completely satisfied that our answer had to be right, and after a quick look around the travelling monster truck circus…

…we once again headed back to the car and headed for "A place for drunks surrounded by muddled lorms" – Morlaas – and got on the road.

After a little bit of on-the-road web site administration to see if we could rectify a problem that had been reported to us…

(..which I think must be something to do with all the dodgy stuff you have on your laptop MJ, as it worked for us even in the middle of France, travelling at 60mph over a crummy GPRS connection!)… we arrived in Morlaas to start the search for the final clue – "What's wrong with the directions in town?"; after a half hour search, a tube of smarties (because only Smarties have the answer!), a coffee and another half hour search, the answer was eventually discovered on the floor where we had first started looking. Bearing in mind we were in France, the Compass markings in the ground were still showing as N, S, E W..

..those amongst you that are still awake will be saying to yourselves that the French for West is actually Ouest – and the answer soon becomes obvious!

A short dash back to the Hotel was all that remained for today, and for once the Navigation aids didn't send us off down dirt tracks, although I'm not convinced we should have gone down this road.. the car handled well though…

.. but a quick brush with oncoming traffic (massive long convoy, all tail-gating each other.. maniacs, all of them) left the car looking a little worse for wear..

Still, we somehow made it to the hotel, and not last either, and even had time for a quick Pression before going in for our meal, which despite Chip's concerns, was actually very pleasant!

So, time once again for the days standings, and as expected, the Paper plane game changed things a little bit throughout the field.

Current standings are now as follows:

As you can see, there is very little in it, and with one day still to go and another quiz allegedly lined up, it's all to play for!

Todays' full route is as follows:

Fortunately this hotel has Wiff-eee, but it doesn't quite reach into our room, so we're going to go and sit just outside the door (and hope we don't get trampled by any drunken people on the way back from the bar) and upload my ramblings for your visionary pleasure.

Thanks to all those that have left messages in the Guest Book so far – it's always nice to read them, as it gives us confirmation that people are actually reading this drivel, so keep them coming! (as usual, there will be a prize for the entry that made us both laugh the most!) (don't expect much of a prize tho..)

So, off to sit outside the room and look stupid, so its goodnight once again from us both, and we'll try and remain sober enough tomorrow night to give you the next update!

Garry and Mike