Day 03 - Vichy to Grenobles

Thu, 28/05/2009 - 12:22 — Garry Taylor

Gallery Monaco Rally – Day 3

Good morning everybody, and welcome to Day 3, which see’s us up bright and early and full of energy. Well, one of those three is correct.

Unfortunately, there were no outside exercise activities to wake us up today, but all was not lost, as downstairs a special area had been put aside just for us..

We even had a shower that was fixed to the wall this time, AND a shower curtain. Oh the Luxury!

After a hasty breakfast, we dashed downstairs to the car park to load up the car, clean yesterdays road kill off and remove another few ££’s of brake dust from the wheels (don’t worry Steve, there’s still plenty left for you!)

We were all under orders to return to the Breakfast room by 9am so we were soon assembled anxiously ready to be given our Quiz by Chip...

...a blank piece of paper with a list of empty boxes numbered 1 to 50 awaited us, and we were then given 5 minutes to write down as many States of America as we could.

Obviously this was a “navigators” task, not a mere “drivers” task so I watched in awe as Mike “American state” Nolan went to work, occasionally interjecting with obvious things like Alaska and Hawaii.

At least two people in the room were attempting to do a google search with Blackberrys, however due to the dodgy signal in the room, this may have done more to hinder them than help them!

Our 5 minutes up, we handed in our paper and were soon given the days clue sheet to start plotting on the map.

We were soon safely out of Vichy, and immediately spotted what could be a contender for next years Tour car, should the X not arrive in time..

(don’t worry, i’m just kidding... I think!)

We were soon leaving the Gypsies behind..

..and heading for our first location of the day. “17k to R.Ron’s church” saw us arriving in Arronnes and heading once again for the local church.

In search of “What great battle did Valery get next to?”, the answer was soon found..

.. so we noted down the answer and headed onwards to our next location. “Nearly a good man apparently” – St Just en Chevalet.

On arrival here, we were looking for “According to the Birth sign how fast can you go on nicety tyres?”

We decided before starting work on tracking down the clue, to grab a quick coffee in the first Cafe-Bar we came across. It appears we weren’t the first rally that had passed through here...

Whilst sat sipping our coffees, we noticed another Bar across the road called “Le Capricorne”, so we promptly finished our drinks and went to investigate.

It soon became apparent that we needed to look inside, so we thought it only proper to buy a drink here too, so were soon on our next round!

The answer to the clue was starting to become apparent however, so was well worth the expense..

The actual answer was on a picture of a speedometer on the face of the clock, which showed 240.

Happy with our answer, we headed back to the car to begin our trip to St Germain Laval (After the short street I get in a German) and were soon trundling through some beautiful French countryside..

and just like being back home, were soon stuck behind a taxi..

We soon arrived at our destination however, where it was time to set about looking for “Ouagadougou + ?”

Yes, that’s exactly what we thought when we first read it. Apparently its very hot place, as after a lot of walking around the town, we eventually found this thermometer nailed to a wall practically opposite where we had parked the car an hour previous.

It was now time to head out of the Big Apple and onto some motorways to cover some miles..

..so we joined some autoroutes and soon found ourselves taking in the incredible views..

Our destination was “Go down on an old tennis player and give him some French Money” – which therefore found us heading towards Bourg Argental . On the way, we went up the Col de la Republique...

and also passed some giant parsnips on the way back down again..

After a very pleasant lunch break in a roadside L’auberge, we were soon arriving at our designated town, where the clue was “How many camels try to post a letter to Maghreb”.

We soon found our answer in the window of the local post office..

...so keen to make up time after our long lunch, and added to that the fact it was pouring with rain, we returned to the vehicle and made our way to “Southern start to French Bottoms”.

We soon found ourselves in the beautiful town of Serrieres, beside the River Rhone..

Once here, our clue was “Which is worse 2.1711 or 17.2.28?”

We decided start our search under the bridge, where Mike wanted to see if he had shrunk whilst we’d been away..

After accepting that he hadn’t, and was still not eligible for Jungle Jims, we continued to walk up beside the river, where we stumbled upon the answer quite by accident..

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice that the worst flood height was February 1711, with 17 February 1928 appearing somewhat lower on the leaderboard!

Confident in our answer, we swiftly headed back to the car, and were soon thanking Sat Nav for sending us down some somewhat obscure roads.

At one point, the Garmin didn’t even believe we were on a road at all...

but Mr Gates once again shone through as the Mapping program of choice by at least acknowledging that the tarmac beneath our tyres was real..

although we weren’t entirely convinced it knew what roads were at times..

but onwards and upwards, and we were soon passing all manner of interesting sites like a Safari of all things..

where there was horses..

...bears...

..lots of dogs..

and even a large cocq!!

Finally past the array of animals, we headed to the final clue site of the day at Ste Etienne de St Geoirs, in search of “If you played with balls in the market what game would you be playing?”

A wander around the covered market revealed this...

So we scribbled down “Rugby” and began the final leg of the journey to Grenobles, where we endured more horrific views..

Arriving safely in our hotel, we began the walk down what seemed like an infinitely long corridor to our room..

Work then began in earnest on the evenings task, which was a paper aeroplane competition, but despite our efforts to design the plane to French Aviation standards..

..we failed to win the judges hearts (two members of staff from the Hotel) when it came to the awards for best decorated plane.

The flight itself didn’t go that much better either, as a freak gust of wind never before experienced in this part of the world just happened to come along at launch time. But never mind, we at least got a few points for trying, and moved onto dinner, followed by the ever exciting results for Day 3’s hard work.

As you can see, it’s all very close at the top, and the fact that it’s now 2am and we’ve not yet uploaded all this drivel isn’t going to help us, but we’ll do what we can and see what happens on the final day.

Today’s drive has seen us covering just under 180 miles, so a little less than the last few days, but we make up for that tomorrow for the final run down to Monte!

Here is today’s route, which means all we have to do is wish you a good night from me, and a goodnight from him! Goodnight everybody!