Day 04 - Grenobles to Monte Carlo
Fri, 29/05/2009 - 16:25 — Garry Taylor
Gallery Monaco Rally – Day 4
Welcome to Day 4 of the Gallery Monaco Rally 2008.
Today saw us waking up in the usual manner – which is basically knackered from the previous day and the stupidly late night! However, it’s worth it if it keeps you, our paying public, satisfied! (I assume you have all paid?)
The drawing back of the curtains in our Grenoble Hotel room revealed a sight to put a smile on even the sleepiest face...
This morning’s shower was as good in some ways as the previous day.
That is, there was still a shower curtain, and you didn’t have to hold the shower head yourself.
However, the fact that there was no hot water left by the time we came to use ours made things a little refreshing!
Not deterred by this, we grabbed a bite to eat for breakfast and gave the car its daily clean down, then packed up our bits and pieces in readiness for the Daily Clue handout.
After working out the map clues, we programmed them into the laptop and navigated our way out of a somewhat dangerous junction where you have to shoot across two lanes of traffic that are coming towards you at in excess of 70mph, but we survived and were soon on the motorway..
...destined for “One Hundred and fifty romans against French Females”. This was a town called Clelles and the route here provided us with some fantastic scenery to keep us amused on the way..
On arrival at Clue Site No.1 we headed straight to the toilet.
Primarily because the clue was “How many bars are there in the toilet?”
A classic Chip question; we were delighted to find a meter high up on a wall inside the Gents, where lifting a flap revealed the following...
There were also some grates on the ground with bars, as well as bars around the light bulb, but this struck us as being far to ambiguous for Chips devious mind, so we went with our instincts, made a note of our answer and high tailed it out of there before the rest of the pack turned up!
By now, petrol was becoming an increasing priority; the fact that the warning light had come on soon after we left the Hotel meant that we can’t have had much more in the tank over and above fumes, so Mike expertly navigated us to the town of Mens (no comment) where we had a quick splash and dash (again, no comment) before returning to our route in search of Clue site no.2, which was “Almost a dead Body”
Upon arriving in the town of Corps, the clue was “How many live flying things are there on the walls of La Poste”
A brief search of the local post office revealed nothing; however a short walk found us looking at something with more potential...
We circled the building 3 or 4 times, each time counting different numbers of flying things. After ruling out the non-live flying things...
We finally decided on our answer of 29, and kept our fingers crossed.
After admiring the views of the mountains from the town...
...we left the dead bodies behind..
...and continued on our way...
...and started to climb..
Clue location number 3 was “New York backwards in sees” and soon found us heading to Seyne, dodging the cows on the way...
..and avoiding what is obviously a new design of tractor utilising hover craft technology that has yet to hit Jerseys shores...
The clue here was “Read the Signs. If you wanted to quit smoking, how much would 4 minutes advice cost you?”
As it was now lunch time, we picked the nearest Cafe-bar and I popped inside to spend a penny. Whilst waiting for the toilets availability, i started reading the information on the wall...
After agreeing that 4minutes would cost us €0.60 we enjoyed a lovely meal of Steak Frite’s, before continuing on our way up the mountain.
Happily putting our trust in Autoroute to plot us a route to the next clue location, we set off from Seyne and were delighted to discover that Uncle Bill was going to take us over Col de Bas, which we thought would make a pleasant but relaxing addition to our route (as this didn’t appear on the standard map that we had.)
However, our suspicions became aroused as the road began to narrow the further we climbed...
..but ever the optimists, we plodded on.
A few corners later, things were starting to get interesting...
Obviously, things weren’t going to deteriorate beyond this point. After all, it’s not like sat nav has ever led us that far astray .
Or so we thought.
As we climbed higher, the scenery got pretty. Pretty scary. The nearer the edge we got, the more pronounced the quiver in Mikes’ voice became.
Finally, we came to the stark realisation that even some terrains are beyond the capabilities of an Evo IX..
Clinging to the mountain at an altitude of just under 2km’s, we accepted defeat. Or more accurately, Mike lost his feet...
After pausing to admire the view from the top of the mountain...(had we brought a Jersey Flag, we’d have claimed it as our own...)
We decided to call Mountain Rescue. You can imagine our excitement when we looked in the mirror and saw help was on its way..
Obviously we were on our own on this one, so I performed a careful 3-point turn (not something you want to get wrong at this altitude) and we gingerly made our way back down the mountain.
Even the locals were giving us that 'knowing' look...
So an hour after leaving Seyne, we were back where we started. Some of the teams were still there having their lunch, so we quietly exited via Chips’ approved route (yes Chip, now we know why you go to all this hard work to set routes for us!)
Back on the trail, we soon caught up with Richard and Faye in the Ferrari and Nathan and John in the Aston...
and before long we found ourselves in an impromptu photo session at the side of the road...
We exited the car park, destined for our final clue location of the Day, which was “Between French five Italians go to French” – this was of course the lovely old town of Entrevaux.
On arrival, a short coffee break was then followed by the search for the clue, which was “Hello Moto! But what number?
We crossed the bridge into the old town on foot, and noticed a sign up on the wall...
Following the signs eventually led us to the museum, which was closed. However an examination of the sign hanging above the door revealed what we believed to be the answer...
After writing it down, we returned to the car to begin the push to Monte Carlo, and waved goodbye to Bruce, Julie, Paul and Francoise...
As we neared Monte, we saw plenty of these...
...but it was never entirely clear what the speed limit was...
Before long, we were entering familiar territory...
...and the nice young man directed us into the Metropole Palace Hotel...
...where a familiar face was waiting to great us!
On arrival, we checked in to our room, and immediately investigated the view out of the window...
Satisfied with our find, we decided to check out the mini bar prices next, but we weren’t quite so enthusiastic about these.
For example, these two little fellas will set you back just over £13 at today’s exchange rate.
Even a small can of Red Bull will set you back just under £9, so we returned all items to the fridge and removed our fingerprints.
After undoubtedly the nicest shower of the entire trip (not surprising as this is a 5 Star Hotel in Monaco), we got ourselves ready for dinner and headed to the restaurant, where we enjoyed a delightful dinner before the final results came in!
It was always going to be tight, but we had no idea of which answers we or any other teams had actually got right today, so many of the positions were likely to change.
Here are the final results...
As it is now 5.30am local time, we have decided that we’ll make you wait another day for the team photo’s that Mike painstakingly interrupted every ones dinners to take earlier this evening, but we would just like to say that we're delighted to have come first, but the newcomers gave us a really good run for our money this time.
There is rumour that we may be doing a Rally in 2009, which would be great news, as this year we've met some great new people as well as re-aquainting ourselves with ones we've met on previous events, and of course a massive thanks go to Chip and Heidi for once again organsizing a fantastic Rally.
Full credits will be handed out tomorrow, so this will give you something to look forward to, and those of you still interested are more than welcome to join us on the final 3 days of our trip, which as of this moment in time, we’ve not even decided the route of, although I suspect we'll be checking it quite thoroughly to ensure we don't get stuck up another mountain!
Finally, here is today’s route, which has seen us cover another 250 miles, making the total so far on the trip just over 900 miles.
Until then, all that remains is to upload the update that you have just finished reading, and once again thank you all for posting comments on the Guest Book.
All messages have been passed on to the relevant people, and thank you for all your amusing and encouraging remarks, we're glad your enjoying reading it. Keep them coming, they'll be a prize of something with little or no value (but don't let that put you off) for the one we judge to have made us laugh the loudest come the end of the trip!
Join us tomorrow for Beyond the Gallery Monaco Rally 2008.
Good night from Garry and Mike in Monte Carlo.
