Day 2 - Blois to Claremont-Ferand

Sat, 27/06/2009 - 21:21 — Garry Taylor

Welcome to Day 2 – which is coming to you live from room 217 in a Novotel in Claremont-Ferand!

Spot the difference from yesteday?!

You'll notice that the font has increased due to popular demand! Well, perhaps not "popular", you were all thinking it, but too embarrased to say anything, admit it. Only Martin and Tracy were big enough to come forward! (truth is I couldn't work out an easy way of doing it!)

Today saw us getting up just after 7am, which was about 5 hours after we had finished doing last nights update!

For Mike, the day started with wet feet, as he stepped out of bed and into a puddle below the air conditioner unit. Or thats what he tells me anyway...!

After a somewhat unsubstantial breakfast...

...we packed our bags, cleaned a few hundred dead flies off the car, and assembled in the dinner hall at 9am for the quiz – which was a sheet of European countries with a blank where we should enter their capital cities! OMG!

Whilst Mike has previously proved his outstanding expertise in American States, it wasn’t quite so impressive when it came to European capitals, however, we did get a reasonable score in the end, most of which was down to Mike, although I did correctly name London at the capital of England, and Moscow as the capital of Russia, so I feel that I have just cause to be proud!!

Below we can see Bruce and Julie hard at work on their quiz, although “birthday boy” Bruce wasn’t entirely giving it his all...

Quiz over, Day 2’s clue sheet was released to the waiting teams, and without delay, we unfolded our maps, worked out where we needed to go on our day’s travel, and fed Piers our co-ordinates.

After churning over the numbers for a bit, he came up with a reasonable route and we headed out – remembering to drive on the right of course!

We headed to clue site number 1 – “Cor! Revolutionary takes French toward New York” (Cour-Cheverney) – where we were told that on arrival, we would need to head to the Chateux.

As we approached, we realised that we had been here on an earlier tour, but unfortunately, the answer to the clue was never likely to be the same as last time (not that we would have remembered anyway!)

Our question was “If three people came to tea how many cakes would each guest get?” – after wandering around the grounds and the inside the chateux, we eventually stumbled across some cakes...

Convinced it couldn’t really be as simple as dividing 14 by 3, we spent a fair bit of time trying to find an alternative answer, and reading many things into the question.

However, with nothing better to give, we came to the conclusion that it must be 4 and 2 thirds. (It later transpired that when Chip had originally set the clue, there had only been 9 cakes, which of course would have made a lot more sense.

Turns out that between then and now, someone had come along with another 5 cakes!

Still, maths being our calculator's strong point, we had no choice but to go with our answer.

We left, but not before we bumped into a 13th century Stig, which of course I couldn’t resist having my picture taken with...

We still weren’t entirely convinced of our answer, so we stopped for coffee, and had a quick chat with one of the locals. He told us that the answer was definitely 4.66667 however something told us he was lying...

Anyway, we moved on, and headed to clue site number 2.

“Val and a man combine to say here” (Valencay)

The clue “Amongst the old cars how many mental cases do you get for 10 centimes” led us to believe we should head for the Motor Museum that we could see sign posted as we entered the town, and we once again found ourselves at the clue site of a very early tour.

Walking around the museum, with just ten minutes to go before they shut for lunch, we stumbled across an old vending machine from the 1900’s, which seemed to fit part of the clue...

A further of study of the machine revealed some metal cases tucked away inside that said “mental” on them, so due to a sign on the machine that loosely translated said “10 centimes per article”, we came to the answer of 1.

Next stop was a town called Lignieres (Take a linear route to get here?).

Here we stopped for some lunch, whilst being entertained by the local band..

After a quick chat with some of the locals..

...we went in search of the answer to  “At the halls seize the day. But what happens twice?”

After a lot of walking around the town, we eventually ended up back just outside where we had eaten lunch, and found our answer of VI:

As time was getting on...

...we decided to press on to clue site number 4.

“Put us in a smelly bag” obviously saw us heading to Boussac, where “View who loves A” had us heading for a Chateaux where a Panoramic viewing area gave fantastic views across the valley.

Unfortuantely, as we were so engrossed looking for the clue, we don’t have any pics of these fantastic views, so you will just have to take our word for it!!

In any case, even after stopping for a mid afternoon snack in a lovely little tea room run by English couple (Lois et Paul FEARMAN – www.limousin-chambres-bb.com)...

..we came away not entirely convinced that a graffitied “J’etaime Alexsis”  on some swings was the answer, which in our (incorrect, as it turns out!) interpretation meant the answer would have been “I”

Still, returning to the car at least meant air conditioned luxury again, and we headed for the final clue site of the day in Pionsat (Pie today?) (just as well we weren’t delayed by a day, Chip!)

Arrival there saw us looking for the answer to “Between what years did the man with two small eyes make it balance” – where we eventually found a weighbridge with the name P.MiLLiER on it, where a closer examination of the weighbridge hut revealed the dates 1960-1961. (He obviously wasn’t very successful!)

We began the drive to the hotel in Claremont-Ferand, taking a few interesting roads, and overtaking a few slower moving vehicles en-route...

..and eventually got to the Hotel at about 6.50pm.

Delighted with our progress, even if not with our answers, we decided to go in search of a Jet Wash to try and remove another ton of dead insects and Ferodo DS2500 brake pad residue from the car.

Unfortunately, the Cora Jet Wash we had headed for turned out to be just an auto Car wash (and there’s no WAY my car is being subjected to that after being so well behaved so far!) so we headed another hypermarket where we thought we might find what we were after.

Unfortunately, due entirely to the fault of Piers our guidance system, (or possibly me, for misinterpreting his clear and concise instructions even though they were fully backed up by Mike) we ended up taking a wrong turn, which instead of meaning we were 2.8miles from base, suddenly meant we had to drive 13miles up the Autoroute, to turn around and come back another 13miles.

So much for an early arrival at the hotel!

Still, one up side of this was that we saved this interesting creature from certain death by high pressure water...

After a fairly enjoyable dinner, and eventually welcoming back Tasha and Steph (car 15) at gone 10pm, who had got slightly lost and had been rescued by Adrian, Amir and Raquib, we were all put out of our misery and given the answers to the days clues, along with the standings so far....

So our early lead has been destroyed! Although only 5 points separates us from 1st and 2nd place, so it’s all to play for over the next 2 days, and who knows what strange things Chip will throw in to trip us all up!

Finally, we have decided to introduce a “can you tell what it is?” feature, so here is todays; answers on the guest book please – there may even be a prize!!

And here, as always, is the days complete route, which has seen us cover approximately 200miles and another tank of fuel!