Gallery Rally—Jersey to Geneva 2010
Day 4 with Garry and James
Tonight comes to you from the Grand Hotel Kempinksi, our rather pleasant 5 star hotel in our destination city of Geneva, Switzerland.
But first, the summary of the day!
Things started in the usual way..
...followed by the usual pouring over the maps trying to work out Day 4 of Chips cryptic clues..
...and today, an additional item, The Great Swizz Scavenger Hunt!
This consisted of the following requirements;
1. A photograph of an old French woman sitting in your car
2. A feather
3. A newspaper from the week May 25th to May 30th inclusive
4. An Omega watch collection catalogue
5. A French policeman's signature
Not the easiest of tasks but something to ponder over throughout the days driving and clues solving!
First stop of the day was "Five Romans hesitation of a French male" - which saw us heading to Verdun-s-le-D where we had to produce a photograph of our team standing in a river. Not exactly complicated, although i think Chips real plan was to see how many people he could get to slip over and fall in the river. Fortuantely, whilst James very nearly landed nose first, we did manage to stay relatively dry, unlike some teams..
After a brief stop to dry our feet, we head to the local police station where we politely asked the local constabulary if he would sign a random bit of paper for us and give it his official stamp. Kindly, he agreed!
Happy with that, we headed towards our next clue site of Cirque de Baume (Head to the Circus to find the Rocks?), where we had to answer the question "How many olde women are walking down with white hats?
On the drive here, we kept our eyes peels for a feather and an old French woman (as you do). Driving through one of the small towns on the way, we spotted a French lady sweeping her pathway, so decided to pull over and try and woo her with our charms and get her in the car.
She was having none of it, so we gave up and drove off.
On the way to the next location, we experienced our first car problem of the trip; after a little exuberant driving around a roundabout in the middle of a Subaru sandwich, we lost all power. Fortunately we had enough momentum to make it to the exit and pull over out of harms way, where after a bit of head scratching and some thorough checking, I was delighted to find a blown fuse to the ECU. No matter, a spare was found, inserted, and power was returned!
Back on the road, arrival at the location site that we were lead to by the "Cirque de Baume" clue found us heading to some caves in the nearby area, where we spent many long hours (well, an hour probably) searching in vain for the answer.
Whilst we didn't get one, we did at least get some nice pics...
Having decided we need to go higher in search of the answer, we headed to another spot in the area that we thought might contain the answer. However, we were still wrong. Got another nice pic though!
We gave up there and headed to the next place we thought might be appropriate, and this time we found the answer! At the top of viewing area was a historic information board and on the board was this olde picture.
Its a bit difficult to make out but on the left hand side are some people walking down some steps—three are ladies wearing white hats. Obvious really—provided you look in the right place. Which fortunately we did eventually!
Happy with our answer, we headed straight back to the car and drove off. Immediately we got around the corner we stopped. Because we spotted an old French lady!
We approached her with caution and asked if she was French, and if she spoke English. She confirmed the former, but the latter was solved when she called her younger sister over. We explained to her we needed a picture of her in the car and we had enthusiastic agreement!
Unfortunately the younger sister volunteered herself for the task, so we had the slightly embarrassing job of having to explain how we needed her older looking sister for the task!
Anyway, she seemed to see the funny side, and jumped in the car!
Before long, the whole family turned up and wanted to get in on the act!
Delighted with our find, we drove off once more, headed in the direction of Col de la Faucille, a 1320m Col (where the clue to find it had been "Go to the top at 1.20pm")
Whilst driving, we were going through thoughts on how to try and get the other things on the Scavenger hunt list, and we came to the conclusion that things like the feather we'd just keep our eyes peeled for.
Literally seconds later, the car stopped abruptly.
That will have been due to me applying the brakes rapidly as I had caught something out of the corner of my eye. I reversed back up the road and pulled off it, and sure enough, just as I suspected, there was a small white feather stuck on the top of a small branch in the gravelly grassy area at the side of the road!
Excellent, 3 down, two to go, and only one clue left to find. What could be easier!
So off we drove, and began the climb up the Col... Some very entertaining looking roads lay ahead
Just as we were getting into our stride, we ground to a halt again. Not due to old French ladies or feather, but due to the fuse blowing again. As I'd run out of spare 20amp fuses, I borrowed one from the headlamp washers—i'm sure they wouldn't have minded!
New fuse inserted, back up to full power. For about 5minutes until the next left hand bend. We were starting to see a pattern now—and also there are more left hand bends than we have fuses! More head scratching, and a friendly French chap stopped to see if we needed help. Unfortunately he didn't understand any English so explaining that we were blowing main fuses to the ECU every time we turned left didn't really gain us an awful lot of value!
He did kindly advise us that there was a garage 10km up the road. In between this, I'd sent a text to Matt at TRL asking if he could think of any idea why I'd keep blowing fuse 22—a bit of a long shot for him to diagnose problems from Halifax, on a car nearly in Switzerland. Or so I thought, until he replied to say in detail what it almost certainly was being caused by.
Alas, fixing it required a workshop, so after stealing another fuse from an unnecessary item (actually, according to the fuse box, I'd stolen the Horn fuse—yet the horn still worked—go figure), we drove gingerly to a town called Chamagnille, and found a Renault dealership complete with a mechanic from the Isle of Man, who used to be a rally driver and had experience with modified performance cars!
Moments later, true to the name on the front of the workshop, the car was airborne!
An hour later and 25 euros lighter (and another €20 for a whole load of spare 20amp fuses just in case!), we had located the problem, repositioned the melting wiring loom to the lambda sensor, done some repairs and we were on our way again, next stop the Col!
Whilst we had been at the garage, James had suddenly run off very excited about something, and returned soon after with a brochure and some pics of his and his Top Gear namesakes' dream car....
That' right folks; the Dacia Sandero!
Anyway, we were now running somewhat late, time was fast approaching 1630, and we had to be at the hotel in Switzerland by 1830 to hand in the days work as anyone arriving after that time would lose the entire day's points. Not something we were keen to do, so we got a move on, and 45mins later were at the Col.
The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that the sign at the Col doesn't agree with the height of the Col as referred to in the Clue—which was taken from the Michelin Map 2010. So we can only assume it's grown 3m since the sign went up.
The question for the top was "What bird has a queue up her arse?" - and fortunately we soon stumbled upon the answer on a sign board at the top of the Col in a small car park...
Time was now very much against us, so we headed back to the car and set course for Geneva, with anyhope of finding an old newspaper or an omega watch brochure fading as quickly as the clock was ticking towards 1830.
Entering Geneva at around 1800 isn't a great thing to do on a weekday when you are on a tight time schedule, and we crawled through the rush hour traffic, finally getting to the car park of the hotel at 1825. James jumped out to take the days work to Chip before our 1830 cut off, and its just as well he did, as i somehow managed to drive into the underground carpark, out the other side, and back into the rush hour traffic. Even when I did find the car park again, I struggled to find my way from it to the Hotel!
But we did make it eventually! Just time for a quick shower before drinks on the terrace, where we had a fairly reasonable view to admire...
We chatted to some of our fellow competitors and compared stories of the day...
Before long, we headed for the dining room, where we enjoyed a very pleasant meal....
...after which, I went and annoyed people by taking pictures of them again!
Shortly after that, my battery went flat, and as the spares were in the car, which i had little to no chance of being able to find in the dark, I'm afraid that ends the pictures for today!
All in all, a very good trip, a toughly fought battle at the top, and some very good results by some newcomers, including my 2010 Navigator James! More importantly, a lot of fun and no fatalities OR speeding tickets!
Next year should see me and Mike re-united where I'm sure will be joining the Blackstones in an attempt to regain the trophy!
Tomorrow however see's us needing to leave around 10am, as due to a problem with Condor, our originally planned return of Wednesday evening has now turned into a boat we need to catch at 8am Wednesday morning, so we're going to hot foot it down to St Malo for tomorrow evening in readiness for the boat! And as its now gone 4am, its time to upload and get a few hours sleep.
So all that remains is to put the leaderboard below, and then run to bed before you start shouting at us for not winning again!!!
And todays route...
