Gallery Rally — Jersey to Monaco 2011

Day 2 - Amboise to Le Mont Dore

Well here we are again!

We are coming to you live from our hotel - which is up a mountain - sipping Pepsi, nibbling on some nuts, and constructing the Eiffel Tower. As you do.

This mornings mystery task, handed to us at 9am, was to construct a model of the Eiffel tower using only the contents of the pack provided - which consisted of two packs of cocktail sticks, 18 drinking straws, an over-sized pack of playing cards, 3 tubs of play-doh, a pack of sticky-tack, a pair of scissors, and a picture of said Eiffel tower to work from.

Nigel and David didn't look much more impressed either!

Here is what we have to work with...

Yikes! Well ok, something to think about, but more of that later, as its time to hit the road and start cracking some clues!

First clue today was "Go to a confused Lucy vane" - which found us heading to Valencay obviously!

So we made sure we were on the right track....

and made our way, carefully avoiding the oncoming train.

Once there, the task was to find "What is the mathematical difference between the two gardens of circles"

We wondered into the Chateux that was at the end of the road as you drive into Valencay...

It seemed like a logical place to go to - especially when we found a garden "map" as we entered the gates. There was a "Jardins du Rondes" listed as number 28 on the map - although nothing really to make a calculation of. So we continued to look around the grounds.

At the other end of the Chateux was another entry point, with another map. On this one however, whilst the "Jardins du Rondes" was still number 28 on the key, it appeared a typo had been made, as on the map itself, the garden had the number 29 on it. So in our opinion, 29-28=1 !

Happy with our answer, we returned to the car and set sail for out next destination.

"Sounds like a French breakfast pastry" was the clue designed to get us to a town called Crozant - in search of "What is the most two people would pay for bed and breakfast?"

After a quick wonder, we stumbled across some ruins with a former hotel at its base.

On closer inspection there was a Tariff sheet stuck inside on of the windows.

By our calculations, the answer was €62

More than happy, it was time to head for a fuel station and on to the next clue. Oh, no. Wait. Still plenty of fuel. So onwards to "Ah! A French one!" found us plotting a course for Ahun.

We were a little concerned we werent going to be welcome here..

But we carried on regardless, using the Golf's nimble handling to avoid the trouble ahead.

We even raced one of these...

Well, that was until it had to go and fill up with petrol HAHAHAHAHA

(ok, technically it wasn't really a race - we pulled up behind it, but unlike when I'm in my car, he didnt seem to want to play anyway. No idea what his problem was. MONSIEUR BORING!)

On arrival, time to look for the answer to "What is an atlas doing in LJ's Garden" - although this was later transposed to JL's Garden due to a MOST unusual typo in Chips clue sheet.

We can't say it made any difference to us as there was only one garden, the name of which was Jardin Jacques LaGrange - and it was too much of a coincidence not to be the intended place - so we wondered around the Garden unaware that it might not have been the right place anyway!

A few laps of the garden later, and a wonder down a secluded slope leading to a locked gate with a tomb behind it gave us exactly what we were looking for!

Very happy with that one (you can't beat a padlock clue!), it was time to head to the destination number 4; "A reptile line" saw us heading to a town called Crocq.

"How many capital cities can you see on the top" was a good indication we should go up high, so when we saw signs to some medieval towers and a "Table D'orientation" we headed straight there!

Unfortuantely, although we had somehow jumped to the head of the field (yes, despite diesel power, we were now in front on the road - although as all you F1 fans will know, track position means nothing until the final pitstop!), the Table D'Orientation didnt open until 1430, and we arrived there at 1415. Fortunately the lady arrived at 1425 so we threw some money at her and legged it up the tall tower.

On arrival at the top was some stunning views, as well as a 360degree map with various cities and countries listed.

We counted 4 actual Capitals, although there were some red herrings such as Barcelona, Munich and Geneva designed to add to the confusion!

"Be our French Ball" was our next location clue - so we duly headed to La Bourboule;- "Whats going in the wrong direction at the Fair" saw us discover an ENORMOUS park with all sorts of attractions, rides, fairground type of thing, etc,

We wondered around the huge grounds, examing all the rides. For quite some time. In vein, it has to be said.

It wasn't a complete waste however, as Mike found a nice beaver..

and I found a big metal man...

So, after losing an hour, we walked back to a more "Centre Ville" area, and quite annoyingly, fairly quickly discovered a Carousel, where the answer became blindingly obvious.

Interestingly, the best answer we had come up with after walking around the park was actually a Horse anyway, so I guess we shouldnt feel it was a complete waste of time!

And so, 5 clues completed, it was time to return to the Golf and make our progress to the night stop of Le Mont Dore, where we arrived shortly before 5pm. Unlike the last model competition we had to do a couple of years ago, we had at least allowed ourselves more than 20minutes to make it this time!

We set to work.. first the foundations.

Making sure everything was level.

Slowly the upper level took shape..

and then the finishing touches were applied (girders, structural support, aeriels, you know the score)

So 3.5hours later, it was time to take the model into the Judging room, then sit down to dinner, and await nervously the results of todays antics!

Sometime later that evening.....

Well, we've just finished our dinner and the results of the days clues and model competition are now in.

For the first time in 12 years of participation, we were DELIGHTED (as well as somewhat surprised!) to hear we'd come first in the Eiffel Tower competition!

Don't get me wrong, It's not that we didnt think our effort was worthy of winning; up until the point we walked into the judges room to place it on the table for judging we thought it was going to do "ok" - but then we saw some of the other teams efforts and we did slightly lose heart - there are obviously some great modellers on our trip!

Here is our winning model (ours is the one on the left. Cruelly, we felt, Chip had suggested some peoples efforts more resembled Oil Rigs than the Eiffel Tower):

As you can see, we managed to integrate into it the designers original intention to have a twist in the main tower, with the mast offset to provide the best signal possible; something, I think, that didn't go un-noticed by the Judge! What was really impressive was how rigid the construction was - Mike has definately got a future career in building engineering when the I.T. bubble bursts!

Although I think any larger projects being built out of cocktails sticks and drinking straws might well fail Fire regulations; fortunately that wasnt one of the judges pre-requisites on this occasion.

2nd Place went to The Blackstones with a fantastic effort (the one on the right) - obviously it just didnt quite meet the earthquake test.

3rd place went to Car Number 18 - Philip and Sarah Pearce with another excellent effort

So without further ado, here is the leaderboard at the end of Day 2

For the first time in many years, we have a healthy lead, however, between now and Monday nights finale, there are 600 points up for grabs, and I'm sure there will be many valuable points to be won or lost in tomorrow mornings Quiz!

As no one has a clue what the quiz is about, we can only assume the worst. We will of course do our best - and we'll be working hard to get as many clues as we can during the next 2 days - and, knowing Chip, they'll be some other unexpected curve-ball thrown in for good measure, so (and as experience has shown) this is FAR from over !!

We'd like to say a big thanks to everyone that has entered messages on our Guest book; please keep them coming - we love to hear from you all! Sorry if the security checks are a bit complex before you can enter your messages, but please persevere. There is no shame in using a calculator if you need to. We won't know. And if we did, we wouldn't tell anyway.

Todays route has seen us cover another 210miles or so, and Mikes car is still not showing any sign of fixing its fuel gauge, but I feel sure we may have to put some diesel in it tomorrow - probably not till late on in the day though, as it still insists it can do another 145miles before empty - a figure which isnt far off what i'd expect to get PER tank in the Evo, let alone have LEFT in it after 450miles!

I did notice another fault with the Golf today; for some odd reason, VW decided to print the red line on the rev counter at 4500rpm. One assumes this is an error.

So here is todays route for your visual pleasure:

If we continue like this, we'll actually be published before 1:30am - something quite unheard of. It may have something to do with the 3.5 hours I spent starting it earlier whilst Mike was designing his epic award winning construction!

Until tomorrow, it's goodbye from him and it's goodbye from me.

Oh, PS.... after yesterdays picture of James K, we felt we hadn't done him justice, so we gave him another oppurtunity. I think you'll agree this is much more in keeping with the James we know and love...

Goodnight!