Gallery Rally — Jersey to Saint-Tropez 2012

Welcome to Day 1 - St Malo to Avrille (near Angers)

 

Hello everybody, and a very warm welcome to Day 1 of our little adventure!

As all you Jersey residents will be aware, with the UK Fast Ferries being cancelled yesterday and today, there was a slight concern we'd not actually make it to France at all today, let alone get to start solving any clues.

Indeed, the UK team of Craig and Julie were unable to get to Jersey as scheduled last night, so instead drove to Dover, through the Chunnel, then from Callais to St Malo to meet us there for the start! Such dedication!

Despite the rough weather, our boat to France went on time, and other than bouncing around a little (and for the first time, Mike felt unwell, and I felt fine - thank you Qwells!!), it was a reasonable trip.

We congregated at The Royal Yacht at 6.45am (and that inlcuded two return trips to Mikes house to collect forgotten items!), proudly displaying our bonus points blue hats (the task being cleverly hidden in our starters packs)

... where after a pleasant but brief breakfast.....

...everyone returned to their vehicles..

...and we all exited under Ben's wonderful errection...

 

 

Shortly after that we catapulted ourselves onto the Condor Rapido, timing our entry carefully with the rising and falling of the boat!

 

Helped (or hindered) by the fact we had Word Search to do, hunting for 70 'hobbies', which we focused on for the whole hour, we made it safe and sound to St Malo pretty much on schedule!

On arrival at St Malo, we congregated in the usual place, to be given our days orders and clue sheet from the Chip Miester, and then everyone scurried back to their cars to begin hunting the map for things that might fit!

 

'Location' clue Number 1 was French bridge or a close relative - which we tracked down on the map to being a small town called Pontorson.

Once there, our question was "Park at the train station. How many guitars are there on the blue train"

After parking at the Gare, we were fortunate enough to spot a cafe bar behind us called Le Train Bleu - which seemed like a very good place to start our investigations!

After a brief perimiter search and discounting a few elephants playing all manner of musical instruments *except* a guitar, we spotted the following sign hanging outside the cafe.

After satisfying ourselves that the answer must be 1, we returned to the carpark, and did what must be done when in France with as much regularity as possible; thats right, eat Steak Frites! Start how you mean to go on!

Unfortunately, neither of us remembered to take a picture of it, so you will just have to trust as on this point. We do have witnesses you can ask if you don't believe us..

Although he didn't say a lot.

Back to the car to work out where we were destined for next; 'Go on around two rights' - obviously, that would be the small town of Gorron, and so we programmed it into the Sat Nav (unless Chip is reading, in which case we quite obviously followed his intentended route via a paper map...) and sometime later, arrived as scheduled!

As the question here was "At the cinema how long does it take to run 200 metres?", finding the local cinema would have seemed like the logical choice, but we thought we'd seek divine inspiration first..

We were right, its the cinema we needed, and before long we were walking around the local cinema's circumference and peering through the window, looking suspiciuous as ever!

Inside we found an old cine projector with the following information plate attached to it

Very happy that the answer was 7(minutes), we did the other thing that needs doing frequently whilst in France; drank coffee in a bar.

After a brief break from the hussle bussle of clue finding, and a chat with a Canadian couple (who only took moderate offence with me calling him an American) (well he did say he was into Cadillacs; who wouldn't jump to that conclusion?!), we returned to the vehicle and set our sights for the sun.

Ok, not the sun, actually it was for a place called Lassay-les-Chateaux which we decided was what Chip meant by his location clue of "The French female ssay the castles"

Upon arrival here, we were looking for a Centaur. Or so we thought. The Question was 'Take a photograph of your team astride a Centaur'

After walking around the town, looking in various toilets (everybody knows there is always a toilet clue!), and generally not finding the answer, me and Julian decided to chill for a bit..

Eventually, after Mike went and had a sit down on a nearby bench, he made a magnificent discovery..

After taking a picture of the two of us "astride" the bench, we merrily set off on our way to the 4th and final clue site of the day, which was to be found at Conlie - the clue being "A fraud and an untruth join here"

Arrival there found us looking for the answer to "How many people are there in Alford market town"

A brief wander around the Centre Ville and we were drawn to the Hotel de Ville, and peering inside the window, we discovered this appropriate looking placard

It turns out Conlie is twinned with Alford. Thank goodness we didnt drive there looking for the clue!

We returned once more to the car, and did a final check of all our answers and ensured the picture of us astride the Centaur was easily viewable.

It was. Right up until the point Mike pressed "Delete".

Darn it. (or two words too that effect were heard from inside the car)

Being non-competive like we are, we of course decided to forgoe the points for that clue and head to the Hotel for the night. After all, it was a 40minute drive back to clue site 3 to take another picture, and who in their right minds would bother, just for 35points?

Yeah right.

So we turned around and headed 40minutes back up the road to clue site 3 - which probably confused a few of the teams that we then passed in the opposite direction, who were just on their way to Clue site 4!

It was of course worthwhile..

As by now we were running a little late, we set course for the Hotel, and motored on a bit, where we arrived around 8pm .. barely enough fuel, but no time to stop and fill-up! (Mike reminds me that we never had this problem last year untill Day 3..)

As everyone was pretty much already sat down for dinner, we dropped off our bags and headed down to a lovely dinner!

It was soon time for the scores on the doors, albeit without the results of the Ferry Leg's Word Search, mainly because Heidi was unable to mark them during their drive down because she slept most of it. (Heidi, you are only supposed to take ONE sea-sickness tablet yes? Not 4 !!! )

Some teams hadn't followed the number one rule with any 'Chip-clue', which is, no words are wasted. So when he says a picture of you 'astride' the bench, he means just that. One picture of both of you 'astride' it!

 

So there we are, thats Day 1 over, 4 teams all tied at the top.

Just one thing to clear up (dinner time conversations do take strange directions sometimes)... The last UK entry to win the Eurovision song contest was indeed Katrina and the Waves with "Love Shine a light", in 1997. Gina G's "Oooh Aah... just a little bit" only made it to Number 8 the previous year!

Thats it for tonight, time to upload! (given how slow the download speed here is, upload may take several days)

As always, please leave us any feedback on our Guest Book, and thank you for everyone who has already posted! (Jason, the answer is 20.)

Until tomorrow, its good night from Mike and myself, and here is todays route for your interest and enjoyment!

P.S. Thanks to everybosy who has offered to sponsor us - please click <<here>> to do so!