Gallery Rally — Jersey to Saint-Tropez 2012

Welcome to Day 2 - Avrille to Bonnat

Tonight sees us coming live to you from a charming little hotel in an equally charming town called Bonnat, situated very close to an equally charming race track - but more of that later!

This morning saw us rudely awoken by aliens at 7.30am. Actually it was just Mikes alarm, but it was convincing enough to get me out of bed!

After a brief breakfast, I wiped my dipstick...

and we assembled for our morning instructions..

We then set about working out where on earth we needed to go!

Question Number 1 was "Holy place but confused Advent four" - well surely thats "Fontevraud-l'Abbaye" I hear you cry? Well you would be correct! So we set course for it without further ado.

Well, there was one small further ado first, because having done our extra 'leg' yesterday (no comment), we had pretty much arrived at the hotel out of fuel, so first job of the day was to find a petrol station.

So we drove through one of these..

And as if by magic, there was a fuel station the other side! Full of fuel and now ready to go (previous tank did 23.6mpg for anyone that cares!), we made tracks for our first destination.

And what a destination!

.

The clue was "Go deep purple, but what kind of watch?" - and as the colour coded map of the Abbaye that we had been given when we went in clearly showed a purple area, we headed straight for that - and went 'deep' - which to us could have been deep down, or deep back. Being us, we did both, and some other combinations.

After evenutally finding our way down to the cellar, we stumbled across what we thought was a classc Chip 'lock' clue.

The Omega sign with the name KESO above it. We were actually right, but being far to clever for our own good, as there was an Omega sign on an alter at the back of the Abbaye, which was the one Chip had intended on people finding. As it happens, there was also an Omega sign on a stained glass window as we left the Abbaye too - but hey ho, the answer fitted, so we went with it!

We continued our tour of the Abbaye...

Having spent a lot longer that anticipated at that site, we hurried back to the car, bumping into an English couple out for a road trip in their new Bentley...

It's actually a 1929 Bentley - and still going strong after all these years! I'm guessing he hasn't tuned it then!

Back at the car, we searched for Location Clue number 2; "A cardinal place for sure" - which we pin pointed on the map to being Richelieu - so we deftly plotted it on the trusty Sat Nav and off we toddled!

On arrival, our mission was to find the answer to "Who couldn't have written one of 4 books" - and as luck would have it, we just happened to park opposite a church which contained the very answer we were looking for!

After a brief look inside, we studied the exterior statues of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John closely, and noticed something rather important on the statue of John - something important was missing from his hand..

...namely his fingers!

Delighted with that one - Vintage Chip in our opinion - we decided to stop for a spot of lunch - which blatantly was going to be Steak Frites. And we weren't dissapointed! A fine slab of meat was shortly after presented to us.

Time was a ticking - we had a deadline of 5.15pm to be at the Hotel tonight, so as not to miss an extra special treat, so we went in hunt of "The Opposite of black" - obviously, the town of Le Blanc......

We eventually arrived, having gone around in circles for a while trying to find the 'old house' that the question hinted at as being pivotal to our quest, and once inside, went in search of "In the old house who taught F52 in 53-54"

The house was very dimly lit, and full of strange displays, from stuffed birds..

to farming models...

to models obviously dipicting plans for world dominiation...

After navigating our way around the house (quite an acheivement in itself, with its various floors and subfloors), we evenutally stumbled on another vintage Chip answer, namely a display of old black and white school photographs...

The answer soon became clear when we looked closer...

Happy with our answer of Monsieur Lacoux, we went off in search of the 4th and final clue site of the day.

"Holy Ben of the salty ending!"- led us nicely to a town called Saint-Benoit-du-Sault. We needed to find this one quick, as we didnt get here till 4.30pm, and the Hotel was another 50minutes drive.

So off we went to find out the answer to "In the old town at Number 2 who shared a room with Yvonne"

We bumped into the Media team of Brian and Jenny

... and we wondered around what was fortunately not too big a town, evenutally finding what we were looking for...

Excellent, so 4.45pm, and 30 minutes to do a 50minute drive in - time to hit the road, and hit it HARD.

Unfortuantely, the first road we hit had already been hit hard with stone chippers and there was a 50km/h speed limit for THE longest stretch of road you have ever seen.

As pebble dashing the car trying to make up time was not an option, we had little choice but to be patient. The road went on and on but eventually turned into something faster and bigger. Well maybe not bigger, but more speed was attainable...

At 5.35pm we turned up at the hotel, somewhat dispondant that we may have missed our 'treat', however Chip was waiting for us to arrive and immediately issued us with directions to a superb Test track 2km's up the road.

 

What a track and thanks to Mike for going up in his helicopter to take that picture.

Seriously though, a massive thanks to the very generous owner, who allowed all of us to do a few laps of it absolutely free, marshalls and all!

After a very short safety briefing, Crash helmets were issued to all, and Heidi jumped into the back of the car, and off the 3 of us went...

After a few laps behind the 'safety car' we were let loose...

- although were soon being flagged down by the organisers to 'slow down a bit' - not something usually associated with a track day, but he probably didn't want to end up with lots of expensive cars crashing in to each other 'for charity'.

He then showed us his magnificent collection of Formula Renault cars and other single seaters..

Once we had taken away with us details of how to rent the track, and various other information (I feel sure we will be back here one day soon!), we meandered back to the Hotel.

Not before the locals tried to free the chauvaux's from under my hood..

And not before taking care of another very important thing..

On returning to the hotel, we were greeted by the Blackstones..

 

After a fantastic evening meal...

 

....it was time for the scores on the doors - and still no Wordsearch results yet, so we have been joined by another team at the top (that was because Ben and Bens bonus points for wearing Blue hats at the start of Day 1 had been missed off). Mind you, with a Quiz and an 'extra task' tomorrow, expect things to start spreading out very soon!

So thats today - all in all a very busy but fantastic day!

Here is our Route today....

Thanks to everyones comments on the guest book - please keep them coming! (links on top left)

And of course, If you would like to sponsor us, please click here:

Thats if for today - we will endeavor to get this all uploaded very shortly - which involves a walk to the other end of the hotel as our Wifi signal is non-existent in our room.

Until tomorrow,

Garry and Mike