Gallery Rally — Jersey to Saint-Tropez 2012

Welcome to Day 3 - Bonnat to Privas

Good evening from a very wet Privas, where already things are looking up - that is to say, we have a good wireless (or is that Wifi !) signal in our hotel room for the first time this trip!

What remains to be seen is if it will let us upload anything! If it does, you'll be reading this. If it doesnt, well I guess you will never know, and fears for our survival over the mountains today may have been well founded!

We're both a bit on the tired side today; last night was a bit of a late one, as the only place we could pick up a signal was sat at the bar, which by the time we were in a position to upload, was closed and in darkness. Our problems were confounded by the fact we couldnt pick up an IP address and had to go manual. Hmm, too geeky?

Nethertheless, we made it, and this morning were awoken by the sound of church bells ringing. Over and over again. Until Mike pressed 'snooze' on his iphone and the darn things finally stopped!

The view out of our hotel room was very rural, and exceedingly pleasant..

After a spot of breakfast, (which included boiled eggs - and frankly the egg timer was definately not runninng to schedule, given how watery they were after I had rescued them from their steambath), we assembled in the examination room for a Quiz!

Todays challenge; name as many U.S. Presidents in 5 minutes as possible. Slightly concerning was that the answer sheet was numbered 1 to 44. I had no idea there was even that many!

Still, the stop watch was running, so we all began the task. Needless to say, we didnt get to 44 - far from it - and we're not sure whether sneaking in 'Thatcher' and 'Swartzernigger' will slip through or not, as the results are yet to be released!

Once done, we handed back our answer sheet and were given the clue sheet for the day.

So Location Clue Number 1, to get the grey cells started for the day, was "Start with a French cat and backward sule" - careful reading of the words and years of experience suggested we were looking for a town that began with Chat Elus - and after careful studying of our map, we discovered Chatelus-Malvaleix - so we set course for here.

It was very close by, so 10 minutes later, we parked up in Centre Ville and went in search of the answer to "If 1 is blue and 6 is red what colour is 7?"

After a brief walk around under the brolley (it was pouring down - a theme which lasted the whole day), we discovered the following sign post..

Black. Nice positive start to the day.

So now to work out where clue site 2 was; the location hint was "Men at work here!" - which given our logical route would seem to fit with the town of Menat - so off we headed!

Not before attending to a very important job first; look for a fuel station! Not always easy on a Sunday, but fortunately the start of this next section of driving was on the Motorway, so we were soon pulling into a services and filling up. Again.

So with the Car's insatiable thirst quenched, it was time to motor on to Menat. A good drive down, albeit through heavy rain, and we were soon arriving, where we then attended to our own insatiable thirst for coffee, in the hope the rain might let up a little whilst we drank it.

It didn't, so we were soon going off in search of "If you're second and a drug dealer what are you if you're fifth?" - under the trusty brolley.

We came across a town square sort of area, with the following mural painted on a wall...

Blatantly, Number 2 was mixing up a concoction of drugs...

and Number 5 was a glazier....

....so that was that one sorted.

Time to return to the car, and plot a course to St-Germain l'Herm (I get amongst a holy German and dash with her in the middle)

The actual clue once at the town was "If Marilyn is 48 how many is her dead lover?"

We spent far too long walking around in the rain, but eventually ended up close to where we had parked, and stumbled across the following painting, depicting the last 100 years of major events in history:

On the legend, Marilyn Monroe was Number 48.

On the same legend, JFK was Number 55.

So thats what we put, and returned to the shelter of the car.

Next stop was a small town called Le Chaise Dieu - the clue that got us there was "Go to where God sits" - and a spirited drive through the twisty roads saw us arriving there an hour later...

.... where priority number 1 was lunch - especially seeing as it was by now gone 2pm and it gets very tricky to get the French to serve you at that time.

However we found a charming little (extremly little) cafe that served us a fantastic 3 course 'snack' for €10 - which made for a nice break before returning to the car. Don't worry, we haven't forgotten the clue - fortunately, just as we were driving in and parking up prior to lunch, Mike had spotted the answer, so snuck out during lunch to take its photograph, and then rejoined us. Definate Smug Mode moment there!

The question was "What is the name of the fountaine?"

In the square there was a fountain, but with no names. However, on the building opposite, we found this:

We'll leave you to work it out for yourselves!

Off to the 5th and final clue location of the day then - "Backward samalaved ends this holy name" - which we narrowed down to St-Martin-de-Valamas - and another spirited drive saw us arriving sometime later...

Once there, we searched for "4 faces but how many of them are Roman?"

In the centre ville area we found a church with a clock tower...

... 3 of the faces having roman numerals, and the 4th one not. Fitted perfectly!

Job done, back to the car for the final leg to the hotel - which wasn't a particularly long one, but due to the previous spirited driving, and the potential for some more spirited driving around the mountains saw us making our second fuel stop of the day....

Yes Mike, I do realise that's 2 stops in one day, 3 so far on the trip, 4 including Jerseys first tank. Yes Mike, I KNOW we only filled the Golf up 4 times for the entire duration of last years tour. That said, this last tank did get us 27mpg! Possibly a lot to do with running it on low boost - the reasons for which are far to boring and geeky to go into here!

(Just ask Mike, I practically sent the poor fella to sleep explaining!)

Anyway, nice brimmed tank.. And off we toddled back on to the wet roads...

Soon we arrived at our hotel for the evening, in a town called Privas.

It was now just after 6pm, which after unloading the car and finding our room gave us just 1 hour to design our craft for the evenings "Extra Task" - the Great Paper Aeroplane Competition. Nowhere else would you find 24 grown men proudly displaying their aircraft then seeing who's could travel the furthest in front of the hotel.

Two parts to the competition; 1 is the display plane, judged by hotel staff.

Our magnificent entry...

It won us nothing. I know right? Are they BLIND?? Its a work of art!

This was 3rd place in the display section... Car 9 - Karl Moss and Neil Boughton - an absolutely brilliant display of how US$ bills are converted into fighter jets...

This was 2nd place in the display section...

And in 1st place, made by Car Number 5 - Adam Dawson and Chris Smith -excellent use of the Gallery entry pack..

We then all took turns launching our planes...

It netted us 6th place over-all - definately better than some of our previous years entries, so we were relatively pleased with the results.

One of the contestants planes actually went M.I.A. during flight testing. Karl (Team No.10) went outside for a test flight...

.. and the little blighter flew SO far, it dissapeared over a hedge beside the runway I mean hotel never to be seen again!

So after that, it was time to retire to the dining room, where a superb meal was once again served. (I say 'once again' because the food has been of exceptional standard and quality all week - admittedly I am comparing that to my usual standard of food - a bowl of cereal or a pot noodle - but I still speak from years of experience!)

After the desert, Chip clanged his glass to gather our attention and anounced he was deeply unhappy with nearly all of us for getting his Clues all correct once again, and he has decided to re-write Day 4's clue to make them MORE cryptic!

Here is the leaderboard after Day 3, WordSearch results now included, but not yet including The Presidents Quiz..

So thats where we stand on Day 3; still close at the top (not withstanding the points from the quiz), so tomorrow is going to be a tough day!

All that leaves is for us to show you the Day's route, and wish you all a goodnight until tomorrow, where hopefully we will be coming to you live from Saint-Tropez, if all goes to plan!

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