Gallery Rally — Jersey to Biarritz 2013

Day 3 - Angouleme to Mont-de-Marsan

Well here we are at the end of Day 3 - a day that has had it all.... Sun, Rain, Floods, Castles, Steak (no surprise there), and Petrol (again, no surprise there)

But lets start at the beginning..

Last night we started the blog update about an hour later than the previous night, but due to the improved efficiency of myself and Mike, (CSI for those geeks amonst you), we still finished by 2am.

This morning, we woke at 7.30am and jumped out of bed, ready for another day of fun and frolics.

We rushed down for breakfast (no sign of any full english on the menu) and packed the car, and assembed in the hotel lobby for the morning briefing...

Then it was time for the daily 'fold the map to the right section' ritual (something that is a lot harder than it sounds, for those that have never tried it!)

Then we returned to the underground carpark and headed out into the deserted streets of Angouleme, and set sail for Clue site Number 1.

The first location clue of the day we had to get our heads around was To the French to be next the ground which saw us locating a place called Aubeterre-Sur-Dronne

A reasonably short drive from our departure point in Angouleme, we arrived at the site, and were delighted to find it was a town we had visited many years ago on one of the early 'tours' (known back then as 'Le Tour de La Liberation' for those that remember!)

The clue to solve (which I hasten to add was nothing like the one from many years ago) was Go to mono church and get high! What number follows V2?

Our years of experience (ok, it probably didn't require much experience to work it out) told us that we should look for something to do with the word mono and church

How about a Monolithic church? That seemed to fit the bill, so we followed signs for it.

Upon arrival, we paid our entrance fee (I'm sure the owners were delighted that 32 people would be turning up that morning to frequent their premises @ €5 per person!) and climbed the stairs to the gallery (get high!) and started searching for the answer to the first clue.

In the barely visible walls of the Church, we spotted that there were little labels secured into the limestone walls with numbers on them; the first one we saw was V5 with another number underneath it; so we started to walk around the permiter of the upper gallery in the hope of finding a V2. At the other end we found a V2 but the number 200 was actually above it. Technically therefore the number didn't 'follow' V2, so we kept looking. Not too far away was another label, this one.

Hurrah, that's the one that fits!

The Monolithic Church was definately worth spending sometime at, and for your delight and delectation, Mike took these rather wonderful shots of the church which was carved out of the chalk cliffs and is the tallest example of a monlithic church in the world (at 20meters high):

After spending some time there, we decided to stop for a coffee before heading off, so we chilled out for a bit in the beautiful little town...

After returning to the car, it was time to head to Montpon-Menestrol (which we deducted was what the clue My French tepee on men starts here wanted us to go to)

Upon arriving there, we parked up and fairly soon spotted a likely candidate to search..

.

The clue we were to solve here was What cricketing term do the memorable missing letters spell? A U ? SD ? ? E-MR

Upon further investigation, we found the following:

You might not be able to make it out from the picture, but the missing letters on Chips clue sheet was O U & T, so we were fairly happy that OUT was the answer!

As it was now 11.45am, we thought we would try and find ourselves somewhere for an early lunch, to try and avoid the problems of yesterday. Well if you think finding somewhere for lunch in France at 'lunchtime' is hard, just try doing it on a Sunday!

After failing to find anywhere in that town, we decided to set course for the next Clue site, and look out for somewhere en-route to it.

As luck would have it, we passed though a small and lovely town called Villefranche-De-Lonchat and there were two eateries to choose from.

We chose this one...

Mainly because it had Pave de Beouf on the menu, as we knew what that was.

I'm not quite sure why I had that stunned looked on my face - maybe the slab of meat was a lot larger than I had expected.

It was a stunning little place, with lovely views over the hills to the black clouds beyond.

Fed and watered, time to continue to Clue site number 3 - Back up Jo next to left and south - so the town was a place called Pujols.

We had a nice spirited drive through the D roads, avoiding this fella out for his sunday stroll...

...and before long, arrived at Pujols, to search for the answer to What brand of petrol did they once sell in the main street?

We walked around the small Centre Ville, and attached to various buildings were old photographs of what they used to look for.

Like this one for example:

Which used to look like:

The answer of Shell fitted perfectly, so we chatted to a local briefly..

..then headed back to the car to chew up some more miles..

The 4th destination of the day was found by deciphering See the alphabet east north-east and it sounds like you've got here - which led us to a place called Cazeneuve

As we had been told this clue site was based at a big house, we headed for a Chateaux once we were in the vicinity of Cazeneuve.

There had obviously been a lot of rain not long before we arrived..

That probably came from these clouds... (perhaps if they had turned off the water feature, it would have stopped filling up the clouds....?)

We arrived at what we thought was probably the correct location - and seeing other cars from the trip is always a reasurrance that you are in the correct place..

This clue was What time is it every time you arive.

We walked around the grounds for a bit, then went into an Information area. Inside here, there was a clock. The clock was telling the wrong time, and upon further investigation we discovered it was actually stopped.

We therefore deduced that the time everytime you arrive was 6.31

 

Happy with that, we headed once more back to the car and set sail...

The destination was the 5th and Final Clue site of the day - quite an easy one this: The location clue was Sounds Painful - and on the map in the sort of area we would expect this site to be, we found a town called Sore.

We arrived and were looking for the answer to But when is your heart starter due to expire?

A brief search showed up a defribulator on the Post Office wall....

...and after a slightly more detailed search, we found this inside the unit:

Looks like a good answer to us!

After stopping for one of Beverly's (James Kent's girlfriend) infamous Brownies around the camp fire...

...we returned to the car and had a spirited drive to the hotel, which we arrived at about an hour later. With no petrol and a lot more brake dust!

No problem, a few of us headed to a local place that could solve both these problems...

I imagine the look on James face was due to the look on MY face as I was thinking about the fact I was pumping another €80 into the Evo tank. Mike reminded me how we only needed to do this twice for the entire 2011 'its a golf adventure' - yet here we are, on Day 3, already on fill-up No.3!

 

Now that we had a clean car, we could drive back to the hotel with pride, where we were just in time to greet Ian and Pamela Kirkwood as they arrived..

...and to see Sarah Milling reminiscing over Goats..

It was now heading towards 7pm. Before we had left the hotel this morning, we had been given prior warning of a 'task' that would take place tonight at 7.30pm - namely The Wright Brothers Concorde Challenge Cup - a task that fears us with dread, as you get points for the furthest flown - and on previous years, our planes have generally ended up either behind us, or off in a ditch somewhere.

Still, no time to waste, we designed two planes. This was my attempt...

Soon we had clearance for take off, and we began our attempt at the challenge..

And after the other 15 teams had all had their chance, we were delighted to find out we had achieved 3rd place!

I'm especially proud of my plane, as usually its Mike's that puts mine in the shade! It's all in the wrist action Mike!

Anyway, that being that, we headed back inside for our evening meal, which was a hilarious event in itself (more down to the company than the food I hasten to add!) and then it was time for the arbitary name and shame and scores on the doors.

The leaderboard is now as follows, although Chip has once again been mysterious by not showing the points difference between each team. All we know is that tomorrow, on the way to Biarritz, there are some clues but also a scavenger hunt, and there are nearly 400 points available. A perfect oppurtunity to go from hero to Zero if ever we could!

(do we get bonus points for pointing out that it says Gallery MONACO Rally 2011 on the score sheet, or is this recycling gone crazy?)

After a brief chat with James...

...we headed up to the room to begin creating tonight's update, and having just about completed it, all that remains is to post the days route, upload it, and send a load of emails!

Thank you for your guest book entries, please keep them coming!

Until tomorrow, its good bye from Mike and Garry!