Gallery Rally 2015 — Jersey to Paris
Orleans(ish) to Paris
Bonjour - Hello, Welcome to Day 4 of the 2015 Gallery Rally
Last nights update ended up being a gone 2am finish; technical issues with internet access and speed didn't help but we persevered. Hopefully it was worth it.
For us of course, was. When our wake up alarms went off this morning, the first thing we thought was "well at least we completed the update" !
So the shower in todays Hotel was interesting. They've not heard of shower curtains in this part of the world evidentally, so the walls, floor and ceiling got as good a shower as the two of us! Not too mention the shower fitting is at waist height, which makes it quite tricky to wash anything above that general area!
But enough of our oblutory woes, who needs showers anyway?!
Having done our best to stem the flow of flooding, it was time for the daily admiration of the view out of our bedroom window; today was particularly special...
After pausing to enjoy them, we got ourselves down to the Breakfast room and enjoyed our hearty breakfast. Well a small bowl of cereal and some coffee.
We packed up the cars..
and then it was time for the morning briefing, where today, as we feared, we have been set a Scavenger Hunt with some interesting items to obtain.
Shortly afterwards, we said goodbye to Chip, who had decided to lock himself in a small cupboard out of guilt for setting such a crazy scavenger hunt....
We decided to form a coalition with Adam/James and Tom/Tina, and we ended up remaining at the hotel till gone 10am to 'research' some of the items required and see what could be done.
Adam managed to connect to the Reception's (unsecured) Wireless printer and started printing out various McDonald's application forms off the internet - much to the confusion of the lady behind reception who couldn't work out why things had randomly started printing out on her printer, so she pulled out the printer tray and walked off. (presumably to log a call with her IT Support desk)
Fortunately, being we were a gaggle of "IT Professionals" , the situation was soon resolved and our application forms were produced.
Actually, the receptionist was incredibly helpful; she even started googling where to find turkey farms in France for us - the problem was, that's what the rest of us were also doing. This was perhaps the reason the receptionist got up and stormed off, to be heard saying (strangely, in English) "the computer is RIDICULOUS, its SO slow". Oooops!
Anyway, we got what we could out of her then decided to head for a nearby hyper market to see if we could find anything.
We managed to find a book about monkeys, which we all enjoyed reading...
Mike provided the facial expressions and sound track whilst I read the words.
We also managed to find a shop window to take a picture of a member of our team in.
We also decided to get a "reserve" turkey plan in action, whereby Adam logged one of their shop Laptops on to the internet and played a You Tube video of some turkeys walking around whilst we took it in turns to video each other either side of said Video. Technically this was a picture of our team with a live Turkey.
We weren't sure if Chip would actually accept it or not, so it was merely a backup plan in case the real turkeys managed to elude us for the day. Besides, it provided us a lot of fun and laughter. It also provided other customers great amusement too. Although it was clearly making the Security gaurds somewhat uncomfortable .
Anyway, having managed to leave there before we got thrown out, we then tracked down a nearby Decathalon, so off we went in search of practice golf balls. This went well; we managed to buy a pack of 6, so we were all sorted.
The friendly staff in that branch also told us that their bigger branch up the road sold Wet Suits, so we headed a few km's up the road to see if we could get away with putting on wet suits and taking pictures of each other.
The hilarity that followed was definately the most I have laughed in a very long time, and I suspect the same for all of us. Not too mention the staff in the shop who looked on in confusion - nearly stepping in to offer help, then deciding better of it as they watched 6 "crazy english" belly laughing as they dressed up in wet suits that were clearly not the correct size and taking pictures of each other!
After exctracting ourselves from the shop - which took a lot less time than extracting Tom from his wet suit...
... we headed into Orleans City Centre and managed to locate a cinema . We then proceeded to search through the bins in search of Cinema tickets to last night's films, eventually finding the evidence we needed!
That was that one sorted. We even managed to pick up an Eiffel Tower on that little expedition.
We then decided to head out of the city centre, following the expert guidance of the on-board Sat Nav - although at one point I think we were genuinely on a 'Tram only' part of the road system, which was somewhat disconcerting. Ok, it was downright terrifying, especially as neither of us knew what side of the road trams 'drive' on - so wouldn't know where to swerve to had we seen one until it was perhaps too late!
Fortunately, we managed to foil their attempts to run us down by turning up a small side street - something we were fairly sure the tram couldn't have done given the rails didn't go in that direction!
Having survived that, we got on to some open roads and managed to find somewhere nice to stop for a spot of lunch.
When we say a spot, it turned into an enormous meal. You'll never guess what we had!
It turned out to be quite some chunk of meat, so Tom and Adam entertained themselves whilst we ate..
That done, we thought we would head to one of the Poultry farms that Tina had managed to track down courtesey of the French Yellow pages - so we programmed it into the Sat Nav and made our way there, waving goodbye to a new friend we had made over lunch..
After finding ourselves on what looked more like a small Cul-de-sac of houses than a Poultry Farm, we ended up asking a friendly local (who was minding his own business cutting his grass) if he could help guide us to one.
He was very excited to be able to assist - and spoke very good english - and told us there was one about 2km up the road. So that's where we went, and found what was definately a field full of Poultry and one type or other - and took our pics as per the instructions provided on the Scavenger Hunt.
We were quite enjoying this turkey hunt by now, so decided we would also head to one of the other Poultry Farms that Tina had found; initially it seemed to be on our route, so it was no great problem.
As time was getting quite tight, we decided to try and minimize travel time and took to the Autoroutes. According to the sat nav, we would get to Paris, via Versailles and the second Poultry Farm by 5.30pm. Quite tight given we had to hand in our days work by 6pm at the evenings Hotel in Paris, but do-able.
Things were going reasonably well, and we were making good progress on the 'sat nav race' - untill we turned off the Autoroute to make our 20 mile diversion to Poultry Farm Number 2 .
Ourselves and Adam and James managed to navigate the toll booths and pay our fee's, but Tom and Tina's ticket had developed a technical difficulty and refused to be read by the automatic toll booth. The barrier remained down and they were going nowhere!
At this point, ourselves and Adam and James were parked up just beyond the barriers, waiting patiently, watching the struggle from afar.
Now in some Car type adventures, it would be customarly to simply leave behind the unfortunate stranded 3rd car - and given that time was ticking by at a fair rate of knots, it can't be deined that conversation wasn't had. - but no, this was not our style. One for all and all for one and all that....
So we sent International Rescue to their assistance.
Unfortunately, they weren't available, so Adam stepped in at the last minute...
After 15 minutes of Tina talking to the emergency autoroute assistant via an electronic link-up, they managed to get it sorted and the Barrier was finally lifted.
At last! They trundled over to us - at which point we had already made a managerial decision that we simply didn't have the time for a 20 mile diversion for anymore turkeys, so we promptly went up to the roundabout at the exit of the toll booths and came back around and rejoined the autoroute. Sorry Tom and Tina, all that trouble for nothing !!
Never mind, we were confident in turkey No. 1 - or was it turkey No. 2. We'd lost count. We think we might have been getting a bit too obsessed with turkeys by this time anyway. Time to go cold turkey and let it go.
We still needed the Versailles postcard, and what better place to find one than Versailles? So we headed into the City Centre in search of the said Postcard of the Palace.
The traffic was starting to get somewhat heavier as we approached, with some very scary junctions and roundabouts where it seemed to be a bit of a free for all - made all the more difficult by trying to keep all three cars line astern.
It proved so difficult, we actually lost the BMW Z4 of Tom and Tina.
So one for 2 and 2 for one and all that...
We managed to find a small shop selling suitable postcards, so we bought three and advised Tom and Tina to head directly to Paris - if they could extract themselves from Versailles.
We then set about extracing ourselves - which was proving difficult by this time as traffic was just crawling along - the sat nav was starting to tell us we wouldn't arrive at the hotel in Paris until beyond our cut off time. Although the two Golf's couldn't agree on exactly what time we would get there - the only thing they could agree was that it was going to be tight. Mike's sat nav was slightly more optimistic, and started telling us we'd get there at 1757 - although it's possible it was in cheat mode.
Sometime later, with pressure mounting, we saw signs that we might finally be getting closer to our destination..
After fighting our way around the Paris traffic, you can imagine our delight when we saw the Arc de Triomphe up ahead - known for it's easy to navigate 'roundabout' !
As the clock struck 1800, we pulled up outside of our hotel and we made sure Chip and Heidi knew we were here!
Before long it was time to head down to the dining room for the evening meal (like we had room for any more food after that slab of meat earlier in the day!)
Whilst you can read what we had, a picture is always better, i'm sure you'll agree...
Here is our Amuse Bouche...
...our starter..
Main course..
and finally, pud!
Before long, it was time to get the results of the days work and the over-all standings and winners.
Ladies and Gentlemen, our winners this year are...... (drum roll...)
Karl and Ryan
Well done guys, excellent work - Karl has done the rally before, but this was Ryans first time.
Congratualtions also go to last place finishers, Bradley and Tyler..
As it was both their first times, they received a tin of lollipops! That also doubled up as their prize for doing more miles than any other team, mainly because they ended up in various places that weren't even on the trip!
Check out their company website and maybe if you buy something from it, we can encourage them to return next year and give it another go! http://rollandandbree.com/
There were various new and old faces on this trip - about 50/50 newcomers versus old timers - here are just a small selection of them for your perusal!
Isobel and Gill... (newcomers)
David and Adam... Old Timers...
Nigel..... cheers.
Tom and Tina... who were the winners in the newcomers category.... (don't worry guys, we'd have never willingly left you at that toll booth!)
Big thanks to our marshalls, Sara and Hannah
Gill and Gregor... newcomers..
And of course, a big thanks to Chip... (definitely old timer!)
...who clearly couldn't have made it so good with out his lovely wife Heidi...!
And just so you can see where every team finished this year, here is the final scoresheet of the 2015 Gallery Rally...
Thanks to everyone for their guest book comments so far - please feel free to continue to add yours to them - we love to read them - the link is: http://www.itsanevoadventure.org.je/Guestbook/gbook.php
A few replies to guest book entries - mainly done on here as we haven't quite gone high-tec enough to have a 'reply' field on the Guest book itself...
Jan; we have remembered you to Chip, who returns your fond remembrance. And thanks for the advice on the Fish - I'd never realised thats what Carpe Deum meant, but eating more fish is definately something we should be doing!
Jason, we're delighted Google helped you out with the mathematical challenge we have set this year - and sorry to keep you waiting!
And apologies to you Eddy; we keep suggesting they make the Rally go to Poland, and one day, who knows - keep that kettle 'a-boiling!
Tomorrow sees a small number of us heading back to Saint Malo first thing, so we will update you on our final day tomorrow, all being well!
Until then, thanks for reading, and don't forget the trip is all about raising money for charity so please feel free to click either of the links below and donate some money - no matter how small or how much, it all helps!
https://race-nation.com/sponsor/e/9980/ - Garry's donation page
https://race-nation.com/sponsor/e/9981/ - Mike's donation page
Here is today's route for you to admire and enjoy...
Untill tomorrow, good night from both of us!
Garry and Mike