If you
thought yesterday had issues – wait until you hear about today!
An early morning
again – breakfast at 7.15am for the meeting at 8.15am in the Super U car park
in some part of Colmar. We just got out
of breakfast before a whole coach load of tourists trouped in – this hotel is
not going on my list as one to recommend!
Haven’t exactly spent that much time here, but really don’t have any
inclination to. We checked out, loaded
the truck, and headed in the general direction of the car park. After a couple of wrong turns, we arrived
amongst the Saturday morning shoppers that really didn’t know what had hit them. To Infinity and a Blonde were in their second
car, the white taxi had arrived at half past midnight and were ready to rock
and roll, and everyone else was present and correct. This morning, we had a car of mad professors,
a car of knights of the crusade, a car of the star, sun and Uranus (don’t ask),
and a mixture of other superheroes and the like. We set off with our usual aplomb, and headed
off down the road to Chamonix. There was
a choice of challenges today – no time to do both, so we had to choose. The one to Chamonix was to take the cable car
to Aguilles du Midi and then take a picture of the team in “The Cube” – a glass
cube hanging off the edge of Mont Blanc.
The other choice was to detour into Italy, and take the route the
Italian Job, round the S27, a very long and upward climb. Paul said not Italy, but apart from that my
choice!
We took the
sensible suggestion, and plumped for Chamonix.
The first couple of hours was great – no overheating, a steady 60 mph
and very pleasant folk smiling and taking our pictures as they passed us. We passed from France to Switzerland – no passports,
but had to pay 40 euros for a sticker to say that we could drive on Swiss
roads. Bit like a toll. We saw that we were heading to pass
Montreaux, so decided to have a small detour.
What a beautiful little town on the edge of Lake Geneva. The weather was actually behaving itself at
this point, which always helps. We went
through here, and onto one of the most picturesque castles in Switzerland
called Chateau de Chillon. An ideal
opportunity, we felt, to see if the castle was haunted and needed the help of
the Ghostbusters. It was 12.50 euros to
get in, but ghosts were free – so the ghost went in, and we took her picture
several times in several different windows.
Then we spotted a jetty that looked just like the one in Mamma Mia where
the ladies played the air guitar and then all jumped in the water. Ideal for challenge number 2! Paul took the video (strictly 20 seconds long
as per the rules!) so unfortunately it cut off just before we all jumped in
(not). Don’t think our singing was up to
Meryl Streep’s though!
We set off
again, and got on the road to Chamonix.
The rain then came down, and the cloud, and it was horrible. The scenery all around us would have been
stunning if only there was a little sun shining on it. We then started to climb. The engine started to overheat. Oh dear – this is not going to end well! We stopped at about 2000 feet to let it cool
down, and then started again. The road
was really narrow, full of hairpins, and so could only pull in when there was a
proper lay by. We got up to 3600 feet,
and we could hear the water bubbling under the bonnet. We pulled over again, and waited for twenty
minutes or so. Paul thought it would be
best if we topped the radiator up with water, and undid the radiator cap a
touch to release the pressure. He thought
the pressure had dissipated, and went to undo it a bit more. Wrong.
There was so much pressure it shot the cap off and there was a fountain
of boiling water and steam. When it calmed
down, we realised the cap was nowhere to be seen. High and low we looked – nothing. It couldn’t just disappear! After over an hour of looking we called the
breakdown people, and told them we didn’t need to be towed, we just needed a
new radiator cap. It was the UK I had to
ring, and after half an hour or so the “International” chap phoned me
back. A couple of sandwiches short of a
picnic I think! After asking many of the
same questions again, he said he would arrange for someone to come out to
us. We still continued to look for the
cap – where on earth had it gone? After
looking all around the car, under the car, on the roof, in the back, we had
almost given up. About another hour
passed, and the breakdown chap rang back again to “keep me updated”. He said so far, he hadn’t persuaded anyone to
come up the mountain to help. Not the
sort of update I was looking for. He did
make a very good suggestion – he thought it would be better if I drove the car
to a garage rather than them come to me.
Not sure if he really understood the meaning of a breakdown
service. He did after he came off the
phone.
A few
minutes later Paul found the cap. It was
wedged between the fan and the radiator.
He couldn’t reach it from the top, so had to take the bottom part of the
engine off to get his hand up inside and feel for it. Nancy suggested using the dipstick to get it –
I informed her were already were!!
Having been at that point for more than two hours without toilet
facilities, we were falling about laughing.
More like mass hysteria. We could
see a way forward, and it was going to our heads. I didn’t actually let Paul in on that joke
until we were eating dinner that night.
I could feel he might have suggested that I honed my hitch hiking
talent! We got back on the road, and I
cancelled the breakdown service. Well,
told them we now didn’t need them. You
can’t cancel something that wasn’t going to happen.
We continued
the climb to about 5000 feet – gingerly – and then we topped off and started to
make our way down. We could still make
it to Chamonix and complete the challenge.
We had a few more ups and downs, as you do in the Alps, but nothing that
was fatal. We got very near boiling
point, but as we approached it we came to a down part so gave it chance to
recover. We took one small wrong turn in
Chamonix – started to go towards the Mont Blanc Tunnel (and the S27 which was
on the other side of it) because the sat nav was taking us to the top of the
mountain rather than the cable car at the bottom. Good job we noticed before we absolutely
killed it! But to our horror, we were
half an hour late. The last cable car
had left thirty minutes before. What a
horrible deflated feeling we all had. I
did suggest that the S27 wouldn’t be shut – but just got “the look” from
Paul. I took that as a no then!
We got back
in the truck and headed off to Annecy – our stop for this evening. Everything behaved itself on the way – apart from
the weather, but at least the torrential rain was keeping the engine cool. We found the hotel at a very reasonable hour –
which meant after we had checked in with the Crusade Team we had time for
dinner. Our first proper meal for about
three days! We had, unfortunately, fell
off the leader board today – but it is fancy dress day proper tomorrow, and
hopefully will be able to make up some points.
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