Well – where
do I begin? What a day!
We all had
to meet in the car park at 0815 for a photo shoot. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas,
and it was really raining hard. The
photo shoot had to be in the bar! Where
else? We had decided to do fancy dress
on the official fancy dress day – the last day – only. Most people did the same last year. Not this year! We were virtually the only team not in fancy
dress. We had the Big O in lederhosen,
the Bright Sparks in orange jumpsuits, To Infinity and a Blonde in alien
costumes, a whole team of wrapped presents, a telly tubby, a couple off MASH
bringing Hot Lips in on a stretcher – the list goes on. What a start – and that was without seeing
any of the cars!
We had Super
Mario, the Parrotmedics, Toy Story, a Land Rover “Rover the top”, and many more
that had had hours of work gone into them.
It was a fantastic compilation!
We set off at 9.00am, and tried to keep in convoy for a couple of miles –
then we were on our own. The route today
started from Lille, and ended up in Colmar – via Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany
at least once – most several times. The
weather was appalling. Last year we had
brilliant sunshine the whole time.
Our
challenge for today was to get a team photograph with a saxophone. Good job we all had google on the go! Dinant was the birthplace of Alfred Sax – and
there was apparently a good few scattered around the streets. It took us only an hour or so to get there –
and the rain had stopped and it was actually quite pleasant. We parked up, and went up to the bridge where
the whole thing was lined both sides with huge models of saxophones. We had our picture taken with one of those,
and by another one in front of a hotel – and in a chocolate shop where we all
lounged on the furniture pretending to play chocolate saxophones. We had bought them first! There was a little museum just up the road
which was a Sax Museum – where there was the real thing. This is the picture that is going to get us
the points! We saw several of the other
teams in the town – a lovely little town by a beautiful river that we could
have spent all morning at. But no –
onward we went. The other challenge was
one we had to set ourselves – that fitted in with the theme of the Ghostbusters. We
found a supermarket, and went in and bought a white sheet (it was on the list
to bring, but got forgotten!) We stopped
and drove in some woods – blew Raquel up and covered her with the sheet that
now had black eyes printed on, and propped her up behind a tree. I took a picture of the other three
pretending to look for ghosts, with her appearing at the back. I could just about hear an audience of
children shouting “she’s behind you!”
After that
we went past a very large graveyard with a few huge tombs with broken
doors. It had to be done! Raquel was put peeping out of the tomb, with
us scattered around pretending to look.
Nobody came and hustled us out – surprisingly! Then, Sonia spotted a zip line sign. “Let’s take Raquel on the zip line” she
says. So we turned around, found where
it was and drove there. It was around half
a mile walk from the car park up and down steps and hills – didn’t know this
was a trek as well as a car rally! We
got to the start – and they said they were too busy. We should have booked! Sonia did her bit – we got them to take us on
one of the high bridges, and Paul took the shot. Sonia is afraid of heights – so not quite
sure why she suggested this! We walked
up the pathway after getting all the safety harnesses and helmets on. Then we came to the bridge – we were clipped
on a high wire, had a wire either side of us to hold on to and wooden slats
that got further and further apart the further we went on. Sonia took the sheet – she insisted – so on
the middle of the bridge she put the sheet over her head, and we made as if we
were chasing the ghost. Brilliant! I could feel the rope bridge shaking with
Sonia – she was so brave to do it. We
should get extra points for that! And it
didn’t rain! She decided to climb up a
bit of a rock climbing wall on the way back to the car – and we got a picture
of a ghost halfway up!
We had
updates all the while on facebook and twitter, so we could keep up with where
all the teams were. Unfortunately, To
Infinity and a Blonde had broken down just outside Lille – and that is where
they stayed for seven hours! They called
for a backup car from England, and had to wait until it arrived. Several people had got lost – we even had one
update from Istanbul. I think that may
have been a slight exaggeration!
Disaster then struck. Paul
noticed the temperature needle was on red, so we pulled into a rest area. The bonnet came up, and the steam came
out! Had to leave that for half an hour
to cool down. A few cars along the line
was the Romanski Team from Mark Warner in a white London Taxi – with the bonnet
up. Not only was there steam coming out
of their engine, they had borrowed a frying pan from the restaurant and
proceeded to fry bacon and eggs from the heat.
That’s their challenge for the day sorted out then! They pulled away – and then we had to sort
ours out. Luckily, we had a container
full of water of the roof (for our Ghostbuster Super Soakers that are coming
out on Sunday). Quite a lot of it went
in the radiator – I don’t think there was much left in the car! After about an hour, we felt it was safe to
continue on!
We had
started to get into the hills – we were up at 1600 feet and then down and up
again. I don’t think this was doing the
car much good either! Paul was most
disappointed that his new off road truck hadn’t even made it through the first
day. One of the reasons he wouldn’t buy
a banger was because he didn’t want to break down! We went OK for a little while – then we got
in a really huge traffic jam. We must
have been in it for over an hour, and the engine just heated up all over
again. We pulled into a little lay by,
and did the same operation all over again.
This time you could hardly see the car for steam! We decided that we needed to keep going at
under 60 miles an hour so the engine didn’t heat up, and not too fast that it
would heat up that way, but fast enough for the wind to keep the engine
cooler. Then the rain came! And boy did it come – the sky was so black,
it thundered and lightened, and came down so hard it was thumping on the
bonnet. But it kept the engine
cool. Paul then pointed out that our box
on the top of the car to put the ghosts in was metal. Oh dear.
Wonder how many points we would get for being struck by lightning?
And time was
getting on. All these stops, and traffic
jams. Our meeting point in Colmar was
between 7.30pm and 9.30pm. Too late, and
no points! It was not looking good. We still had two and half hours to go, and it
was 7pm. Touch and go. The Bright Sparks passed us – so we weren’t
the only ones that were on the drag. The
engine was behaving itself – and the miles went, but we weren’t making up any
time as we had to keep the speed under 60.
The mileage signs were showing a diminishing balance – but not fast
enough. It was going to come down to
seconds. We had to meet in a cafe about
five minutes walk from the hotel – and it was still raining cats and dogs. Sonia and I were the only ones with a coat in
the inside of the truck, so when we got to the hotel we grabbed the camera bag
(evidence) and ran in the general direction of the town square, where the cafe
was. We got soaked. But we made it by the skin of our teeth! Our challenges were greeted with positive
words – always a good sign! We had a
quick drink and then went back to find the other two. Who turned up at the cafe just as we turned
up at the hotel. The car park had a
maximum height of 1.8m - the truck is
2.3m. They got soaked sorting out the
luggage and the parking, so we all got soaked.
Still teams that hadn’t checked in – missing in action! Including the white taxi last seen frying
eggs on its engine!
But then we
had a text from Crusader HQ. We are in
fourth place. All to play for tomorrow!
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