Pyrenees 2012 – SKCC Possy on Tour
So were back from our adventure, and what an adventure it was too, when I planned this I really didn’t thing this would get anywhere near the experience of the Alps but how wrong I was, the roads are equally as good and the scenery probably a shade better with the ‘greeness’ of the mountains compared to the baron moon like terrain of the Alps, the Alps has more passes but the Pyrenees has fantastic Col’s – and as for Andorra – wow!!
So here’s the report…….but, echoing Marks comments from the UK road trip, so much happened and I’m struggling to remember most of it, especially so soon after arriving back home, so hopefully the others will be along shortly to fill in the gaps
Day 1 – Friday 8th June
The alarm went off, it needn’t had really because I hadn’t slept with the excitement, I met Rob E at the roundabout in Maresfield and together we picked up Kenton in Heathfield, it seemed to take ages to get to Folkestone but when we did it didn’t take long for Tony C, Mattijs and Phil & Ruby to rock up.
The first day’s drive was always going to be difficult, 440 miles to Limoges (from Calais), it would have been uneventful had it not been for Tony C’s first issue, his alternator had blown and we had to do a roadside repair to swap over to the spare one he was carrying – at least we didn’t have any rain!!
Day 2 – Saturday 9th June
First stop of the day was at a small village called Oradour-sur-Glane where on the 10th June 1944 the SS rounded up the entire village into the church and shot them all – 642 people, the French had left the village exactly how it was after that day and walking around struck home how lucky we are not to live in an era like that!!
We then headed down to a small village just south of Bayonne for our first nights camping – and unfortunately the rain started, however, on the bright side Phil taught us how to speak fluent scouse and instructed us to insert the word “farkin” before every other word!
Day 3 – Sunday the 10th June
The rain had cleared over night and we set of in the sunshine, crossing the border into Spain and then back into France to climb the Col d’Ispeguy, at the top we stopped for coffee and Tony C shook my hand with excitement at his first hill climb, unfortunately later that day his car suffered the fatal injury and he suffered the hassle of of dealing with the breakdown company, fair play to them though they sorted him out virtually straight away and gave him choices of a flight home or a hire car to continue the trip – I’m really glad he chose the hire car.
Me, Rob and Kenton had formed ‘group A’ and were leading the Col’s in full blat mode, Phil and Mattijs left Tony C to sort out the breakdown and unfortunatly it started raining, jees did it rain!, ‘group B’ headed for the end point whilst ‘Group A’ carried on, however it got so hard we had to find shelter in an emergency cabin usually used by stranded hikers until the rain eased (which it didn’t), that night we hired a log cabin with heating and tried to dry our wet stuff, which seemed to be everything we owned – spirits were down at this stage, peeing down with rain and Tony C stuck in a hotel 100 miles away!, we contemplated missing out the next few days ITNs and heading for the South of France.
Day 4 – Monday
The rain had stopped overnight and it actually looked quite promising, we set off reasonably early and hit the Col d’Aubisque straight away, twists, turns, hairpins and we reached the summit that was covered in ski lifts and was so green – stunning – then the downhill stages – then uphill again – then downhill, the Col’s just didn’t stop, we had a few patches of rain but nothing to worry about and the day just got better and better
We rented another bungalow that night and just before 9pm Tony turned up in his hire car
Day 5 – Tuesday
The car troubles began, Phil’s car had already fried a battery and needed bump starting everytime, he was also getting oil pressure problems.
The highlight for me today was Andorra, simply fantastic roads and the views magnificent, me and Rob wanted to buy some ciggies but couldn’t find anywhere to park so we faked a breakdown in the middle of the busy high street and left Kenton watching them while we went shopping! – 50g’s of Golden Virginia is only 4 euros a packet, it about £14 here!!
Day 6 – Wednesday
Rob had noticed his exhaust manifold had cracked down by the silencer and so we needed to find somewhere who could weld it back up, we found a place somewhere in the middle of no-where in a workshop that was making up steel girders, a very laid back French guy eventually sorted it but not before he finished 10 other jobs at the same time, the whole thing probably took a couple of hours – and all for 60 Euros!!!
Once back on the road we meandered our way through some fantastic small roads with overhanging rocks on one side and sheer drops on the other all the way down to the Mediterranean, the weather was absolutely scorchio, Phil sported a bandana instead of his tin lid and immediately became known as the “twat in the hat”, or in his words “the farkin twat in the farkin hat” (picture to follow)
Day 7 – Thursday
Scorchio Scorchio, we headed North in two groups, group A still in blat mode working our way through the twists and bends whilst group B headed in a more sedate manner, mainly because Phil’s car was really playing up with the heat, mind you I had the first incident of the day – Rob commented on the amount of petrol pouring from the back of my car and with closer inspection I discovered a crack in my petrol tank, I reckon over the whole trip I must have chucked about £50 of fuel on the road!, I made a temporary repair with liquid metal and off we set to find Phil on the side of the road with a broken clutch linkage, he fixed that and then suffered boiling clutch fluid a few hours later – the heat was beginning to get at the cars and at us!!
The highlight of Thursday was the Millau viaduct, pictures to follow but an awesome structure.
Day 8 – Friday
Realising the best bits were now over we decided (given the weather forecast) that it would be a better plan to ignore plan A and try to get to Calais for an evening crossing, again we had two groups who met at Calais to get across the channel before shaking hands and wishing a fond farewell
One thing amazed me this side of the channel, through out France, Spain and Andorra people cheered and applauded us, everyone smiled and waved, the first village I drove through back in blighty I over took a parked car with plenty of space but the oncoming car decide to give me the old fist shake, then a few miles later a guy in a focus decided I wasn’t allowed to overtake him so he stuck at 40 and pulled over in the road everytime I attempted an overtake – why are we like that!!!
So, the summary, absolutely fantastic and another tick in the bucket list, it has been a great week, with great company and awesome roads and scenery – roll on next year!
Pictures and Vids to follow – I’m knackered and need to go to bed, so many other things have happened which I’ve simply forgotten to type!