Historical Events

Historical events from Mark ( it's historical cause I'm slack)

 My first time across the English Channel, or more correctly under it. For those revheads here's a shot of Graham's GPS tracker as we cruised over the French countryside heading for Brussels in Belgium.

Other than in a Qantas "rice burner", I've never been this fast before!

 On the second line of data, far left side, you can see our km/h speed. 

Graham has already  mentioned the work vehicle that we had been allocated. Never had a loaner with only 33ks on the clock before. Well we certainly changed that!

Langres over night.

In OZ we get a bit excited when we see some old stuff like buildings and chattels.

In Europe they don't seem to get too excited about how old things are cause there's plently of them.

In Langres the Cathedral Cloister still stands quite sturdy after being rebuild in 1748. The Cloister was originally built in 1230!!

 I recon the boys spent a fair bit or time doing the pattern work in the roof tiles!

Sunday 26^th.

Sunday was a big day. 11hrs in the car rolling south from Langres in central France the 800km to the Spanish border. A very interesting drive. Last visit to France ( 4 years ago to Sisteron) saw us coughing up Euros relentlessly at toll booths during the trip south. Very different this time, when you entered the Tollway there was a ticket to be collected and when you exited you paid up for the distance of usage. This trip has been markedly less in fees.

The freeway took us through the center of Lyon, a very large city indeed.

Reaching the southern coast of France it was now time to head back inland as the last 100kms of the trip was to encounter the Pyrenees mountains. Our average ground speed markedly reduced as we began to wind our way up into the mountains on a very twisty and most of the time narrow road. Regularly we would encounter a small town perched on the side of the mountain, very old and usually a bit of a challenge to drag a 9mt glider trailer through the very narrow streets original designed to provide thoroughfare for a horse & cart. The locals seemed quite comfortable flitting along at interesting speeds. Not me! With a the trailer in tow, discretion was the better part of valour as the gutter alongside the road was deep enough to swallow up the entire wheel if the trailer ventured too close.

As we wound up through the mountains Graham read off the GPS elevations, topping out at 5,100 ft above sea level before we began to let down into the plateau of  Cedanya which is 3,600ft above sea.

Yep a log day after hitting the road at 6.30am we made our arrival in Alp, Cedanya, Spain at 5.30pm.

A bit more later  - Mark