Day 6 - Foix to Ile D'Oleron

Thu, 02/07/2009 - 13:12 — Garry Taylor

Welcome to Day 6’s update Or is it Day 7’s update. Or maybe Day 6’s update being written on Day 7. Either way, welcome.

Firstly, you’ve all failed in identifying the mystery pic, although good efforts from Martin and Kate.
It was (of course) this..

I guess, technically, as Martin had suggested a shiny knob, this makes him the winner!

Anyway, on with the day..

We didn’t arrive at our hotel until 10pm last night, having driven pretty much all day except for an hour or two, so we decided to leave the update until this morning and have a bit of a lie-in.

So day 6 saw us leaving Foix at around 10am, after a quick check of the guest book...

As it was dark when we arrived, on the way out, we had a quick check around the other side of the hotel, just in case we had stumbled across a lakeside hotel or anything silly like that...

Imagine our surprise.

We started out Day 6 intending to head for Lourdes and soon found ourselves on the motorway heading West

It seemed we were almost the only people on this road..

..so Mike once again risked life and limb and clambered out onto the bonnet, strapped the camera to windscreen and set it on timer..

At our first coffee break, we pulled into a motorway service station and discovered that it was a visitors centre for a mountain top observation centre 45mins drive away..

..so after watching a 20min film about it, we decided to plot the location of the Pic (La Mongie) into our guidance systems and we headed for the mountains.

At one point we weren’t entirely sure if we were heading to the right place so we checked with a couple sat by the side of the road..

On the way up the mountain, we enjoyed some stunning views.

Once we got to the top, we were poised to purchase tickets for the cable car ride up the peak, however the lady suggested we look at the web cam views first, where we discovered that the view would have been shrouded in fog.

Still, the views at this level were still pretty impressive..

We decided to stop for lunch at Mama’s  and wait a while to see if the weather would improve, rather than waste 30 euros each to see nothing.

..and watched the cable cars pass us by whilst enjoying a pizza..

but weather was no better once we had finished lunch, and due to the queues, even Ski lessons were out of the question..

(that one was specially for Christa!)

After an hour or so, not only did the weather not improve, it got much worse, and we were now sheltering under mama’s umbrella in the pouring rain. We decided to take the easy option so you could still enjoy the area..

..and then we made a dash for the car, and started heading back down the mountain again, with the occasional cover being provided from the pouring rain..

...but more often not..

There were still nice views to behold..

And even more of this..

But before long we were back in the sunshine, which was probably just as well for these guys..

After stopping for a quick chat, and to congratulate the golden skinned winner..

...we returned to the car..

We decided to scrap Lourdes and instead headed for our new destination of Oleron Island.

On the way, we discovered that Airbus had been working on new TARDIS based transportation devices (we have no idea how they get it through the doors though..)

We passed a house that had evidently got fed up with noisy trucks..

..and after stopping to look at it, we roared off up the road and soon found the culprits..

We’d never seen so many trucks. Or logs...

By now it was gone 7pm, but it was still pretty warm cruising down the motorway..

We continued down the motorway for hours, amusing ourselves by taking pictures of random French cars..

And random Jersey cars..

Wait a minute, thats a Jersey Car! What’s the chances of knowing the people in it though...

OMG! It’s Andrea!

After stopping for a quick chat at the next Toll booths, we continued on our merry way, where it looked very likely we would arrive at our Hotel at Oleran Island at about 9pm – perfect timing for dinner and a relaxed evening.

Until Mike discovered he had plotted the wrong location in the Sat Nav. Once we re-plotted, it transpired we had another 50mins to drive.

Not so good!

We carried on, and bumped into one of the actors from the new Transformers movie..

..avoided a large pair of hands..

But despite their pleas...

..we headed off into the sunset..

..and were soon seeing the bridge across to Ile D’Oleron..

We finally arrived at our hotel a few minutes to ten, checked in and managed to grab some dinner in the restaurant before retiring to our room.

This morning we got up at about 9.30am, checked out the view..

..and headed down for some breakfast, then to sit in the reception using their wifi to do this update.

It’s now gone 2pm our time, so its time to upload, go in search of petrol and head to our next destination, so for now, goodbye from our Hotel in Ile D’Oleron..

And of course, here is the complete route from Day 6, which saw us covering about 415miles.