Day 0

Drive to Calais…..

Left a monsoon in Upper Beeding, and saw lots of broken down cars on the M4…(could this be an omen??!!) met with Charlotte in the sunshine in Folkstone and took some amazing pictures and video , after this we got on our train to France:

The train was an experience in itself…if you haven’t been in the tunnel it’s scary! Double decker train full of cars! Under the sea… :/

Managed to get an earlier train and arrived in France in plenty of time…arrived at meeting point and checked in, met some more of the teams and then checked into our hotel, went in search of food and beer! This was interesting…we managed to order pizza ‘without mushrooms’ ok, but on asking for 2 x cider we ended up with lemon squash! The night improved from here with a ‘no rules’ style beer mat fight with some French men in another bar…sufficiently out-bantered team – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, now named ugly, uglier and even uglier! (Great rally friendship blossoming here!)

Day 1

Calais to Interlaken

EPIC! 12 hours on the road, satnav malfunction, convoyed with team No Cigar. Very wet day, and a lot of ‘Stay on the right’! Shouting!!!!

Challenge today was Car Poker, we ended up with a straight flush, 5-9 of Diamonds (Pictures to explain will be uploaded to Facebook soon!) And the only team to beat us was MacKing…with a royal flush Still second place not bad!

Camilla (our Citroen AX) still driving very well and having no problems at all, we found out today that she is in deed the smallest engined car on the rally, we have some concerns about tomorrows first mountain passes!

On arriving at our hostel, booked 6 weeks before, we were told it was full and we were being taken somewhere else! RUBBISH! This meant a longer walk to the Hooters bar, (Meeting point) and no wifi connection Room had beds in cupboards, (Pull down off wall!) and a balcony we were told not to go out onto because it was dangerous!

Day 2

Interlaken to Bormio

WOWZERS!! we wish you could have seen what we saw today. The mountains looked blooming marvelous! They really took your breath away. And there was a spot of snow at the top which made the incredible views more amazing (except from the flipflop error we both faced! Cold tootsies!) still without Sat Nav and leading the convoy, with Team Twingo, The Good Bad Ugly and The Pheastant Pluckers. It was a leisurely drive and took it easy on the breaks. I mentioned the slight whiff of burning, and Fairy 2 tried to poke her head out the window to sniff with the window up! Yes.. I laughed too!! head vs window glass = hysterics ! Tunes are going well, we have even created our very own anthem. YouTube here we come!!

The accommodation is lovely and spacious and we have a bidet that was almost used as the real toilet was hid behind the door. When you’ve got to go you’ve got to go!

Terribly late for check in with the rally marshal but we couldn’t miss the opportunity of free dinner! Well I say dinner, it was a dodgy banquet. Salads, breads, fish, chicken/cheese/fish bites… then ravioli or barley (porridge) soup.. then garlic sausage burger thing with beefy green beans and polenta, then an assortment of puds that were served in ashtrays! Mmm yummy! NOT

Met some other teams and dragged them to the ‘ice bar’ which was packed and enabled us to do a spot of propaganda for Hapsburg!!

Hopefully finish it off tomorrow in Praha!