Where's Frankie?

Run for the Sun

Friday 7th November

Last night got cold, very cold 0°C at one point and we both woke with headaches and feeling a little dizzy. Not ones to blame alcohol abuse we put it down to the high altitudes, well you would, wouldn’t you.

Lets make a plan then. Yesterdays plan of climbing up to the castle took a backseat when Lucy started moving about and found every muscle in her legs was aching from yesterdays walk so we had a quick look about Murol which was very nice although everywhere was closed for November and most of December. It looks like it could really be busy in the Summer and Winter but not in-between.

The decision was made to head south and try and get to a lower altitude before we run out of paracetamol. Talking of running out we have used the last carton of British milk, we’re down to our last kilo of coffee beans, only 2 toilet rolls left and all of our bacon has gone. It is nice getting some space back in some of the cupboards so that we can rearrange stuff and put it in more convenient places. 

We set a target of Millau, it’s half way to the sea, it will give the batteries a good chance to charge up and we are likely to be somewhere warmer than last night. I did have a sleepless night after seeing that the temperature had got down to 0°C since there had been so many black ice warning signs on the roads.

We managed to get on the A75 heading south after stocking up in Aldi’s for a change. We’ve always used Aldi’s at home but found that we actually preferred Lidl’s. The A75 was a very pleasant change from the cliff hanging roads that we had been using and we made very good progress south. The road has some very nice scenery as it passes through and around some very nice volcanoes and we eventually got to our turn off. Obviously Stella is going to have a little paddy and warn us about the 3.5 ton weight limits everywhere but we’ve decided to ignore her on that.

We are not permitted through the centre of Millau due to our weight but that didn’t stop us, even when we saw the Police car, heads down and pedal to the metal as we breathed in and squeezed through the narrowest gaps left by parked cars. The shopping centre looks like one of the best we’ve ever seen, wall to wall shops so that is on the plan for tomorrow.

We eventually found the aire after Stella had a brain freeze and went very quiet for a few long minutes. There was a welsh van in front of us and a Gerrman at the gates with an engineer. The German was having lots of problems getting in the gates but the engineer sorted him out and then beat a very hasty retreat. The Welsh couple tried their luck on the machine and got nowhere so decided to park outside the aire so I had a go and admittedly, it was rather complicated, but I managed to get a pass card out of the machine and drove right in. I went back and helped the Welsh couple in as well but left the Frenchies who had just pulled up, to work it out themselves. In the end they didn’t bother and have parked outside. The aire is called Millau 2 (Number 84, Midi-Pyrenees). Millau 1 has been closed and the services moved into Millau 2.

We’ve got free electric and free water if you ignore the €9.60 entry to the site. I’ve managed to get on the aires free wifi so will be skyping later tonight. The shopping centre and old town is meant to be 500m away, we’ll let you know how we get on tomorrow.

Now I’ll hand over to Lucy to let you know how she’s been getting on.

Hi all, Lucy here.  I have been spending some time behind the camera the last few days as Mark has been driving down steep and twisty roads.  I took about 60 photos but once the out of focus ones and the ones with parts of the motorhome or electricity pylons had been taken out, I am down to 16 :]  Here they are …

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This is the view of neighbouring volcano craters from the top of Puy du Dome

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and this is from a different viewpoint.  As you can see we have lovely weather and a brilliant view.

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The weather did not start off well that morning though.  This was the grass on the summit a little way from where the train stopped –  it looks like feathers but it is ice formed on grass stalks and blown by the wind into these lovely shapes.

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Another view from the summit – there were so many beautiful views

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This is poor old Frankie, all on his own while we were off enjoying ourselves!

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This was taken earlier today on the way to Millau, I just thought it looked quite stunning

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This was our first and last glance of the bridge so far 

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This one’s for Andrew, we think they are Limousin cows but they didn’t have any labels on !!

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This was quite early yesterday morning on our way to Puy du Dome – I thought it was quite atmospheric with the clouds hanging on to the trees

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This is a view from the front window as Mark does all the hard work

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Talking of whom, here’s the man himself concentrating on not falling off the edge of the road !

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Here’s another atmospheric shot I took earlier today – I’m getting quite good

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This is from Wednesday when we were in Clement Freud or Clermont Ferrand as Colin calls it!  This is part of the Michelin factory where they test the tyres in these buildings that look like ski slopes, hence the tram stop where we spent the night (in the Aire in the park and ride) is called Les Pistes.

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This was our view of Puy du Dome on our way to visit – we were unbelievably lucky with the weather as the clouds lifted once we got there

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On the way to Murol, following our visit to Puy du Dome, we drove a bit too close to these mountain – they look far too cold for my liking, hence we are now on our way a bit further south.

Speak to you all soon, love Lu x

2 thoughts on “Run for the Sun

  1. andrew

    Best PHOTOS so far keep it up LUCY so much better than the dagenham trained bloke , the labels for the cattle are on the udder side , sorry opened my crackers too early . The man currently driving FRANKIE looks like the bass player from travis at the end of their world tour. Or is he a young santa ??? Had a great time at the one shoe meet . keep the blog coming its cold and wet here .

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