Bali

No, I haven't been there. I have however been following the latest round of climate talks. This is worth a mention purely because my I now have a new favourite american quote.

This one was by James Connaughton, who's Bush’s chief adviser on environmental issues. He's not a scientist, or an economist, or a diplomat, but rather a lawyer who was appointed by Bush after a career defending chemical manufacturers and aluminium smelters against environmental lawsuits. Thank you to the Times for this info, who gave the following description of the harrowing two weeks of negotiations.

Time after time, just as an agreement on emissions reduction targets had drawn near, the US delegation submitted amendments or new texts that threw the process into disarray. It was these tactics that eventually saw them get their way and have the emissions target figures removed.

They might have won even more concessions had it not been for a last-minute outburst from Kevin Conrad, head of Papua New Guinea’s delegation, who won mass applause when he told the Americans yesterday: “We seek your leadership, but if you cannot lead, leave it to the rest of us. Get out of the way.”

It was after this that America finally yielded and offered a deal.

James was asked why America, a global leader in so many other ways, was so unwilling to lead the fight against global warming.

Wait for it....!

“We are leading and we will continue to lead,” he growled, to gasps of amazement. “But leadership requires the rest of the world to fall in line and follow us.”

Heh :) Classic.

Previously the top spot was held by the answer that Ari Fleisher, then Whitehouse spokesman, gave in response to the question: "Does the President believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, that we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?"

MR. FLEISCHER: That's a big no. The President believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one.

Nice, Monacco and Dolceaqua

How slack am I? This time I'm not even providing a commentary. Just offering up pictures of glorious sunshine. Except for a few notes at the end.




I recently went to London and voted in the Australian embassy. At first it was a typical England experience - obviously they had some long queues at some points, then through the security screening...

But inside the beautiful building that houses the Australian Embassy (where they wouldn't let me take photos), rather aptly named Australia House, it was just like every other election I'd ever been too. Suddenly I was transported home again as I heard nothing but oz accents - there were even people handing out how to vote cards outside. I nearly hugged them.

Special edition

This is where mum and dad will have been by the time they get home....

http://www.travbuddy.com/widget_map_display.php?id=1907996

Update on the world travellers

Well, last you heard of Mum and Dad, we'd all just got back from a quick tour of Scotland. Their next big adventure starts on Tuesday when we all go over to Nice in France to visit Ulrich and maybe Italy, Monaco, Corsica, who knows?

Our trip to London is booked as we're going to spend a week there straight after xmas before they fly out of Heathrow on New Year's Day. So that will still leave most of December for Mum and Dad to go places. We were looking on the internet the other day, and in the paper for a few ideas. They haven't been to Wales yet, so they were looking at various places to go. And of course there's the whole of south England to see yet. Mum would like to go to Amsterdam one day. There was talk of Norway too, but that would be very, very cold.

They made a decision at last, to........ wait for it............... the Carribean! Why not? A cruise to Montego Bay (in Jamaica) then off to Colombo (now Mum, no getting mixed up with those cocaine drug lords! We know what you're like...) , finally to Costa Rico and the Panama. Rum all round! Mind you, Dad had to talk Mum into it (it took about a whole day), after all she's got no summer clothes over here.

Just a week in the tropics, and then it will be back to wintery England. But at least Dad will have a comeback next time one of his golfing partners tells him he's mad to go to England in the winter.

It's been getting freezing here lately (literally) and I have vague hopes of snow on the hills one day. We'll see. Despite my best energy saving, planet healing ways, I've had to turn the heater on on the attic. Still, we used some good engineering the other night and stuck alfoil behind all the radiators.

In the last week Uncle Ron's turned 80 and Manda's got married - congratulations to you both and best wishes.

Image quality problems

I apologise for the poor resolution of the photos lately. I really don't know what's going on, but lately blogger (linked to Picasa) has been doing something odd when uploading. Hopefully some sort of solution is pending. Any thoughts, please let me know (posts opened up just for this one).

Long boats and narrow boats

A learned friend in Manchester here read my blog entry on the boat that went into the Marsden tunnel and pointed out that the people selling cotton used "narrow boats" - it was the vikings who used long boats!

Scotland

Well, it’s been a little while since the last blog, my apologies. Mum and Dad have been here now for half their time, and tomorrow I celebrate exactly 12 months in the UK! Can you believe it? I’ve been flat out at work, doing stuff with mum and dad, doing stuff on the house and of course the odd trip to France. And we’re never mentioning Orange again (unless in the context of “oh, you want a service provider? Well don’t choose….”)

Now first, for all those who have wondered, here’s Tom (a most pleasant gentleman mum met on the Irish tour who came up in a few emails…).

All in all, I believe quite a good time was had by all around beautiful green Ireland.

Which made an interesting comparison to Scotland. Ulrich came over and we hired a car and headed north from Mossley, then east then south to Newcastle then back to Manchester. One thing I should point out. If you need sunshine to see beauty, then maybe the UK’s not the place for you…

But it was lovely really, not the slightest bit cold!



They also grow very big hedges in this country!



And then to top it all off, just for Dad, we headed off to St Andrews. Not a lot of golf in sight, but a lovely town.

Internet despair

Would you believe it's been over a month and I still don't have my internet service from Orange? I think I've worked out the problem, but they obviously haven't. If I didn't have a million other things going on in my life I'd mount a crusade and raise the masses in a huge anti-Orange campaign.

My parents have arrived safely... and left safely to Ireland! I pick them up again on Sunday, so hopefully they're having a lovely time. The weather's bound to turn again before they're home, so they'll never believe me when I say we've been having bright blue skies here in Mossley.



On this day we went on the train to Marsden, a village near Mossley. We got there on the weekend of the annual jazz festival - I'm sure it's not this busy normally! After some classic fish and chips for lunch (and I convinced Mum to try some mushy peas, local delicacy - Dad wasn't quite up for it though), we went for a ride on one of the longboats along the Huddersfield canal into UK's longest tunnel - 3 miles. It was very interesting.



Now this isn’t that tunnel! But it is the same canal, which goes just past my place. Lots of history, pre-railways etc. There’s a lovely walk alongside where the horses used to pull the boats full of industrial revolution textiles. My friend from Newcastle, Paul, came for a walk with Ulrich and me from Mossley to nearby Stalybridge on that first day of sunshine (it’s been nearly a week now!).

Quick update....

As a friend from Perth recently pointed out, it’s been a very long time since I last updated this blog. Now part of that is while I did eventually with Orange, it was short lived. I’ve had some sort of technical fault for the last month that’s meant I haven’t had broad band, an absolutely unbelievable situation that I intend to milk for my financial advantage as much as possible. Nonetheless, I have a workaround for now.

Tonight was another difficult night as I was forced to stand in an English pub watching England win the semi final (in rugby) against France. Last week, just before I picked my parents up from the airport, I had to suffer the absolutely incredible situation of watching (in that same pub just across the road – it’s my only television at the moment) England beat Australia. If that wasn’t bad enough, as I was waiting for mum and dad to make it through immigration, I got a message from Ulrich in France to say that France had beat New Zealand. I mean seriously. What’s going on? Here in England, on the other side of the world you tend to get a real fondness for your “antipodean” mates as they term it. So for the major players of the southern hemisphere to be knocked out in one day was jaw-dropping. I’m not sure, but I think I might have to actually support South Africa against England next week.

Mum and Dad are hopefully having a good time, in between painting my front room and various other tasks. Today we went on a long boat ride along the Huddersfield canal into the deepest, longest canal tunnel in the UK. Very interesting. I took a photo of a car in the carpark which had windscreen wipers on the lights.

I’ve now settled into my little terrace house in Mossley, a little stone built village about 12 miles out of Manchester at the foothills of the northern end of the Peak District. It’s a traditional 2 up, 2 down terrace, which literally means two rooms on the bottom floor and two on the top (with one truncated to add a bathroom). But with the attic and cellar as well, I’ve almost got a proper size house, just vertical rather than horizontal. It’s funny what you can adjust to. Running up and down the stairs has just about made up for the change from walking 15 minutes to work every day to sitting on a train for that long instead. Of course, the train gives me a good opportunity to learn more French, so that’s ok.

Everything’s rather busy but in an ordinary sort of way (no more exciting holidays for a while) so I’ll leave it at that for now. Mum and Dad take their bus tour of Ireland next week, so hopefully they’ll love that. We’re planning all sorts of other adventures as well, not least of course will have to be a trip to France.

Are my expectations too high?

After the glories of France, some parts of my life have been awfully painful lately, and it’s all because I seem to have fundamentally inflated expectations of customer service. I think I’ll spare you most of the gory details, but let’s just say it largely comes down to telecommunications companies. I’ll give you a few samples:

I arrived in this country, and thanks to an excellent service provided by a company called 1st Contact (highly recommended if you’re moving here), I had a mobile phone number and a pay as you go deal with Vodaphone the day I arrived.

But pay as you go is expensive. So I tried to get one of those deals where you get so many hundred minutes and texts for set amount a month (this is another thing on my dollar for pound list – I paid $28 a month to 3 Oz, and I pay £30 a month here). So, I went along to the various shops and said no thanks, I don’t want a phone, I’ve already got one, can I therefore just go on the monthly plan without a contract.

No.
Why not?
We don’t do that. You will have to have a minimum 12 month contract.
*sigh*. Ok.

{Provision of all the personal details you could imagine ensues – if you move to the UK you must immediately abandon any thoughts you might have ever had of privacy if you want to either a}, walk down the street, b) buy something.}

At the end of this long data entry process, with a few computer system failures along the way, I get “sorry, your credit check has failed”.

Why?
I don’t know
Well, can you find out?
No.
Why not?
They won’t give me your personal details (huh! Like you hadn’t just had them all).
Ok, fine, you ring the credit agency, and I’ll talk to them.
You can’t.
Right, so then how the **** do I find out why my credit check has failed?
You go to this address on the internet, send this company £12 and they will write you a letter explaining why your credit check fails.
And when I explain to them why their data (whatever this mysterious data is) is wrong, will I get my £12 back?
No.
ARRGGGGGHHH!!!!!!!

So, that was a few months ago. I knew I hadn’t not paid anything, so I decided that it might be because I didn’t have the obligatory 3 years worth of credit history. For a country with possible the most open immigration policy in the world, you wouldn’t believe the number of organisations that require your last three years’ addresses in the UK. Like the clothing store I was trying to get a 10% discount card off. So far the best experience I’ve had has been getting a 30 year mortgage! (Not bad for someone who’s only got a 5 year work visa).

I decided to try again after I’d been here 6 months, so I went to Orange who were offering a £35 a month broadband + mobile deal. Now, I’d been an Orange broadband customer for the last 7 months or so, each of us reasonably happy with the arrangement I had thought. But no, through the same credit hoops, this time with the result that they would give me the opportunity to pay them lots of money every month if I gave them a £150 deposit. But I’m an Orange broadband customer I said. Sorry, we’re not the same company, they replied. ????

I was to learn this fact in far, far greater detail in the coming weeks as I tried to get my broadband transferred to my new house (I know, I promised details on pretty Mossley after droning on for so long about France, but right now I have been sitting on a train for over 2 hours because I accidentally stepped on the wrong train and so feel like a cathartic whinge instead!). Suffice to say I have been on the phone for literally hours at various stages and have now got my offer of cash back for my pain up to £100. We’ll see if this ever eventuates. (It better, I’ll need it to pay the phone bill I’ve racked up calling my new French boyfriend – another tantalising subject for another day).

My other great fun lately has been buying furniture. They have this fascinating company over here called Argos. Ah, Argos, house of the “laminated book of dreams”. This place sell *everything*, and it does so pretty cheaply by not having a normal storefront. You walk into the shop and where you’d normally see goods, instead there are rows and rows of catalogues (laminated). You look up what you want, get the catalogue number, tap it into a little machine which tells you if the item is available in store (the warehouse section out the back), write the number down on a special little piece of paper and take that up to the counter to pay. Then it’s like getting your fish and chips, you get an order number which they call out and put on the TV screen (which looks like a bingo screen) and you go collect it when it’s ready. Alternatively, they deliver.

Now, about that delivery….

We sat in the store and went through another relatively painful process to select a delivery date for me. Saturday morning, 7-12 ok. I was in a panic because I was going to be on a plane from Glasgow from 7-8 in the morning, so I made all sorts of arrangements and raced home to make sure I was there on time. Then I waited, and waited, and finally at 11am I rang and asked what was going on.

We don’t have a delivery scheduled for you today Miss Wessling (no matter how many times I explain, they can’t get the Ms correct).
Yes you bloody well do.
No, oh, hang on, looks like they couldn’t get some parts so they’ve rescheduled.
And do you think anyone was going to contact me to tell me this?? (No – it is not physically possible for a person in an English company to pick up the phone and contact a customer for any reason, whether they’ve promised to do so or not.)
Sorry, when would you like to reschedule?
But I don’t have a bed to sleep on!!!!

I got rather emotional at the guy at this point, and so he passed me on to his manager who arranged me an air bed for free to be picked up in the Manchester store. At this store I met a wonderful person who just sorted it on the spot and got me my mattress. So, I had a bed that night.

Today I’m gearing up for round 16 with Orange mobile + broadband (yeah right).

Le Tour est Fini - Paris

Things have been pretty hectic lately, and I haven’t quite got round to finishing off this last bit of my Tour travelogue. But when a friend sent me this link, I had to get back to it! I got interviewed quite a lot around the way, including by the guy who wrote this… http://www.usatoday.com/sports/cycling/2007-07-29-3151115162_x.htm

This article got quoted all around the world! From Australia to Taiwan to North America to Europe.

Here’s a magazine journalist interviewing the bunch of aussies I was with.

So, I arrived in Paris and dropped my stuff off at the hotel in Montmartre before skooting over to the nearest bar to watch the all important last contre la montre. Edge of the seat stuff, as forget Cadel overtaking Contador, suddenly there was the threat of him losing second place to Levi! Still, all well in the end, deep breath and then off to see the sights.

I was happy to see that breakdancing is alive and well!

Then it was time to do some reconnoitring over on the Champs Élysées, where I met up with the pink combie guys again, Mick and Grant.

After a stroll along the Seine, we had some dinner in the Latin Quarter. It was noticeable that the only less than perfect food I had in France was in Paris.

The hostel I was staying in was a bit of a step up from the last time I stayed in Paris, where the cheap places were so full I ended up paying less to have a mattress on the floor! This time I had a half decent breakfast (for France at least – they don’t normally do breakfast really). And a view of sacre cœur!

Then, after all that, it was time to head off to my last day of the tour. So sad, I’d had the best time ever.

Once again, there was no shortage of Australians on the stage, and they were certainly prominent amongst the truly dedicated. I got in at 9am (the cyclists were expected about 4pm) and found I was far from being the first one there. I joined up with this group as they had a top spot right on the bend in front of the arc de triomphe.

I had more fun than you’d expect standing around in the rain waiting for the race. I did get wet socks, but I snuck into a shop and held them under the hand dryer for a while (mmm, warm socks, is there anything better?)

Clearly, a good display of aussie pride was called for on a day like this, so Skippy got a bit of an outing. Flags thrown over the barriers were a bit of a problem for the gendarmes, (“but the sponsors, they have paid for this, yes?”

In amongst the big group of aussies, with a few scattered americans and dutch and norweigans, was one little French lady who’d been there all alone from the very beginning. She stuck it out with a smile all day. Here was another chance for me to practice my French, which she seemed very grateful for as she had no other French people around to talk to at all!

Time went on, the race got closer, the people kept coming and we kept ourselves amused trying to start a Mexican wave. We had some good response from the people across the way, but it fell down somewhere in the middle. There’s always one….

Turned around from my place on the barrier at one point and remembered why I’d got there so early!

Time for my last caravan, although no goodies this time. And this time a few of the million odd transport trucks got in on the action – man, you should have seen them flying round that bend!!! Getting some nice jackknife action happening there.

I didn’t get any photos of the race going past, which it did about 7 times, preferring instead to just soak up the action as it came round. One Spaniard in the crowd had a nifty phone with TV on it, so could give us updates on the breakaways.

And then, all too soon, it was over for the year. After the race, all the teams came round on a victory lap, or glad to have made it lap, however you want to see it, in reverse team position order. Predictor Lotto got a massive cheer, particularly when everyone saw another matilda in the midst! That’s Cadel (well done Cadel) with the flag. We tried to get him over for autographs, but the media guys had all had him first so he was starting to lag a long way behind the rest of the team and apologised but went on.

Jens Voight on the other hand! Jens spent a fair bit of time down under, and is known to have a real fondness for aussies. The group I was with had previously called him over at one of the village departs earlier in the race. He’d had a chat, signed their flag and told them a bit of a story. One of the guys had noticed that he was wearing a black wristband, in the livestrong style (except for the black bit of course) and asked him what it was all about. He replied that Stuey (O’Grady) had had them made up for the rest of the team (team CSC that is), for those times out on the road when things were tough and you were struggling to keep going. And in true aussie style, the inscription? “harden the f**k up”. Love it.

So the guys waved him over again, and he remembered them from last time. Russell, tongue in cheek, held out his aussie cap and next thing you know, after a few complaints about the size of Russell’s head, Jens Voight is riding down the Champs Élysées with an green and gold cap where his CSC one used to be!

Not surprisingly, Russell shown here in his new CSC cap was pretty happy about all this!

There go Discovery, with two jerseys, a third, the team victory (and of course now they don’t exist because they have no sponsor, what sort of world is this)… Well done Alberto….



One more (glorious) night in Paris, then, alas, home to the rain. *sigh.

Next up… Mossley.

Le Tour Part 6 - On the way back to Paris

Good news for the non cycling fans – there are no velos in this part.

There is however a picture of St Emilion I forgot to add last time….



I woke up in yet another lovely little camping spot (“Aire”) along the autoroute to the sound of the start of the French holiday month of August. *Everyone* goes on holiday in France in August. England’s not quite as bad, but I’m writing this on my way back from the Newcastle office which was no more than half full. Of course, it’s the equivalent of xmas season over here – the school year starts in September.

Then I headed towards Cote d’Argent (literally Silver Coast, I guess they were on a role after the Gold Coast along the Mediterranean). Absolutely incredible!!!! I got there pretty early, about 9am, parked in an extensive but empty area, walked to the beach….. GASP - an Australian quality surf beach! Magical. The people did arrive later on, but there was plenty of room for everyone. What the hell are all those people doing along the Cote d’Or? Sure, it was a little chillier than the bathwater down there, but still. I spent the day putting on sunscreen, reading, walking and taking regular dips. Felt a little overdressed in my bikini though I must say. I also started getting annoyed at the lifeguards who seemed to want to prevent people from going out to far (hey, I can handle surf, I’m an aussie!). But when I moved away for a bit more freedom I decided they weren’t so wrong after all, as it was pretty fierce surf. I met one surfer who said it was too big for them that day. It did make the (lack of) clothing choices made by the swimmers seem sensible though!

Then I was off again, seriously heading north this time. The next morning was spent walking through a beautiful, albeit somewhat damp forest near Paris. So I’d seen mountains, beaches, vineyards, farmlands, rivers and now forest. What a spectacularly beautiful country.

And then it was time to head back to the airport to drop off the car. It was a bit sad really, after nearly 4000 km and it certainly took me a while to clean it out. Still, I was now ready for Paris and the last leg of my Tour.

Le Tour Part 5 - Col d'Aubisque and Pau

PARIS (Reuters) - the number of accidents and of died on the roads increased in July, with 478 people having being killed in one month.

Well, I saw two of those I suspect on the highways, but generally I had no problem with the drivers in France. And I certainly saw a lot of French roads – I ended up driving nearly 4000 km in my two weeks.

Right, back to the tour! After Plateau de Beille, it was time to head to Col d’Aubisque. With a rest day and another big mountain stage in between, I wasn’t too hurried so I could enjoy the scenery, mind blowing as always! We got up to the top of the mountain in good time, and had the chance to go for a nice hike up the nearest peak.


And then there was the astounding Astana news! I couldn’t believe it!! So very disappointing, I had really hoped that Vino was clean. You’ve got to ask some serious questions about Kloden. I think I’ve already talked a little bit about how hard it was to get the overall picture of the tour when you’re actually on the tour. There’s no wonderful Phil Liggett to give you all the information you’ve ever needed. So it was really exciting just to find out what the latest astounding scandal was going to be each day.

The night before the tour was due to arrive, I met up with the guys from the pink combie van again, this time in tiny bar where groups of Basque and Aussies were competing with every available local instrument (various types of drums and stringed instruments, with a few cow bells and of course the big cow horn) to see how much music they could make! In amongst this we all had an amusing time as a French lad tried to coach the ultra ocker Grant on the best method of seducing the sexy bar maid. There were a lot of traps for the unwary!

The next day I was having lunch in the same place, watching the race progress on the little TV (no big screen on top of the hill this day due to space limitations), heard some familiar accents, turned around and met a couple of guys from Mossley. Now, there have been a few other things happening in my life besides just le Tour de France, one of which has been buying a house in a little village called Mossley. So little that these guys could pinpoint exactly where I’d bought. Le monde est petit.

Back to the hill as the race got closer, and surrounded once again by aussies we watched Rasmussen’s final victory for the tour, followed shortly by Contador and then Levi, who Cadel (go Cadel!) hadn’t quite managed to hang onto the back of (something that was to cause a few scary moments in the time trial). Once again it was fascinating watching the behind the scenes action behind the finish line, and this time I spent a while hanging onto a fence where the media were, next to the control doping van. Cadel went in, as did Rasmussen and a few others. They were in there for ages, and my experience watching people after a marathon was that if anyone was expecting a urine sample, then sit back with a good book. Even just to find a vein must have been hard the state these guys’ bodies were in.

I’ve said it before – I don’t want to cast any aspersions, Rasmussen and Contador did look a tad fresher than Evans, who I thought wasn’t going to make it down the steps for a moment. Boonen looked fine of course, flashing those white teeth at the cameras and interviewers who were lined up for their turn at an interview.

This mountain had two roads, one for the tour vehicles and one for me, so apart from a few curious locals and a million camping cars, there weren’t too many problems getting out.

A quick change of plans, and we managed to make it down to Pau to see the next day’s Village Départ!

On the way, a quick stop at the oh sooooo yummy boulangerie for breakfast (those almond croissants are heaven), pick up a paper and OMG!!!!! Rasmussen – gone. Cofidis – gone!!! OMG.

Pau seemed like a nice little town, or at least the area set up for the Départ was a lovely park.

I hadn’t realised that for this year’s race, the riders all had to sign on at the beginning of the race. So one by one they wandered down on their bikes and went up onto the stage to sign that day’s pledge. There was a big cheer for Cadel – aussies everywhere again. Not as big though as the one for the local lad born not 500 m from the line. Most of the riders seemed pretty relaxed compared to the end of the race… except for Rabobank. Those guys just looked bewildered and very tense. It was disappointing to hear some in the crowd give hooeys (French equivalent of a boo) given the very brave decision they’d made. Much later, on the Champs Elysée we (the big group of aussies I was with at that stage) gave them a big cheer as they went by on the lap of honour, and although the likes of Menchov gratefully acknowledged, they still looked very down.

Another interesting point was that of all the teams, Discovery team hung together (that was then, this is now of course given the latest Discovery news!). Levi, Contador, Big George etc all came up to sign together. I noticed that they all trained together before the time trials too.

Suddenly the riders were all lined up at the start line (sans yellow jersey of course), with such absolute chaos ahead of them it seemed incredible that they were ever getting out of there!

Then very quickly the road cleared (sort of) and away they went.

Of course, now Soler had that maillot a pois all sewn up. And didn’t Barloworld have a ripper first tour? And isn’t that just the least European team name in the field?

And that was the end of that day’s stage for me at least

Alas, I worked out that there was just no way I was going to make it Cognac for the time trial if I wanted to be in Paris the following day so I’m just going to have to go back to le Tour one day to see a time trial and I also never got to a feeding zone as I wanted. So instead I headed up to a small medieval town east of Bordeaux for a sunset over the vineyards, heritage listed village, more fantastic food in a courtyard with the light gently disappearing – magic. That was St Emilion.

Then it was back on the autoroute to find a place to sleep, headed for the coast. The lonely planet guide didn’t have much to say about it, but I thought I’d check it out and see if was marginally better as a beach than on the Med.

Le Tour Part 4 - Plateau de Beille

It was already getting on a bit when I started driving from Arles to Toulouse (looking to be on top of Plateau de Beille that night), but I still had to stop and try and take photos of the magical sunset over the fields of sunflowers. I was actually getting quite poetical, but I won’t torment anyone with anything more than simply saying I felt Van Gogh was on a winner with the light in this region.

I just made the last open petrol station before hitting the mountains, one of only about 4 times that I filled up on my big journey (why don’t we all have gutsy little cars that handle mountains and fast highways with no problems on just 4 L / 100 km?). It was getting near midnight as I followed the road, but I didn’t really need all those stops to check the map – I could have just followed the camping cars. I did though, after the experience coming out of Paris and one or two other slight diversions (have I mentioned that I’m getting a GPS next time?).

The Plateau de Beille was to be my first real mountain top finish. It was near midnight by the time I hit the village at the bottom of the mountain, but there was still a huge party going on – bands and crowds of people and lots of lights in this absolutely minute little town. I later learnt that my pink combie mates had hit the party and decided to stay down there, riding their bikes up some of the way for the actual race day. I was tempted, but I would have had to have walked 20 km rather than the 10 km up Col du Galibier, and I really wanted to be at the very finish of this monster stage (a very important one as it turned out of course).

So I crawled on up the super steep, tight mountain in thick fog, passing the usual precariously parked camping cars on the side and after this dreamlike journey I finally arrived in the big carpark of the ski station that was hosting the finish. Here I met the security guards, who were very friendly but made it clear that I had to move first thing in the morning or be in the way of the Tour. Fortunately they had the key to the station so I could go in to the toilets and I got a nice hot chocolate the next morning after walking around in the mist taking photos of the magic sunrise. A little bit of French goes a long way in France!

The ski station was also a working farm, so after re parking my car in a nice little spot, I went for a bit of a walk. We were above the fog for most of the day.

Once again, I wasn’t alone on the mountain! Remember, this is still a day and a half before the race arrives.

On my walk, I found the GR10 trail, which is one of two that traverse the Pyrénées from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean (the other, the GR11, is on the Spanish side). I have a secret ambition to do this one day on horseback, one of many dreams highly unlikely to ever happen! I also found this sign, and was amazed by how much lower I was than on top of Aiguilles de Midi in the Alps, and how much colder I was than in Chamonix which was still a good 1000 m above sea level. Of course, just to put it all into perspective, Mt Kosciusko is 2228 m above sea level.

By the time I got back to the station, the party was in full swing! It was all good traditional (and very loud) French accordion music that morning with the beer flowing as freely as the café.

I got a bit of a laugh by pointing out how the cows were “tranquille”, so close to all the action, which sort of translates as “everything’s sweet mate, no worries”. And look, bells! The sheep on the next mountain had them too, they were actually really loud first thing in the morning.

And while we’re talking about animals, heaps of people had brought dogs with them. They were all pretty well behaved.

That afternoon, the weather set in in a big way, some of the only rain I saw on my trip. I wasn’t too worried because by then it was time to sit inside and watch the ultra exciting contre la montre (time trial – ever wonder why it always had clm on TV? Lit – “contest the watch”) where Cadel managed a fantastic race (and as we now know, should have won it).

Then it was back to the bar for a few more beers, where I met a bunch of Basque farmers. These guys all had an annual pilgrimage to the Tour, and were definitely getting into the swing of it. I got talking to one of Basque heritage but who’d grown up in California (with all the noise and beer and wacky accents my French wasn’t up to much conversation), so they started including me in their rounds and eventually invited me back to their awesome long tent for a stew that almost rivalled Nige’s best camping efforts. The ladies were taking photos of me for souvenirs and the kids couldn’t stop staring! After a rowdy card game that seemed to involve lots of lying and cheating we headed back and I caught up with my friendly security guards. It was late and dark and the fog had descended again. I went for a walk around to the empty carpark where I’d first arrived the night before, to be greeted with the utterly surreal sight of the massive Tour trucks looming up out of the mist. It was truly freaky.

Next morning, I woke up and the empty carpark was now completely full, in a very organised spiral that later that night unravelled itself again to move onto the next village. Amazing. The more I saw of the Tour, the more I was stunned by the incredible organisation.

Also there in force that morning – the Gendarmerie.

In no time at all, it was time to wander over the finish line that had magically appeared and get ready to wait for the race. Here I met lots of aussies again, including a few I’d met on Col du Galibier before using my broken French to ingratiate my way into a group of elderly cycling fans (some of whom had cycled up the mountain too mind you). One gentlemen took my picture – neat spot hey? I was well excited.

Being right on the finish line, we got a sort of mini caravan on foot, and so I got enough pretzels to last me till Paris, as well as a few competing sponsors’ hats (ever wondered why everyone at the finish line has a yellow cap on?). Later the real caravan whizzed by as well – one of the many mobs getting publicity was the Tour Down Under. They never gave me anything the bastards!

There was plenty of other things going on to keep us entertained, including the people who were riding one of the official “pre tours” getting up on the podium to have their photo taken, but mainly of course there was the big France 2 TV screen on some sort of swivel arrangement on top of the truck. For the first time I realised how much the crowd was with Cadel (GO CADEL!!). I don’t think they’d known much about him before his big time trial effort, (except for a few die hard cycling fans like one new friend who could quote his VTT wins and prompted me with Phil Anderson’s name and best position when I couldn’t remember) but the whole crowd was cheering him on as he caught up with every one of Rasmussen’s attacks, and then groaned loudly when he finally fell behind Rasmussen and Contador.

The race got closer, and all was chaos just over the finish line with photographers everywhere. Somehow as Contador came through, having miraculously as usual remembered to do up his sponsor’s jersey just before the finish line with Rasmussen right on his tail (despite the agreement they’d apparently made on the road), he managed not to collide with anyone. He shot straight past into the arms of his manager, and the waiting media. The circus behind the finish line was fascinating, it was all happening for a while. Once again I was torn between watching and taking photos – I did get a photo of Rasmussen’s yellow arse shoot past, but then I seriously got the camera out when Cadel stopped just metres from me!

One thing that really stood out to everyone, was that that unlike the first two Cadel was absolutely knackered. He could barely sit on his crossbar unsupported, and how he managed to talk for the interviews I don’t know. I don’t want to throw any aspersions on the eventual winner at all, but here was a man who so blatently was not on drugs. I think that’s why there were so many enthusiastic aussies following the race – unlike the totally disillusioned Germans say, we had an almost indisputably clean champion to follow. And what a nice guy! He came across the line giving Kloden a pat on the back as they’d obviously helped each other up the mountain.

How’s this for a shot – can’t see the man in person because he’s so surrounded by cameras, but I can see his face still on the big screen!

All around the cyclists were coming in and their team were rushing over to get them into warm, circulation aiding gear. A few were changing shirts – man those guys have some serious tan lines.

They got the winners up on the podium amazingly quickly, except for Boonen of course! We all waited a while for him. The podium was a bit weird – only the photographers were really clapping, the crowd were quite silent. The Discovery team definitely have the sexiest colours I reckon, although perhaps black’s not the most comfortable in the heat. I suggested to one of the cyclists I met that the FdJ white might be the way to go, but he looked at me askance and told me in no uncertain terms that it was not! A little on the revealing side I believe he was inferring…

Btw, Bernard Hinault is way cool. And Boonen is super tall – he dwarfed everyone.

And then in no time they were all packing up ready to go. The cyclists in the team cars got out first behind the police on the motos. (Cadel’s in there – GO CADEL!!) But with only one way down the mountain, it was going to be hours before anyone not part of the Tour was allowed to move, so it was time to sit back down and relax for the evening for some.

I decided to go for a walk down the mountain and watch the cavalcade go past. Along the way I met this group (hmm, did you guess they were Norwegians?) who were happy to chat in English. They tried to scare me with their wicked schnapps, but I downed that in one hit and they were mightily impressed.

But watching the thousands of media vehicles go by, I suddenly thought hey, where’s SBS? When I got to the top I suddenly saw an SBS car, so I wandered over and said hi. Mike Tomalaris was waiting for his editor, so we chatted for about an hour, and he had some interesting little insights about the behind the scenes. Those guys had some super long days in the mountains, with maybe 4 hours sleep per stage if they were lucky. I was also able to catch up on some of the amazing news, like the German media pulling out and a few things Robbie had said. But what was also interesting is that I’d seen quite a few things that he hadn’t as well.

I said goodbye when his editor finished his job (there were only 4 guys from SBS covering the race – they must have had to work hard getting between village départ and village arrivée every day). Then, as there wasn’t much point going anywhere that night I settled down for the night in the somewhat more subdued atmosphere.