Carbagerun, part 3/5

"duurtlang" (duurtlang)
04/13/2016 at 09:00 • Filed to: carbagerun, carbagerun 2016

Start of day 4, at the Crazy Jerry bar near Toulouse.

Trading the medieval Avignon city center for an Aldi parking lot filled with Jurassic vehicles provided quite the contrast. Add the Dutch Neanderthals inciting primal fear in the eyes of French grocery shoppers and it was a given this day would become an interesting one.

Day 4. Avignon - Toulouse

Proving you’re never too old to learn we arrived at the starting location on time . After collecting the assignments and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! we plundered the local super market s and boulangerie . You can’t live on body fat and gasoline fumes forever.

Before leaving we checked the assignments. More of the same. Picture a taxidermic “Snoek” (Dutch name of a Pike fish) inside a “Snoek” (Dutch slang for a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ).

!!!CAPTION ERROR: MAY BE MULTI-LINE OR CONTAIN LINK!!! Kinja'd!!!

Pike

The second assignment was classier though. Photograph a French lady inside your car. While she shows off her armpit hair. Yeah. Imagine asking a random lady if she: 1. has armpit hair, 2: wants to show this off inside your car and 3: wouldn’t mind having us take a picture of her in her full armpity glory. All this while 4: not being able to speak French.

Nice and curly

So we focussed on the route. We are that humorless. As was the start of the route.

The inspiring early part of the route. 10:39

Things became interesting when we had left Avignon far behind us. We found out the French like the burn things and we also found out the the curvy nature of the French landscape can also be appreciated in more compact forms.

We saw lots of these fires. No idea why they were lit. 11:07

This looked better in real life and in my memory. Photographing from a moving car and all that. City of Uzès. 11:14

After passing through some seriously hideous parts of the city of Alès we found hilly to (later) mountainous terrain. This resulted in a long drive (3 hours for 116 km/72 miles according to google maps) on the Col de l’Asclié. It took some time, but was worth it.

Lots of these little settlements. 12:21

Typical part of the road. Mountain on one side, little stone wall with a marvelous view blocked by trees on the other side.

This picture require excellent timing, given the prevalence of trees right next to the road. 13:40

Anyone able to identify this car? 13:47

At Peyregrosse the D420 road we were on ended and merged into the larger D986. So in the little town in of Le Mazel just a few kms later we decided to take a detour. We went right over this little bridge that more easily shown in Google Maps. A stretch of road that would have been done in 3 minutes now took half an hour (D323-D152A-D294). Because why not?

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In February it looked more at home in a horror movie. 13:56

Lots of secluded homes at this road. 14:11

Soon enough we were back on the intended route. Sadly we were behind a Buick. Yes, a Buick . Obscure galore in the Carbagerun. This Buick was driven rather slowly, somewhat comparable to the many Volvos and Jaguars. Old man cars I presume. Looking up the stats the power to weight ratio of the Buick is similar to our slushbox equipped Galant. Yet we had to struggle not to crash into his trunk.

Makeshift parking lot. 15:05

Just look at it powering through that bend.

It didn’t take as long to pass the Buick as it did passing slow Volvos and Jaaaags on narrow mountain roads. We soon found ourselves behind a camoed Renault Laguna, which wasn’t nearly as slow.

Carbagerun ‘94 Renault Laguna in front of an authentic French late mk1 (‘96?) Renault Clio. In the background the village La Roque-Sainte-Marguerite. 15:42

Lots of interesting villages. Here we are chasing a 1980s Saab. It had one of the few lady drivers.

Village called Peyre. Supposedly among the prettier villages in France. 16:13

In the village of Montjaux we took the D169 towards Coudols. This road had some of the most serious hairpins we witnessed. Inside Coudols we snickered about the mk1 Kia Sportage (Rare! Hideous!) being unable to make a turn in one go. We stopped snickering when we found out our Galant, being longer than the Kia, wasn’t able to make that turn in one go either. Some carbagerunners were present helping recording video.

Kia Sportage in a hairpin turn inside the village of Coudols. 17:03

In earlier paragraphs I complained about slow Volvos. There were many Volvos. Too many Volvos. Yet, besides the participating Volvo 66 and 340 this one Volvo wagon was a Volvo we could appreciate. Besides the Christmas tree on the roof(rack), the speakers and the flashing lights it had a smoke machine, a smoke machine as found in a bar. I question the legality and safety, but it did lead to a few hilarious moments with stunned other traffic. While switching on the smoke machine when passing a Gendarmerie car in the opposing lane didn’t lead to an arrest, it was amusing.

Smoke on. 17:31

Still 17:31. Smoke turned off.

From here on the roads and the views weren’t very interesting any more, sadly. You can’t have it all. The route from here on was: find the fastest way to the finish location: Le Chalet des Moissons in Balma (Toulouse)

Finish location. We parked next to an American oddball, with yet another American oddball in the background. 19:04

19:05

That wrapped up day 4 in Toulouse. We again chose to head to our hotel early so we could check out the inner city and dine in a real restaurant.

Tomorrow: Spain and Andorra!

(picture time stamps as provided by the camera. I’m unsure about the accuracy. It was probably still featuring summer time, so it’ll be 1 hour off)

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DISCUSSION (3)

KnowsAboutCars > duurtlang
04/10/2016 at 11:05

That wagon looks like a P5 Ford Taunus.

duurtlang > KnowsAboutCars
04/10/2016 at 11:11

Good catch!

Kinja'd!!!

BATC42 > duurtlang
04/11/2016 at 13:14

In the countryside, the fires are often used to burn the branches that were pruned from trees, of grass and various weeds. Given the landscape, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were old vines.

Also the Clio is indeed an first gen one, and it looks like it’s a facelifted one (“bulbous” rear lights instead of completely flat ones)