Wednesday 8th July

After a night spend on the side of the road in near gale conditions we woke up to see the road getting increasingly busy with people trying to find a park to watch the tour. As the morning wore on the area where we parked became full and the sides of the road filled up with people, chairs and tables. Even though we had a downhill spot we still had a great view and as the tour caravan came along Ewout kitted out in his Koala suit got plenty of attention. He certainly catches the eyes of the sponsors vehicles as they go by and throw out their promotional goods. So we have a couple of bags of various goods eg; key rings, hats, bags, fridge magnets, lanyards, night caps, clothes detergent, small metwurst, reflective armbands etc. We will have to start giving it away as we cannot fill up the van with so much stuff.

We met up with a group Aussies who had walked up the road from the nearest village and they were from a media contingent, a couple from a Geelong newspaper, a volunteer and Stewart O’Grady’s father. They were really friendly and happy to have a chat, were interested in our trip and the Koala suit. We gave them a drink of water as they had run out and then they gave Ewout a tour diary and I got pinned with a Tour down under badge. Cool! We also met a really nice English couple who at the moment live in France and we spent some time with them drinking coffee and socialising.

The race finished about 3.30 and then we took our time to pack up as the road was very busy. We drove on down the coast only to meet up with a traffic jam due to the finish of the tour right where we were going to pass through. So after getting out of that town we made our way west to find a nice spot to stay for the night and we found Ille-sur-Tet where we parked next to a river in a picknick area. Nice.

Thurday 9th

After a slow start to the day we meandered our way through the Pyrennes taking our time to enjoy the wondeful countryside. We stopped by a river and watched some groups riding rafts down the rapids and finally stopped in a McDonalds where we could upload our photos and add to our blog.

From here we plan to head towards our next Tour de France vantage point which we hope with be on a uphill stretch between Tarascon-sur-arieg and Massat on Saturday.

Till next time