Been There, Done That?

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Italia - Corse 2010 Sportscar Challenge

I had been toying with the idea of taking part in a motor endurance rally for quite some time when a call for a navigator appeared on the Guild of Motor Endurance Facebook page. Thinking that it would be a good idea to see what such a rally entailed without having to wreck my car (and very probably myself) in the process, I rang up immediately and said I'd be available. Little did I know that this would mean spending nine days strapped in a tiny metal box with a complete stranger driving along on narrow roads up in the Corsican mountains, where nothing but his skill (and a healthy dose of good luck) would keep us from coming to a very messy end in some forgotten valley. For all I knew, he could have been a speed junkie with the driving skills of a seven year old.

Fortunately he was a speed junkie with the skills of a race-driver.

I met Richard, the driver, in Troyes, and we drove down to Gap together that same day. In Gap we met some of the other competitors who drove fierce-looking cars that made equally fierce-sounding noises. This is when I started to feel a little uncomfortable. How could we ever compete with the likes of five-litre TVRs in our humble little, Smart-engined Europa? Yes that's right - our car was powered by a little engine from a Smart car, harnessing all of 100 timid ponies that hardly whinnied, let alone bellowed as the ones locked up in the TVR, the Honda or the Cosworth-powered Seven did...

We spent the night in Gap and the next day set off for San Remo, where the rally was scheduled to start. We woke up early on Sunday, made some final preparations on the car and the road book, and set off at 8.07 (we were car 7). The first few stages were pretty straightforward: narrow, twisty Ligurian roads - nothing we couldn't handle.

Particularly since Richard had a driving licence and I could tell right from left. Easy….not a glitch on the first day, for us at least. Not everyone had such good luck though. Quite a few cars ran into problems, mechanical hitches and navigational oversights. We learnt all this on the ferry to Corsica, where we also found out that we had climbed to position 2! The next day we set off from the ferry port in Bastia, and drove hard and fast for about 10 hours, until we were due in at the hotel.

I had by now accepted that in spite of my misgivings, our little car was an amazing feat of engineering capable of both whizzing along the straights and whipping around the corners ....brilliant!

Day 2 saw some over-enthusiastic driving and a dodgy overtake where we managed to clip two rocks by the side of the road, resulting in two bent rims. We jacked the car up to get the kinks out of the wheels, but with our two hammers inconveniently stowed away in the boot and a mere five minutes to go until our time control, I was asked to find a rock that might do the trick (hopefully). I found one. Richard said it would do, lifted the rock high above his head, took careful aim, and brought it down with all his might. No sound. Not a thunk. And then there was blood. Lots of it. Amazing how much blood can come out of a pinkie. He went white as a sheet and asked me for some duct tape, which I obligingly wrapped around the gaping wound to stem the flow.

We somehow managed to make it in time to the next time control, which was conveniently located next to a tyre-dealer. We got the wheels fixed in about fifteen minutes, which meant that we had to drive twice as fast for the remaining thirty minutes on the next stage.

Day 3 was uneventful, apart from a big mistake on my part which meant that we missed an off-route control (a check point located on a map which is not indicated by signs and distances as are the other time controls on the road-book). This set us back ten points, and it made me feel very silly indeed. In the meantime Richard's finger had grown to the size of a small courgette. Actually, it was the same colour as a courgette too. How it was still attached to his hand is a mystery.

Because of my map-reading booboo on Day 3, we started the following day in position 5. This was actually a good thing, as we could free-ride on other competitors' efforts – and luck (just like they had done on previous days), and see what route they were following.

The day went by almost as quickly as we did, and was uneventful too, except for some close encounters with wild oxen, wild boar and the odd Sunday driver. Worth mentioning perhaps were the wheel rims (the ones on the right-hand side this time) we bent as a result of Richard's exuberance and my less-than-perfect navigation skills. Nothing a huge rock and a big dollop of elbow grease couldn't fix though.

My less-than-perfect navigation skills landed us in trouble again on day 5. Somehow (still not sure exactly how), I managed to navigate us onto roads that had been closed to traffic because of the French National Historic Rally Championship. Eeek!!!! It was good fun to drive through the bouncy castles at the start and finish of the special rally stage that we gate-crashed. It was also good fun to be photographed by bewildered spectators (our car hardly made any noise, unlike the very vocal historic cars that were taking part in that rally). What wasn't good fun was being turned back at the end of it by a very cross marshall. It also wasn't fun in the passenger seat, being slung from side to side while Richard tried to make up for the time I had lost. All I can remember now is feeling a little bit queasy, and then relieved when we finally made it to our time control (on time).

Day 6 dawned and we were in position 5. The big TVR was up in front, a Lotus Elise second, a Westfield and a Caterham in third and fourth, and then us. There were about fifteen competitors behind us, so we weren't too bothered about this, as long as we could hold on to our position. We somehow muddled through the day without mishap, which is more than I can say for the poor guys in the TVR, who were left stranded in the middle of nowhere as a result of a suspension failure.

Because of their misfortune, we climbed to position 4, which we clung onto for dear life until the rally came to an end later on that day. Not too bad for my first rally, I guess. We managed a second in class too (cars with an engine capacity of up to 1600cc), and won the team cup together with the girls in the Caterham!

Two weeks later, it all seems a bit of a blur, just as it was then – not least because of Richard's driving….

Now I just can't wait for the next 350 days to go by.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Mongolia, July 2010

I had wanted to visit Mongolia for years to experience the stunning, unspoilt landscapes and the nomadic way of life. I finally went there in July this year. Out of hundreds of photos, here is a tiny selection of my favourites:

Grazing yak at Jalman Meadows in the Khan Khentii Protected Area beyond the Terelj National Park, northern Mongolia.

Nomads posing for the camera in Jalman Meadows. Mongolia is six times the size of the UK but has a population of just 2.75 million. Almost a third of the population are herders.

Nomad woman milking a yak in Jalman Meadows. This family moves their camp to Jalman Meadows every summer. It looks beautiful now, but Mongolia's summer is very short and temperatures can reach -50 C in the winter. Harsh conditions in winter 2009 killed a fifth of Mongolia's livestock. Many people moved to the capital Ulaan Baatar in search of work.

Inside the nomads' yurt (ger in Mongolian). These are the nomad lady's grandchildren (the one on the right is actually a boy). We were offered traditional salty milk tea, dairy snacks made of curd and dried yoghurt and yoghurt vodka. We weren't offered airag, the traditional fermented mare's milk, although I did try some at a market later (it was tangy, not unpleasant had a few unidentified black bits floating in it).

The ger camp in Jalman Meadows. You can see why Mongolia is known as 'the land of blue sky'.

The Naadam festival is Mongolia's annual national sporting festival, featuring the 'three manly sports' of wrestling, archery and horse racing (plus ankle-bone shooting). The opening ceremony in Ulaan Baatar was amazing, with spectacular parades and people parachuting into the stadium . Here are some wrestlers performing the 'eagle dance', which victorious wrestlers do after winning a fight. The man in the middle is one of the referees.

Many wrestling matches take place simultaneously in the stadium. The aim is to make your opponent's upper body, knee or elbow touch the ground. There is no division into weight category, so generally the bigger the wrestler, the better his chances of winning.

Women do in fact participate in two of the 'three manly sports'. Not the wrestling though - supposedly the reason why wrestlers must wear chest-exposing jackets (known as jodag) is because a female wrestler once beat all the men. There were many colourfully-dressed lady archers. Archers shoot at pots on the ground rather than circular targets.

The 5-year old horse race. Some of the jockeys probably weren't much older than 5 years old either. The riders are all children (male and female) and they ride about 30 km over the steppe to a finish line is about 40 km outside Ulaan Baatar. The 5-year old horse race is the most popular of all the races - being covered in dust from one of the race horses is said to bring good luck for a year.

The Gobi desert. In fact most of the Gobi is semi-desert rather than real desert. The vastness of the landscapes in Mongolia puts things into perspective.

The Yol Valley is a gorge in the Gobi desert which receives so little sunlight that there is still ice at the bottom left over from winter, even in July.

The Red Cliffs in the Gobi are not only spectacular but a treasure trove of fossils. The first dinosaur eggs in Central Asia were discovered here.

Meditation on the nature of existence Part I.

The awe-inspiring scenery is certainly worth more than a moment's pause for contemplation.

Meditation on the nature of existence Part II.

Sand dune with skull of horse/cow/camel/goat (not sure which). It was quite common to come across skulls and bones in the Gobi and elsewhere in Mongolia, especially as many livestock perished during the winter of 2009.

The road to nowhere. Most roads in Mongolia are quite like this, just dirt tracks. This one is in pretty good shape actually, no pot holes.

Vultures and buzzards are a common sight all over Mongolia. This vulture was eating a carcass (not shown).

Mongolian traditional music. This band played traditional instruments, sang folk songs and performed throat singing (khuumi), The man on the left is playing a horsehead fiddle (morin khuur). The strings are made from horse hair and the sound of the instrument is said to be expansive and unrestrained, like a wild horse neighing, or a breeze in the grasslands. After the performance I had a go playing the instruments and managed to produce some reasonably musical sounds.

Detail of a temple at Kharkorin (ancient Karakorum). The Erdene-Zu monastery was Mongolia's first Buddhist centre, established in 1586. Karakorum was also the capital city in the days of Genghis Khan (who is, incidentally, a national hero and has many things, including beer and vodka, named after him).

Another scenic picture of Jalman Meadows.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Château du Clos Lucé, Amboise, Loire

Leonardo da Vinci spent the last three years of his life here in the service of Francis I, whose rather more ostentatious riverside gaff can be seen a few hundred metres away. On display around the house and gardens are not only some of da Vinci’s papers and drawings but models built from his designs, some to scale and some life-size.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Normandy and Brittany

Arromanches

The scale of the Mulberry harbour built here following D-Day can’t be appreciated from pictures of the remains; the museum on the seafront contains a scale model of the completed structure, while showing film of its construction and operation.

Being close to Bayeux, it’s possible to visit both in a day.

(Not sure whether he's a lookout or just thumbing his nose at the queue for the Tapestry)

Dinan

Well-preserved city walls and colourful streets of medieval houses.

Death in Brittany

Ankou (Death) features strongly in Breton culture, and the church at Ploumilliau contains a wooden statue, said to date from at least the 17th century, which used to be carried in local processions.

He also features in the frescoes rediscovered in 1856 in the chapel at Kermaria-an-Isquit, alternating with representatives of all social classes in the Dance of Death.

Megalithic sites

Apart from Carnac, Brittany has a number of these, such as Gavrinis (which is only reachable by boat; booking is advised) and the massive cairn at Barnenez, uncovered in the 1950s.

The site had apparently been sold for quarrying and the cairn was partly demolished – although this now provides an insight into its construction.

Rather more up-to-date is the Museum of Telecommunications at Pleumeur-Bodou, where a dome houses the huge horn antenna used to capture signals from Telstar in 1962; there are regular son et lumière shows. The site also has a planetarium and, rather incongruously, a reconstructed Gaulish village.