Skiiboarding: who said this would be a good idea? The trip itself went quite well, better than expected in fact...
We tried to leave early to catch an earlier ferry but as predicted we couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. It was actually team Lovebus causing the delay, which Bluntly blamed on Stubby and Jane not arriving on time. Once organised, packed and together we almost left, then had to load more luggage from the flying team (Because they have crappy weight and size allowances).
Then we almost left, but team Lovebus needed to fuel up prior to departure. Once fuelled, packed, fed and watered we hit the road - at a scorching 69mph. Due to our late start and not helped by the subsonic speed at which we were not covering distance we arrived at the ferry terminal just 15 minutes or so too late to catch the earlier ferry but giving us enough time to stand about and moan at team Lovebus. Also of note was the lack of customs, nobody even bothered to check passports, so convincing them to search team Lexus was impossible.
The ferry was a large one, and better yet the breakfast cafe was open so we could have an almost decent fry up at an indecent price (£15) and antisocial hour (2am). The on board arcade made a considerable amount of money from us, even though the games were so old I think they were taken from the Titanic.
I did spot Stubby using a fruit machine at one point, I forgot to ask but I am sure he made an unreasonable profit from it anyway.
Upon arrival at Calais we found that team Lexus was to be unloaded first, only they had no idea where to go or what to do when driving off a ferry in France so we had to coax them off by radio. After disembarkation (Is that even a word?) and recovery of a confused and frightened team lexus from a layby we hit the autoroute and settled to a time warping new speed of 75mph. As France passed at this incredible rate in darkness we mulled over the worlds problems, set them all to rights and then agreed to never tell anyone else how to.
The night journey would have been almost uneventful if it wasn't for a few things, firstly team Lexus (and this is a running observation throughout the journey) has lane merging issues. Big merging issues. Mirrors it seems are for wimps, and whenever team Lovebus (in the lead) moved lanes for an overtake team Lexus just automatically moved over with them... Regardless of the car alongside them at the time.
As Crispy claimed that this was caused by tiredness we spent several hours researching and discovered that the best pick-me-up possible was to stick your head out of the window.
At 75mph in -1c the wind was enough to freeze water to the cars so its enough to give a decent wake up call. We did however have to use the air horn to wake Scott in team Lexus, which we managed by pulling alongside with Gaz hanging out of the window.
In team Lovebus however, with a flat bed to lie on Stubby and Jane slept throughout the journey, and Bluntly was unwilling to let us use the airhorn to wake them.
We were on our second fuel stop in the foothills of the mountains when there was some confusion over the fuel bill, we only put in 35 litres but the checkout lady insisted on charging Vicky more, then either charging her again or refunding her but due to the language barrier we had no idea what actually happened. This resulted in much annoyance from me, which I took out mostly on any other French roaduser I could find. In particular when changing lanes, the French drivers always try to block you rather than let you in front and normally I would just slot in behind them. But due to an inept till jockey all French drivers who were unfortunate enough to try to block me were imediately cut up, or forced to chose between their inadequate French made death-trap of a cars brakes and my towbar.
It was a short while after entering the mountains that we received terrible news, the flyers had arrived in Val Thorens, still we figured this meant that they could sort the rooms out for us at least.
One sport we all enjoy when on a journey across France is toll booth drag racing, this year team Lolvo and team Lovebus were well suited, both putting similar lacks of power to the road and weighing enough to require a HGV licence. Team Lexus was expected to lose every time on a technicality, they had never used a toll booth before and would be paying with cash instead of ever-efficient card. It didn't work out too well this year though, every toll booth was a technical loss due to passenger (toll payer) error or traffic forced us to argue with the locals (many of whom I had just upset).
When in the (spectacular by the way) mountains we found to my disapointment that the roads were completely clear of snow all the way to the resort. All bar the laybys, which were pure ice. It was in one of these laybys (on a steep hill) that we decided to pull over and have a group photo. Naturally when we decided to move on we realised that would be easier said than done, the Lolvo struggled but made it eventually, the Lovebus performed surprisingly well on its winter tires but the Lexus had to reverse down the layby until it got back to the road and could gain traction.
Upon arrival in Val Thorens we were greeted to chaos, technically cars are not allowed into the resort itself, but they were everywhere and you couldn't move for the amount of people milling around. We happened upon the flying team whilst getting lost in the town and found to our dismay that due to the queues they had only secured one room, thankfully that was my room anyway but it must have really sucked for the others, who had to nominate two queue-ists to stand and wait.
Once we had sorted the apartment paperwork out we then had to find them, and by now everyone (flyers included) had been up for two days and not eaten for 22hrs so it was all a little tense. We circled many times, and eventually found a coach had blocked our apartment block obscuring any references or ways to find it. Unloading was a masterclass in tempers and getting lost, inside the block is a maze and none of it signposted or logically layed out. One unexpected benefit is the location of our block, it is literally ski in - ski out so excellent in that regard.
The apartment allocations were as follows: Me, Vicky, Gaz, Chris and Bridie in a five-bed. Ken, Kate, Crispy, Phil and Scott in the six-bed. Last, and numbers wise least were Stubby, Jane, Steve and Dom in the other five-bed. A prior agreement between us had allowed each couple to be in a separate apartment and get the inevitable double bed separate room and everyone else had to fight for each single bed. Unfortunately for the couples however this did not go entirely to plan, as two of the apartments did not have doubles at all and the one that did (ours) had a double bed as the top bunk with a single below. You would think we would be pleased with this, but the double bed is now barely 50cm from the sandpaper lined roof. And its not fine sandpaper, but more like gravel covered in fine sandpaper for maximum possible damage.
Also we found that our apartment is in the worst state, clearly nothing in it is from any period since the 80's except the nice flatscreen TV - only that does not work. Bits are falling off every where, the kettle lead has been melted so badly you can see the copper wires exposed in it, the shower has nowhere to be attached, so you have to hold it with one hand whilst showering. To top it off very few of the ights work, and we have several switches on walls that do not appear to have any function, even in places where the lightswitch is clearly somewhere else. There was an episode of Friends once, were they found a lightswitch in their apartment that apparently did nothing but it was actually switching the TV off in another apartment. I mention this because I can only assume that many of our neighbors have been experiencing odd power outages recently, and they are the reason our TV does not work.
Honestly if an electrician ever came here they would simply weep in pain and walk out.
In addition to the electrical woes, the apartment is equipped with a bidet (or b-day? is there a right way to spell that?) but it is located in the bathroom/shower room, where as the toilet is in a separate room not directly linked... how do they expect us to use it exactly?
Once in we went and got our rentals, another lesson in chaos. After at least two hours of fitting we were all sorted bar Gaz, whos feet are so large he had to wait until the next day for them to find him special boots. The last task of the first day was to park the cars int he parking lot we had booked, again finding it was a challenge but we did eventually make it. Team Lolvo were first through the carpark barrier and suffered no problems but team Lexus somehow broke the ticket entry machine and had to call out the attendant to fix it for them. The delay meant that we lost them in the carpark so we are all spread across 8 floors. team Lovebus could only find one space on the route they took and it was at the top floor where the roofs were lower - this caused considerable annoyance so I am told.
Anyway we had a nice group meal on the way back to the apartments from dumping the cars and then went to crash out.
That about sums up our first 36 or so hours...
We tried to leave early to catch an earlier ferry but as predicted we couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. It was actually team Lovebus causing the delay, which Bluntly blamed on Stubby and Jane not arriving on time. Once organised, packed and together we almost left, then had to load more luggage from the flying team (Because they have crappy weight and size allowances).
Then we almost left, but team Lovebus needed to fuel up prior to departure. Once fuelled, packed, fed and watered we hit the road - at a scorching 69mph. Due to our late start and not helped by the subsonic speed at which we were not covering distance we arrived at the ferry terminal just 15 minutes or so too late to catch the earlier ferry but giving us enough time to stand about and moan at team Lovebus. Also of note was the lack of customs, nobody even bothered to check passports, so convincing them to search team Lexus was impossible.
The ferry was a large one, and better yet the breakfast cafe was open so we could have an almost decent fry up at an indecent price (£15) and antisocial hour (2am). The on board arcade made a considerable amount of money from us, even though the games were so old I think they were taken from the Titanic.
I did spot Stubby using a fruit machine at one point, I forgot to ask but I am sure he made an unreasonable profit from it anyway.
Upon arrival at Calais we found that team Lexus was to be unloaded first, only they had no idea where to go or what to do when driving off a ferry in France so we had to coax them off by radio. After disembarkation (Is that even a word?) and recovery of a confused and frightened team lexus from a layby we hit the autoroute and settled to a time warping new speed of 75mph. As France passed at this incredible rate in darkness we mulled over the worlds problems, set them all to rights and then agreed to never tell anyone else how to.
The night journey would have been almost uneventful if it wasn't for a few things, firstly team Lexus (and this is a running observation throughout the journey) has lane merging issues. Big merging issues. Mirrors it seems are for wimps, and whenever team Lovebus (in the lead) moved lanes for an overtake team Lexus just automatically moved over with them... Regardless of the car alongside them at the time.
As Crispy claimed that this was caused by tiredness we spent several hours researching and discovered that the best pick-me-up possible was to stick your head out of the window.
In team Lovebus however, with a flat bed to lie on Stubby and Jane slept throughout the journey, and Bluntly was unwilling to let us use the airhorn to wake them.
We were on our second fuel stop in the foothills of the mountains when there was some confusion over the fuel bill, we only put in 35 litres but the checkout lady insisted on charging Vicky more, then either charging her again or refunding her but due to the language barrier we had no idea what actually happened. This resulted in much annoyance from me, which I took out mostly on any other French roaduser I could find. In particular when changing lanes, the French drivers always try to block you rather than let you in front and normally I would just slot in behind them. But due to an inept till jockey all French drivers who were unfortunate enough to try to block me were imediately cut up, or forced to chose between their inadequate French made death-trap of a cars brakes and my towbar.
It was a short while after entering the mountains that we received terrible news, the flyers had arrived in Val Thorens, still we figured this meant that they could sort the rooms out for us at least.
One sport we all enjoy when on a journey across France is toll booth drag racing, this year team Lolvo and team Lovebus were well suited, both putting similar lacks of power to the road and weighing enough to require a HGV licence. Team Lexus was expected to lose every time on a technicality, they had never used a toll booth before and would be paying with cash instead of ever-efficient card. It didn't work out too well this year though, every toll booth was a technical loss due to passenger (toll payer) error or traffic forced us to argue with the locals (many of whom I had just upset).
When in the (spectacular by the way) mountains we found to my disapointment that the roads were completely clear of snow all the way to the resort. All bar the laybys, which were pure ice. It was in one of these laybys (on a steep hill) that we decided to pull over and have a group photo. Naturally when we decided to move on we realised that would be easier said than done, the Lolvo struggled but made it eventually, the Lovebus performed surprisingly well on its winter tires but the Lexus had to reverse down the layby until it got back to the road and could gain traction.
Upon arrival in Val Thorens we were greeted to chaos, technically cars are not allowed into the resort itself, but they were everywhere and you couldn't move for the amount of people milling around. We happened upon the flying team whilst getting lost in the town and found to our dismay that due to the queues they had only secured one room, thankfully that was my room anyway but it must have really sucked for the others, who had to nominate two queue-ists to stand and wait.
Once we had sorted the apartment paperwork out we then had to find them, and by now everyone (flyers included) had been up for two days and not eaten for 22hrs so it was all a little tense. We circled many times, and eventually found a coach had blocked our apartment block obscuring any references or ways to find it. Unloading was a masterclass in tempers and getting lost, inside the block is a maze and none of it signposted or logically layed out. One unexpected benefit is the location of our block, it is literally ski in - ski out so excellent in that regard.
The apartment allocations were as follows: Me, Vicky, Gaz, Chris and Bridie in a five-bed. Ken, Kate, Crispy, Phil and Scott in the six-bed. Last, and numbers wise least were Stubby, Jane, Steve and Dom in the other five-bed. A prior agreement between us had allowed each couple to be in a separate apartment and get the inevitable double bed separate room and everyone else had to fight for each single bed. Unfortunately for the couples however this did not go entirely to plan, as two of the apartments did not have doubles at all and the one that did (ours) had a double bed as the top bunk with a single below. You would think we would be pleased with this, but the double bed is now barely 50cm from the sandpaper lined roof. And its not fine sandpaper, but more like gravel covered in fine sandpaper for maximum possible damage.
Also we found that our apartment is in the worst state, clearly nothing in it is from any period since the 80's except the nice flatscreen TV - only that does not work. Bits are falling off every where, the kettle lead has been melted so badly you can see the copper wires exposed in it, the shower has nowhere to be attached, so you have to hold it with one hand whilst showering. To top it off very few of the ights work, and we have several switches on walls that do not appear to have any function, even in places where the lightswitch is clearly somewhere else. There was an episode of Friends once, were they found a lightswitch in their apartment that apparently did nothing but it was actually switching the TV off in another apartment. I mention this because I can only assume that many of our neighbors have been experiencing odd power outages recently, and they are the reason our TV does not work.
Honestly if an electrician ever came here they would simply weep in pain and walk out.
In addition to the electrical woes, the apartment is equipped with a bidet (or b-day? is there a right way to spell that?) but it is located in the bathroom/shower room, where as the toilet is in a separate room not directly linked... how do they expect us to use it exactly?
Once in we went and got our rentals, another lesson in chaos. After at least two hours of fitting we were all sorted bar Gaz, whos feet are so large he had to wait until the next day for them to find him special boots. The last task of the first day was to park the cars int he parking lot we had booked, again finding it was a challenge but we did eventually make it. Team Lolvo were first through the carpark barrier and suffered no problems but team Lexus somehow broke the ticket entry machine and had to call out the attendant to fix it for them. The delay meant that we lost them in the carpark so we are all spread across 8 floors. team Lovebus could only find one space on the route they took and it was at the top floor where the roofs were lower - this caused considerable annoyance so I am told.
Anyway we had a nice group meal on the way back to the apartments from dumping the cars and then went to crash out.
That about sums up our first 36 or so hours...
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