Rock Climbing in the Dentelles Montmirails

We started the week with a visit from Mums' cousin. His name is Ruben. His hobby is rock climbing. He came down to Provence to take us rock climbing in the Dentelles aka Sawtooth. The drive was about thirty minutes from Mormoiron. On the road into the place where we would climb we encountered many holes and bumps. We were thrown around in the car a lot!

When we arrived, Ruben showed us how to use the equipment and how to climb properly. He then climbed up the slope and attached a rope to a strong tree. We changed into our climbing harnesses. We were ready to go! When it was my turn to climb, I looked up to see the challenge that lay ahead. There was a thirty metre slope with quite a few hand holes and a "chimney" at the end with no hand holes to climb up! At points in time, I was relying on small indentations in the rock!

After fifteen minutes of hair-raising climbing, I arrived at the chimney. There were no hand holes through this part of the climb and I had to use my feet to lever myself up to the final point of the climb. The first slope that I climbed was rated 4a and the second I climbed was rated 4c. The difficulty of the rocks are rated from 1a being very easy to 10c being almost impossible. When we packed up I saw all of Rubens' gear. He had a lot of harnesses and clips. He had a belt that he climbs with in case he gets into a sticky spot and it weighed a tonne!

We had a barbecue that night with Pascal, the girls, Christine, Serge, Isabelle, Raphael and Elisa. Ruben was also present. We hung out in the gym down stairs, listened to music and swam in the pool. The pool was very cold!

We woke up late the next day to go to Banon with Ruben which is well known for its goat's cheese and a large bookshop. We arrived and walked through the markets which were very interesting. The book shop is huge! It's three stories high and full of English and French books. I found a book and had a read for an hour whilst the others browsed. We finished our day in Banon by climbing up the hill to the top of the village. We got a view of all the villages and mountains around us.

On Wednesday I went to Aqualand with my school! It's a water park near Cassis which is a harbour on the Mediterranean Sea. We arrived at ten o'clock and were let into the park. There were lots of slides and pools. My favourite ride was called 'the wave'. If you've been to Wet 'n' Wild, it's like the cyclone. It's a big U shape and you sit on the edge and you get pushed down. I liked the slides because you flew out of the chute into the water at high speed.

Today is Friday and it was my last day of school, before two months off for the summer holidays. I will move on to 'cinquieme' grade when I return.

Au Revoir

Le Mans race week.

I had been waiting for this day to come for weeks! We were leaving Mormoiron to go to Le Mans. Le Mans is a huge race where they drive around a track for twenty four hours and try to go around the track more times then the other competitors. From Mormoiron we drove to the AIRBUS factory in Toulouse which is half way to Le Mans.

We were given a tour of the plant and the construction facility. We started at the shop and were taken into a room in which they showed us the first launch of the A380 plane. The tour was in English but the launch video was in French. The pilots were very relaxed because they had spent one thousand hours in the simulator each, prior to the first flight. There were three people in the cockpit and three engineers in the main body of the plain making notes and sending information to ground control. From there we took a bus to the plant where they build the planes. On the ground level they gave us a presentation about the factory and where they get their parts from. They have 1200 suppliers.

We then went upstairs and saw them preparing the planes. After we did that we walked outside and looked at the planes sitting on the tarmac ready to be delivered. There were two QANTAS planes and one Singapore airlines plane. The final part of the tour was an inspection of the main body of the A380.

We then drove for a couple of hours to a small town called Mauriac in the Bordeaux wine region. We checked in to our quaint bed and breakfast and Dad asked if there were any wine tasting places around. The woman said 'yes' and gestured for us to follow her. We hopped in the car and followed her to a château only five minutes away called Château Gaury Balette. We were greeted by the owner Geomme.

We went over to the grapevines where he explained about the different types of grapes he grows. They included Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. From there we went inside to the huge vats where he showed us how they produce their best wines. We were shown how they pack the boxes and how they put on labels. We went outside and saw a Lamborghini tractor! I got lots of photos. Lamborghini were a tractor company before they made super cars! After the tour we went to have dinner in the village. We had a nice pizza followed by a strawberry mousse!

The next day, we woke up early and travelled to Malucorne, a small town south of Le Mans. This was to be our base for the Le Mans 24 hour race. We left our bags at the hotel and went to the race track. It was about thirty minutes to the track but we were kept amused by watching all the super cars parked and driving on the road. We saw Ferraris, Porsches, Lamborghinis and a McLaren F1. We arrived to a race track with people everywhere! We walked down to the pits where we were allowed to see the cars and the drivers. We were at the very end when we saw one of the Audi drivers sitting in the pits having an interview. From there we drove to the drivers parade which was being held in the streets of Le Mans. This was my favourite part of the trip because we saw all the drivers and cool cars and because I got lots of signatures and they were throwing freebies into the crowd.

The next day was exciting because the twenty four hour race began. We arrived at the track at eight o'clock to see the lead up races before the main event began. At twelve o'clock we went over to the little amusement park that was set up for the weekend. I got on a ride called the bungee thriller! I was strapped into a ball. My tummy started to turn backlips as the ropes tightened. A mechanical voice started to count down. When it reached zero I was flung up into the air. I was so scared. When the ride slowed down and I got off, I had wobbly legs! After that we returned to the stands to watch the start of the race.

The Peugeot team were favourites and the Audi team were second favourites. There was an electric build up to the start and the competitors took of with a lot of revving which received much approval from the crowd. When we left at ten o'clock, the standings were 1st, 2nd, 3rd to Peugeot and 4th, 5th and 6th to Audi.

The next morning when we arrived at the track, I was amazed to hear that only half the cars remained in the race. The rankings were Audi, Peugeot, Audi, Peugeot, Audi and Peugeot! Throughout the day, one by one all the Peugeot cars blew up and had to retire from the race! I wasn't very happy seeing this because I was supporting them. Ivy and Dad were going for Audi so they were extremely happy! The race finished with all the three Audis coming 1st, 2nd and 3rd. They received wreaths, and they did the traditional thing of spraying champagne all over each other. After the race we walked on the track and then caught the bus home.

We drove from the hotel we were staying to the town of Malucorne. We had a fantastic dinner of crab terrine, scallops in a cream sauce and mango and rhubarb pie with Marzipan ice-cream.

The next day, we drove to Vichy which is famous for its thermal medicinal waters. We went to the park and took a small train around the city. We saw all the old buildings and spa baths. We went across to a spa facility next to the hotel we were staying in, to see if we could swim, but it was for medical purposes only.

The next morning we hit the road again to make the final stretch to home. We went to a spa along the way called Royatonic. It was very nice with hot baths, warm baths and freezing cold baths. There was a big pool and an outside pool, too. There were lots of showers and a sauna. We relaxed in the pools for an hour and a half before we headed home. We arrived at six o'clock that night.

Au Revoir