Or Bust

Well we are in a hotel 1km from Italy just outside Monte Carlo(see tracker http://testing.hertford.ox.ac.uk/map/)

We caught up with the guys who helped us out last night getting us to Lyon(thanks again Ben and Mark!!!). Their Rover is starting to suffer so we followed them the last 50 miles or so to make sure they got here ok.

Right, time for a more in depth run down of yesterday's events: -

Soon after 4pm on the autoroute towards Lyon the Pug starting getting grumpy. The clutch was slipping more and more. At first it wouldn't go above 120 or so KPH, then 100, then 80... you get the idea. Some how it managed to limp the last few hundred metres into a picnic stop and up quite a steep slope. We feared letting it cool down would do little more than allow us to break down more spectacularly and dangerously. So we attempted to fit the spare clutch cable we had with us. In hindsight we realise the cable was not the problem, but hell we had one with us!

Anyway a 2 spanner Haynes job turns out to be a total sod. There was no way we were gonna get the car working again with the tools available. I still can't believe Greg managed to get as much of the job done as he did as I was not a great help as it involved fiddly little jobs in confined spaces. Not my forte. So with great sadness we finally decided that the Pug had reached its final destination under its own power. Despair was looming, but then we looked up and saw a gleaming beacon of hope in the form of a White Rover 820 piloted by Ben and Mark. The poor blokes were unlucky enough to pull in for a rest at the same place and gave us a ride. We were unsure what to do, so we took all we could and locked the Pug and set a course for the nearest airport to try and hire a car. This proved difficult and we had two sat-navs fighting and snarling us up in bad traffic. We had to let the guys press on without further risk to their car's health so they dropped us in Lyon.

Something most bizarre then happened. Greg and Ross wandered around looking for a hotel or a car hire place, then happened upon a bar, at which we did not have a beer! The very kind owner who did not speak English helped us out by calling around for a taxi. This took a good while because they all seemed to be booked, but despite this he carried on until we were sorted and would not accept any payment. I would like to add at this point that we sadly cannot thank all the people who helped us out by name because there were so many of them and we never would have remembered them all. Anyway I also called the AA who I have UK breakdown only with, the guy was also really helpful and gave me some numbers to try. Our taxi then arrived and we set off for the nearest airport. This turned out to be about 60KM away so we felt very glad to have freed Ben and Mark of their burden. We arrived and accidently overpaid the taxi driver who shouted back that there was a problem and made sure we got the extra back. Another lovely bloke.

We went into Avis car rental and spoke to yet another very helpful person called Lucie. She sorted us out a Renault Twingo which we could either return to them or to Rome airport depending what happened next! She spent a good deal of time making sure we got the most cost effective option so thanks go to her.

Ok, we had added the GPS location of the Pug to my Tom Tom so headed back there. We have been using French motorways and needing to do lots of u-turns. This has meant a lot of trips through toll booths( 2 Euros 80 for a u-turn. Bargain!) We got back and were delighted to find that the car was still there and was not surrounded my armed police or military. We had been instructed to call for help from an SOS phone, but there wasn't one there!!!! Next stroke of luck was that there were 4 French women having a rest break who when approached late at night in a glorified layby by two blokes wearing camo trousers and covered in grease just said bon soir and did not flee. One of the spoke English and spent 20 minutes on her mobile trying to get us help. In the end she had no luck and offered to call from the next SOS phone they came to on the motorway and give our location. Literally 10 minutes later another very nice man turned up in a low loader! Again we did not share a common language, but eventually we parted with less cash than we expected and did the necessary paperwork. That was it, the Pug c'est fini.

By this time we were pretty wiped out so drove back towards Lyon and stayed the night at the nearest Etap Hotel which was about 50KM away. We let the marshalls know what had happened and they said catch up tomorrow and that's what we've done. We still intend to drive to Rome. Stand by for more as I'm sure Greg will have plenty to add soon.
Over.