Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and joined him. As we did so Jack, who had been looking suspiciously dreamy, suddenly
wrinkled up his nose.
“Oh my
God
,” he said, “what on earth is that smell?”
It was absolutely awful; it was indescribably terrible and it was emanating from Biff.
Monsieur
thrust his huge head through the car window and began roaring with laughter.
After a moment of mirthful consultation with Thierry he turned back with eyes completely
out of control and tears cascading down his cheeks.
“
Izz sheet, sheet of the sanglier. Votre petit chien est aussi un chasseur! Bon courage
mes amis!
” (Your little dog is a hunter. Good luck, my friends.)
I couldn't believe it; Biff was absolutely covered in boar shit. With that, we set off.
I suppose in retrospect I should have thanked Biff because the impact of the stench
coming off him had an immediate sobering influence on Jack. Muttering about the joys of
life without dogs, he instantly focused on reaching our destination in the shortest possible
time.
This, of course, was not going to be remotely possible. We'd already agreed that in-
stead of retracing our steps, we should continue the hairpins and follow the road down to
civilisation on the other side of the mountain. The first challenge was to negotiate the ver-
tical drive.
I had been assured that, “No, nobody had ever slid off the end of the drive into the
valley below,” in answer to my earlier tentative question on the subject.
We somehow made the right turn onto the new route which we were assured was very
tranquil. This would take us to a small village and the corner shop where basic essen-
tials could be bought. However, despite these various promises from our hosts, it proved
to be another white-knuckle ride. Try as I might, I couldn't shrug off my feeling of in-
tense nervousness as Jack, now fully competent thank goodness, expertly wrestled with the
ribbon-width route.
The local shop was only five kilometres away but took nearly twenty minutes to reach.
We decided to pop in quickly, only to find that the shop was tiny and closed for four out of
seven days, that day being one of them.
“Never mind. It just means that we'll have to buy lots of freezers,” said Jack, joyful at
the thought re-kindling one of his favourite obsessions. I wasn't at all sure but didn't want
to squash his obvious enthusiasm, so simply nodded in agreement.
Eighteen kilometres and just under an hour later we drove into our first main town
where we could access the autoroute. SatNav lady had set us a challenge to reach our des-
tination in three hours and thirty-eight minutes but we'd already lost time, courtesy of the
rally stages of the expedition, so we needed to crack on.
We quickly picked up speed but as we journeyed on towards Provence, the searing af-
ternoon sun threatened to turn our car into a mobile greenhouse. Despite the air-condition-
