This is the free electric supply in summer.  Shaun cooking fish on the BBQ (we do not cook fish inside the van, far too smelly!!!)

We said good bye to Puy-Saint-Vincent and continued our journey to the Alps.  For the next few nights we stayed at the Col Du Lautaret at an altitude of 2057m.  This Col is part of the tour du France route and seems to be, “a must” visit destination for roadies (road cyclists).  So not to be out done Shaun got out his road bike and went and rode the climb to the top of the Col (in both directions I may add) to experience it himself. (You crazy man!!!)   

The aire was FREE and quite busy, everyone seemed to turn up on mass at about 5pm.  There are no facilities at the aire, but there are toilets by the tourist information office which is a 15 mins walk away from the aire.  There are  a few cafes here and a hotel at the top.

The Col on one side of the road is part of the national park and no mountain biking or dog walking is permitted.  But on the other side is a lovely mountain bike trail.  Jager and I ran along this trail down to Le Pied du Col, which was 5 miles away while Shaun drove the motorhome down to it.

Jager and I arrived at Le Pied du Col as expected, Jager had his breakfast while I had a nice cup of Yorkshire tea that was waiting for me.  Then after a few minutes, true to form Shaun said, “right are you ready honey, I want to get this Via Ferretta started before this family at the side of us” (who had just arrived.)  Anyone who knows us, knows this is Shaun Butler to a T.  He is so competitive bless him lol.  So within 20 mins of Jager and I arriving at Le Pied du Col I was climbing the Via Ferretta while Jager was fast asleep on his bed in the morning sun, by the motorhome!!! While I was, “beasted” by a beast master up a mountain!!! 

After we had climbed the Via Ferreta (which I really enjoyed actually) I finally had time for a quick shower and some breakfast before we headed off towards L Alpe-d-Huez which was only a few hours away. 

Before we made the huge climb up to the aire, we decided to stoked up with food at the supermarket at the bottom. I would highly recommend this due to the high cost of food in resort!!!

Shaun wanted to visited L Alpe-d-Huez because he wanted to ride the world famous mountain bike route that was here.  It is 31km with a starting point at 3330 mtrs, this famous route is called, ” Megavalanche”.  There was other reason too and this is because of the hill climb up to L Alpe-d-Huez.  It is another famous climb for roadies (road cyclists) to achieve.  The climb to L Alpe-d-Huez has been made famous because it has been used as part of a  stage in the Tour du France in previous years and is a very hard climb to achieve.

I am pleased to report Shaun did achieve to reach the top of the L Alpe-d-Huez climb and in a very decent time of 1hr 2mins.  But due to the dreadful weather we had during our stay, he was not able to attempt the Megeavalanche route. 

The conditions of the trails were appalling and many were washed out.  We can always come back another time when the weather is better, we both agreed.  That is the beauty of our life.

The aire is purpose built with water, electric top up, and toilets.  It is open all year around and costs 10 euros a night, which was a shock to our system as we had been use to finding free aires!!!

We decided to only stay two nights as we wanted to head for better weather and some sun!! We headed for Les Gets our final destination for a few couple of weeks.

We arrived at Les Gets to sun and light winds.  Shaun managed to fit a Paragliding flight in, in the afternoon, trying to take advantage of the good weather.

We stayed at the aire just outside town again that was situated in a car park at the side of a chairlift.  The cost at this time of year was 90cents per person, per day.  There are toilets there and a service point for water and electric top up.  But this is only available to the French due to it only excepting CB cards and not excepting VISA , Mastercards or even cash, which we found very odd!!  It didn’t matter to us this time as we had bought drinking water and filled up our water tank before we arrived.

Sarah, Ian and James arrived at our aire that evening before going on to their chalet, with a few special deliveries!!! One was a box of Cadbury chocolates (yum, yum thank you Mar Butler) kindly sent over by Shaun’s mum!!! The second was Ruby my first ever carbon road bike.  Ian had kindly brought Ruby over for me after I ordered her from him when I was in the UK for the expedition.  She was paid for from my wages I received for taking the expedition. 

I absolutely Love her!!!! But riding a road bike, I have found is so different from riding my mountain bike!! It has taking me some time to get use to her!!! This week to make things worse, I started to wear cleats!!! (Shoes attached to the pedals) Oh my goodness now this is scary!!! (I have never worn them before and very alien to me.)  I just know I am going to fall off Ruby when I cannot get me feet out quick enough!!