Monday - Stage 3 finish

We were awoken after 8 by a knock on the campervan door.
Not only did I have quickly leap down from the bed, but I had to find some clothes.

Turns out they were reorganising the carpark in anticipation of all these cars expected for the start of the race.
So all the campervans in the middle of the park had to relocate.


Then it was off to watch the end of the stage.

Had a relaxing drive, and on our way we found a maccas that offered free wifi, and a place to recharge the notebook batteries.
So we stayed there a while. Even managed to skype with rel’s sister’s family.


We stumbled our way around Nantes, before finding somewhere to park, just near the end of the stage.

We found a spot with 450m to go. Didn’t have front row, but the spot was OK. They had a big screen showing the race, but it was set 100m from the finish line. It was too crowded there.

So we lined up, and were entertained by the events around us. Phil Andersen dropped by for a chat, and some other Aussies dropped by. Turns out this family was from Albany Creek, which is the suburb just next to where we live in Brisbane. Small world. And the young lad directly in front of us had us amazed with his intensity and drive to grab everything that was handed out. (I shall name him Carlos for the purposes of this story). It was like his life depended on it. At one stage some ankle reflectors landed at my feet. I bent down to pick them up. I grabbed one set, and reached out for the others, only to be felled by a knee to the head. Yep, Carlos had to get the ankle reflectors, despite the fact that he already had 3. And did he get upset when something didn’t go his way. Narelle caught something that was thrown to the crowd and Carlos then grabbed it out of her hands. Talk about having some red mist issues. Great entertainment for us as we saw him take out the elderly and the young in his attempts to collect all he could!

Carlos concentrates on the task at hand.



And the boys thundered past. After the race we went on our way to our van. Couldn’t see the presentations, as it was too crowded, but we could here them.

Then we passed the team buses. Jackie was keen for an Eric Zabel photo, so we sort of hung around the Team Milram bus. Eric came out, I took some photos. Narelle said she would go the other side, and for me to take a photo of Eric, with her in the background. It worked. Even better, at the end of the press conference, Rel yelled out ‘we love you Eric’. Eric had been about to get back on the bus. But he then stopped, turned to Narelle and smiled and waved. Then Eric retreated to the Milram bus, with a smile on his face. Afterwards a journalist even came up to Narelle and enquired about the interaction with Eric. Narelle and Eric are now on waving and smiling terms.



We then headed to Cholet. The weather is really wet, windy, and cold. It doesn’t even get this bad in our winter. We could have lined up by the side of the course, but thought that may have limited our options for moving on. So we found a spot in a side street to park, with a few other campervans.