Chris in France

L'Argentiere la Bessee (our home for the next week)
After a successful race in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China it was off to France with the rest of the Seagate team (Nathan, Trevor and Sophie) to prepare for the Adventure race world champs.

Having finally got a new camera, after destroying the previous one swimming in TWALK, I thought I had better post some pretty pictures and a quick update of my adventure racing mission.


After arriving in Nice, we hired a car and drove to L'Argentiere la Bessee, where we are now staying for a few more days until the start of the race. Along the way we managed to find a couple of spectacular passes, exciting all of us to come back sometime to do some cycling here. With around 2000m vertical accent and smooth asphalt it is road bike paradise.
Caserne de Restefond (near Col de la Bonette 2715m)
Col de Vars
We also managed to find some delicious baguettes and cheese, although it seems like I am the only one who is really excited by the smelly sock cheeses :)
Jausiers

The following day I went for a short run up the hill behind where we are staying. There are heaps of cool trails for MTBing and running, so lots of places to explore. Unfortunately I have developed a 'man cold' so was not eager for a big mission like I was hoping.

Ridgeline above L'Argentiere la Bessee
The next day I went for a short bike, but otherwise mucked around trying to get rid of my cold.
Feeling slightly better yesterday, although still with a sore throat, I went for a fun day mission with the others up into the mountains across the other side of the valley.

It was a beautiful day, hot and sunny, so we got some good views of the surrounding area and had a refreshing swim in Lac de l'Ascension about halfway round our walk.
Nathan excited by the taste of an Awaken bar

Lac de l'Ascension

Col de la Moutiere

Looking back down to L'Argentiere
Today is another hot sunny day, so I might head out soon for a short bike ride, but otherwise still taking it easy to fully get ride of my cold. We then have one more free day before the pre race stuff begins on Tuesday with a gear check and some other organising stuff.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Journey Through the Baltic

Image
After the Rogaine we spent another fun night at the local farm stay with the other Kiwis, then headed away in the morning with Julian, Jana and Sylvia in a large silver hire van. Most of us were pretty hobbly (with the annoying exception of Chris and Julian) so we drove back to the nice wee town of Otepa and spent the day hanging out in a pizzeria and visiting the 'Canyon' the largest in Estonia apparently... This photo is actually from before the Rogaine in Tallinn when Viv had the brilliant idea of hiring the terrifying 'Octibike', it proofed a highly entertaining and attention seeking way of zooming round Tallinn. We camped in a deserted campground and it was truly freezing, so the following morning all feeling chilled to the bone we decided to find a nice cabin for that night. We drove to the town of Tartu and wandered through its pretty cobbled streets. We took a visit to the KGB museum and saw grim pictures of Ghettos in Siberia – after which we definitely n...
Read more

Lofoten Return

Image
Reine - a classic Lofoten view I visited Lofoten last July with Mum and Dad - it is an amazing place in north Norway, and we decided that it was worth the expense for Al and Amber to see it too - I was certainly excited to go back there again. So Al, Amber and I took the plane up to Bodø from Trondheim on Sunday evening. The 10 hour drive takes a mere 60 minutes by plane. We were hoping for some exciting views from the plane but unfortunately it was pretty cloudy. Chris had had to stay behind in Trondheim because this was his last week of preparation for the World Orienteering Championships (WOC) which would start in Trondheim the following week. We arrived in Bodø at 8pm and trudged down to the same campground that Mum, Dad, Chris and I had stayed at last year. We had to muck around sorting out a hire car in the morning, but eventually got one sorted and drove up toward the ferry crossing from Tyssfjorden to Lødingen. It was cloudy, but we still enjoyed the craggy scenery and raw roc...
Read more

Good Godzone Prep! The Takahe Traverse

Image
An exploratory adventure in Fiordland with its remoteness, steepness and dense bush holds a definite allure for those of us who enjoy that sort of thing. Since back in 2004, when we bush bashed down the Neale Burn, swimming at times up to our necks in the meandering river to avoid the near impenetrable bush on either side, packrafting seemed like the answer to Fiordland travel to me. So, with this thought in mind (and knowing that in a few months we would be racing Godzone in this exact territory), a group of trampers (myself, Chris, Nick, Dan, Georgia, Patrick) jumped aboard a watertaxi and hooned across North West Fiord in late December with a mission in mind. Our Route Earlier in the day, after frantic packing in Queenstown, we had received our certificate of 'didymo checked' from the DOC office in Te Anau. The water taxi man eyed the certificate suspiciously. He looked at us sternly, clearly unconvinced by our humongous packs, running shoes and light hearte...
Read more