August 2007 - A weekend in the French hills
Seeing as though we have just bought a car, we thought we'd better make the most of it. So our plan was to buy a tent and head off camping on the weekend. Here are the photos of our first camping trip.
The plan was to head towards Switzerland and the Alps. We were told it was only a few hour away. So off we go. About 3 and a half hours out of Paris, we decided to have a rest. We pulled in at the rest area to stretch our legs and use the facilities, and low and behold what's written on the sign.
Well it's close, they just forgot the "i" on the end.
After nearly 5 hours of driving we arrived at out destination, the little town of Ornans. For the very first time we put up our new tent, it was dark and raining... We managed to get it up in record time without filing for divorce, found some dinner at a local restaurant, then called it a night.
The next morning we finally got to see what the place looked like.
After a look around the town, we jumped in the car and headed further into the Alps, found a nice bar to stop for lunch, serving pizzas (wog pizzas, not the horrible Aussie ones) and cold beer. Just as we were about to leave a friendly local bee decided to leave it's stinger burried deep in my neck. Katie, trying to help, tried to get some ice from the bar, but nobody spoke any English and we didn't speak any French. With lots of hand signs she managed to get the message across and returned with a cold towel as the bar didn't have any ice.
About 10 minutes later, the waitress came out and handed me a tube of cream, and signalled to rub it on the sting. As Katie was opening the tube she noticed a hair around the rim of the tube. A short dark curly one... What sort of cream is this???
I must have helped, as the next day there was minimal swelling and no itching.
After leaving the bar, with someone's hemeroid cream all over my neck, we found a river that flowed out of a rock wall.
Years ago they had diverted the river to drive what would have been a water wheel. It must have been hard work moving all that stone and build the bridge down here.
Now-a-days they would have dammed the river, just as it exits the rock face, and diverted most of the water through a hydro power station on the left hand side of the picture.
A very nice spot away.
On the way back to Paris, we came across a small village that looked like it was having a market so we stopped in. It turned out to be a festival with all the local's produce. There was local cheese, locally made sunflower oil, honey and BEER. Not a bad drop either. So with a six pack to take back to Paris we were about to leave when Katie saw people dressed up in old clothes making rope. If you want to know how rope was made before fancy machines, have a look at the pictures below.
You run your twine between these to thingies. Giving you four lengths of twine together.
Then you get your wife to stand on the big crack-thingy end and get her to start turning the handle.
Making the individul twine twist together.
Your mate can help a little here, but I couldn't work out whether he was there for his looks, or he was actually doing something useful.
Now he comes in handy, he gets to turn the handle at the other end, oh and you have to hang onto the wooden block bit as it travels up the rope..
"Keep turnin' George, we've got a long way to go"
When you get to the end the ol' girl can have a rest
The rest is man's business.
With a few knots here and there, Wal-ahha. The rope is finished...
