Home?

Just shy of 4000 miles later we finish the italian job with a police escorted parade through brighton. The end of Job bash was held in The Grand in Brighton where I reacquainted myself with spiced rum and coke. An excellent night was had by all. Miles and I were ridiculously surprised to win medals for one of the special stages. Special stages were accurately timed events like driving round cones. Most people had stop watches - we had elephants....

Miles takes custody of the car until we decide what we are going to do with it. This is a great bonus for me as i have to fly home instead of adding a 9 hour drive to the end of the journey.

A few thoughts from the trip:

* despite looking for 2 1/2 weeks we still can't find 5th gear
* minis don't like heights
* we haven't changed, well ok we are a little fatter
* the french like silly cocktails too: like the "Kung Fu Master"
* miles really shouldn't bet against me (miles lost £50, me £10 - all for charity of course)
* there is always 20 miles left in the tank

Will we do it all again next year, hmmm, probably not, more likely 2009 when the Mini (the real one) will be 50 years old and the Italian job will be 20 years old.

We can't thank everyone enough for their generous donations. At time of writing we have managed to raise over £5,800 which all goes to an extremely worthwhile cause.


p.s. last few pics added to http://picasaweb.google.com/g.a.jamieson/ItalianJob2

Last chance salon

A bit of a long slog from Annecy to Reims to catch a tour in the Mumm Champagne Caves in Reims. Our biggest acheivement today was getting the least amount of miles out of a tank of fuel - 100miles....




Finished off the days driving with a trip to the abandoned Reims Circuit de Gueux. There is not much left of the stands etc but what is left is quite random.

Turin to Annecy.............

Turin was the last part of the official Italian Job route, with the route after this being largely up to individual teams. There are only two ways to get past the Alps, over or under. One of our trip rules is to hold our breadth whilst travelling through tunnels, so when we discovered one of the tunnels under the alps was ten km long, we weren't left much of a choice......

We joined a five car convey consisting of real minis and the classic fiat dino (team 20), and started to wind our way up the Col du Mont Cenis. This afforded us some spectacular mountains views, and some of the best driving of the trip. On descending into Lanselbourg the road to Val d'Isere was closed, so we were gutted that our prize of the Col d'Iseran looked unabtainable.


Never ones to follow diversions, and with a quick conference teams 15, 16, and 53 decided to still try for the Col, which at 2770m is the 2nd highest in Europe. Team 15's GPS revealed a short off-road alternative around the road works, and we conventiently forget to understand any of the french road signs, driving around about ten road closures, started our bid of the Col.

Our efforts were rewarded with some of the finest weather, jaw dropping big mountain views , and a fine herd of goats as we drove the final 23 km up to the Col. We stopped at the Col for photos, and a wee glass of fizzy stuff. The altitude was taking its tol on the cars with our mini deciding to let off some steam, and team 15's supercharger sounding more like a averagecharger.

(another animated GIF, click to see!)

We descended into Val d'Isere, sticking to the pistes, and took in two red and three blue runs. Val d'Isere was dead, but we were all starving and found the only place in town open for lunch.

The final part of our route was quite dull in comparison, driving down to Bourg St Maurice then onto to our hotel in Annency.

Track Videos Added

We ve finally worked out how to post videos and added some more photos to gavs picasa site. Scroll down to First Track to watch it.

More to follow soon....