Saturday 20 September

Sarnen (CH) to Aprica (IT)

The second full day and what a day (yes I know we also said that yesterday!). We met in a large car park south of Sarnen for an impromptu photo shoot and team hug. Rather disappointingly some of the best cars have failed to make it......unfortunately the 'A Team' van being one of the first casusalties, having imploded somewhere south of Calais.  If you're assuming that it's fairly easy getting an old, admittedly slightly refreshed, old banger to the continent, rest assured today really sorted out the men from the boys !

Setting off from Sarnen around 9am we started the long climb into the Alps proper, to think we call Snowdon a mountain, these made the UK's mountains look as flat as a Snooker Table.  The climb started soon after departing Sarnen and a rather worrying number of cars were rapidly seen accumulating by the roadside with bonnets raised and brows furrowed. The 'SOP' is to pull over and proffer assistance if nobody else is already helping, but the community spirit was really in evidence today and we only needed to stop once, to help an old Volvo that had welded its back brake on...perhaps they should have left their hand brake off but you can't tell them ! The first time Team Orange tried to get into the mountains they managed to get about 10miles past a flashing Red sign before another team told them the pass was closed......not for Snow, Avalanche risk, earthquake, meteor strike......but a Senior citizens cycle race.....yes honestly.  Luckily Team Spitfire had seen the 15' high flashing Red board and had taken the correct pass which meant a nice leisurely lunch for them and a second slow climb up the pass for Team Orange, now on an open, rather than closed road.

Unfortunately there were several cars that terminally died on the climb, the Safari Jaguar being one of them.  In fact it was sobering to see how many cars even failed to make the startline in Calais, with 80 cars expected on Friday less than 70 actually started and only around 60 finished.  Both cars coped well again today but both had problems, Team Spitfire zoomed up the mountains with ease, but suffered severe brake fade on the descents, at one stage managing to get the pedal all the way to the floor with little difference to the speed !  Team Orange struggled to even climb the mountains at one part, being flat out in first gear at 20mph and the 'check engine' light flashing like a strobe....unfortunately, even on the descents the brakes were almost as bad as Team Spitfires and we had the same problem.  What was almost terminal for Team Orange was a 'runaway' car, driving through a tiny Swiss village a VW Polo reversed straight out in front of us, narrowly missing our car and promptly smashed through the fence over a big drop, obviously there was nobody inside and Nick managed to get the handbrake on before it disappeared 'Italian Job' style over the cliff.

Again, another very long day with approx 8-9hrs driving and we pulled into Aprica and finally made Italy, who'd have though we'd get this far eh ?!