Day 37 (7/7) - Tour stage 9, Exploration and romance.

We drove to the french town of Beaudean, 5.5 kms from the finish of stage 9 and set up for the race. With 4 hours to pass, Anne-Marie went exploring on her bike. She found a lovely french restaurant hidden around the corner which the two of us later dined at for lunch, delicious food and nice and romantic. She also discovered a fantastic delicatessen a town further on, it was very busy so she dragged Reuben back afterwards and the gentleman gave us a little tour describing all these different french delicacies and wine. We walked away with cheese, wine, Pate de Sanglier (wild boar pate) and some Confit de Porc. We spent the evening camped on the side of a river in the Pyrenees.

Reuben makes another friend at the closed bike shop.

Trying to find our way through the finishing town, Matt takes us up the closed finishing straight, much to the angst of the race organisers, and applause of the bewildered onlookers.

The Caravan commences.

Day 36 (6/7) - Ax3

Reuben was up at 6:30am for the short steep climb before the hot french sun hits, it was 8.5 kms of pain, still suffering from the flu and missing his BMC (his nice road bike) terribly.  It was all worth it to ride up between the barriers and under the TDF finish line arch, even if it was 10 mins behind Matt and Lachie. As usual the descent also made all the pain worthwhile. After a nap and lunch we headed up the hill in the cable car to prepare to see the race finish. All the hats, lollies and paraphernalia we had been tackling kids for the previous few days were being handed out freely, obviously with all the cameras at the finish the sponsors wanted to make sure every spectator was decked out in their gear. We found a nice spot a bare 250m from the finish, only problem was it was on the other side and security wouldn't let us cross. After a brief sprint through the forest hiding from security we emerged on the opposite side and had a perfect view to watch the cyclists fly up the mountain Reuben had crawled up in the morning. We caught up with Matt's dad who was also following the race on an all catered for, organised cycling tour that the boys were very jealous of. After the race finish we decided to go snooping while waiting for the thousands of spectators to descend the mountain in cable cars. We were impressed to see the massive tents with screens and computers set up for the media. We had a chat with Macca (David McKenzie) from SBS's Cycling Central, a great bloke who took time out to chat cycling and the tour with us.

In the cable car to Ax 3.

The crazy media and circus from above.

Chris Froome as he absolutely destroys this year's Tour for everyone else.
Perhaps we should just head to Spain?

Matt and Reuben take a moment in front of the Finish line to celebrate their first famous french climb.

Day 35 (5/7) - Proceed to the pretty, picturesque, Pyrenees.

We left the french sea side town and headed for the Pyrenees, some of the most picturesque mountains we will ever see. We enjoyed lunch at picnic tables on an island in the middle of a rushing mountain stream, visited a fromagerie enjoying some yummy goats milk cheese where  Reuben bonded with a baby goat. Not sure if all these pastries, cheese and wine is making me a better cyclist, but a few million french cannot be wrong, can they? We arrived at the town of Ax-les-Thermes, the base of tomorrows stage finish, explored the town and enjoyed a few bottles of french wine in preparation for the boys early morning accent of the Ax 3 Domaine.

Actually an island in a rushing Pyraneean river in the middle of a cute little mountain town.

Reuben's little friend.

A bonding moment.

The french like to build stuff on the highest points available.
It's impossible to properly capture the grandeur while hammering past on the twisty mountain passes.

Our view of the other van as we wind our way through the Pyrenees.

Day 34 (4/7) - Tour watching and surprise resort towns.

We set up the camper vans 16 kms from the finish of stage 6, just after a round about. With a few hours to spare we braved the 35 degree heat and rode into the nearby town to enjoy a yummy lunch and a beer at a sports bar that was showing the race. We arrived back 2 hrs before the cyclists were due to return and tackled children for the usual free giveaways. Being a fast flat stage the whole pelaton passed us in about 20 seconds making the 4 hour wait seem a little excessive. After the race we headed off to find somewhere to stay, pulling into a depressing looking car park/caravan park in Palavos-les-Flots and began to prepare for what looked like a very average evening. Luckily we started chatting to some Aussies that informed us that only 10 mins walk down the road was a good beach with lots of restaurants. We were very surprised, we found hundreds of tanned french people playing beach volley ball, loads of restaurants and shops. Anne-Marie enjoyed a 1kg bucket of mussels with blue cheese sauce for dinner, Reuben tasted sea snails for the first time, we had ice-cream from a shop with over 30 flavours and ended the night with a roller coaster ride at an amusement park. Some days on holiday seem like three days in one.

Reuben enjoying his lunch

Reuben, Matt and Erica cheering the boys on

Reuben with snails and more

Enjoying the roller coaster

Day 33 (3/7) - An evening at Domaine Massillon

We left Nice and drove to Tehran where we spent the evening parked at a Domaine Massillon. The winery is part of a camper van system called France Passion where you can buy a book and then stay at wineries and french food producers for free all over France. We enjoyed a tour of the winery including tasting wine from the fiberglass and stainless steel vats and more impressively from the french oak barrels. The wines ranged from 4-10 euro, so we stocked up of course.

The head wine maker pipettes us a cab sav sample straight from the barrel.

Wine and cheese for dinner for the night, very french.

Enjoying a glass of wine before bed

Day 32 (2/7) - Tour Team Time Trial (TTTT) in Nice

We caught the train into Nice to watch our first Tour de France stage (stage 4), the team time trial. We enjoyed croissants, coffee and a french lesson from the waiter for morning tea and baguettes for lunch. It was exciting to see a race start, all the team mechanics preparing the bikes, the team vans and all the paraphernalia. We had our first glimpse of the "caravan", the brigade of sponsors vans that drive along the tour route about an hour or two before the cyclists come through, throwing out hats, lollies, chips, magnets, key-rings and head-socks just to name a few. It was fun to watch Reuben and Matt as they jumped around trying to be the ones to collect the most, tackling the occasional child and grandma in the process. It was a hot sunny day but enjoyable to watch the Aussie team, Orica-Greenedge win the race and push Simon Gerrans into the yellow jersey position. We were happy to see how many Aussie bogans had made the trip.

Cadels TTT bike, if a bike can be sexy....

Flic and Anne-Marie saying hi to the french fireman while they enjoyed a tasty icecream (the firemen not the girls).

Anne-Marie (not) watching the race (but holding my beer much to the policeman's merriment :-)

Reuben looking ridiculous with a silver hat to reflect the 35 degree sun.

Day 31 (1/7) - Getting the band together

We arrived in Nice, found a bike shop to tighten up Reuben's rear hub and caught up with our camper van buddies, newly wed's Matt and Flic and soon to be, Lachie and Erica who have there own camper van and together the six of us will be following the Tour de France for the next 3 weeks. We navigated the twisty one way streets of Nice, only breaking one cars side mirror in the process and found a caravan park on the edge of the city. We were keen to get on our bikes so while the others were jet lagged after their 30 hour flights went to sleep early we took advantage of the 9:30pm sunset and went for a ride. We got lost a few times but managed to visit a Carrefour, a super huge french supermarket that has almost everything, Reuben was very impressed to see some female staff on roller blades.

Matt & Co's camper van we will be following in the whale.