why curiousity is a good thing

In most pictures I've seen of the south of France, there always seems to be sunflowers and rolling paddocks of hay bales. I had taken it to be a bit like pictures of Australia either showing white beaches or kangaroos. Apparently not. As we hit the Vendee region yesterday, it started. Paddock after paddock of sunflowers and straw.

The first tour stage we'd planned to see was Stage Two, the team time trial at Les Essarts tomorrow. Because it's in the town we thought we'd do some reccie today. After a sleep in we headed off about midday. I made mum pull over so I could photograph the sunflowers. They're beautiful. It's a better sight than spuds and dairy cows. We opted to avoid the toll road and Charlie took us through a few little villages. As we came into St Hermine (not sure how to pronounced this but we stuck with Hermione from Harry Potter) we noticed a lot of people setting up camp on the side of the road. Now curiousity is a wonderful thing. Being the stickybeaks that we are we pulled up and went to explore. Turns out we'd landed ourselves in the middle of a Tour de France stage. So we bought an umbrella, spread out to maximise our photo vantage points and waited. And waited.

After a while, the caravan began. The actual tour is preceded by lots and lots of cars: officials, teams, security and promotional vans. It was more fun than Disneyland. And I'm being serious. Mickey Mouse didn't throw me a hat, bag, lollies, cakes or washing liquid now did he.

All my goodies

The first signs were the helicopters overhead. Then the crowd around the corner as the bikes came into sight. Around the corner came police, cameramen and three riders in the breakaway. A few seconds and they were gone. Then came another wait. How far in front were they? Turns out it was about four minutes, although it felt like a lot more. Then the peloton arrived and whizzed past. Just enough time for a couple of photos, taken while I was screaming and waving my other hand in the air. An official car drives past and announces something in French and everyone leaves. In minutes the crowded intersection where we had stood for about four hours was empty, except for a few people in the pub watching the telecast and pointing excitedly at the screen when they showed St Hermine. We saw about 50 metres of a 191.5km stage.

For those interested, Belgian Philippe Gilbert won the stage, with Aussie Cadel Evans three seconds behind. I read later there was a mass pile-up 9km from the finish. A rider clipped a stray spectator. I wouldn't want to be that guy.

We continued to Les Essarts to check out the town. There were a lot of busy people preparing for tomorrow. We were hoping to scout the best places to park, sit etc, but since we had a good time today the pressure is off. Can't say that for the riders though.