Bonsoir!

We're writing this while waiting for the train back from Culoz, a tiny town on the route of the 10th leg of the... Tour de France!! We hiked out of town a bit up the mountain for a good vantage point which gave us almost a full exhilarating minute of riders before it was all over! Unfortunately we couldn't spot Cadel as he was tucked in amongst a bunch of other riders, but it was an awesome atmosphere as all the camera cars and motorbikes cruised past and then the lead riders came into view! Almost as exciting was the caravan of sponsor cars and vans that came through the town beforehand flinging random freebies at people. What started as a casual game of collecting free samples and hats descended into a hoarding fight with the local French scavengers who had brought garbage bags to hold their prizes! Ant came out victor against his 12 year old girl nemesis with her greedy hands by using the old method of viciously stomping on items that came our way until the girl gave up and went back to waving annoyingly at every car. Boom!

In terms of updates since our last blog, we have basically been hiking on and off for the last four days. On Monday night Nat, Ant, Tan, Shannon & Freddie headed out to the Vanoise national park in Pralognan for an overnight hike in the alps. We set off at about 2:30pm and after a fairly steep climb we arrived at base camp where we had a "room" booked in the cabin. It's not possible to describe the awesomeness of the lakes, glaciers, mountains and waterfalls that we saw, so check out our latest album for some of our best photos! After we checked into our surprisingly comfortable cabin, we smashed a feast of 3 cheeses, breads, herbed ham, pâté, cherry tomatoes and of course red wine and then took our second bottle out into the mountains for a cup amongst the alps. While hanging by a lake we were lucky enough to see a pack of four chamois (a kind of mountain goat) descend from a mountain and cross the area right in front of us! We felt like a discovery channel crew as we dashed across the landscape with camera in hand (only difference being they don't film with a bottle of red wine in the other hand!).

After a snug nights sleep in bunk-like sleeping arrangements (ideal conditions for a mega Dutch oven) we went for a pre-breakfast walk towards the summit starting point and then back to camp for breakfast and then 3 hours of descending back down the mountain to the car.

Tomorrow we leave Aix-les-Bains with our hire car and head south to the Gorges du Verdon which begins a week of staying in b&bs and exploring the southern parks and gorges of France!

Hope all is well back home!