St Girons

Ax Les Thermes to St Girons – July 22.

One good thing about our itinerary stuff up – we can see a stage of the Tour that we didn’t plan on!

Today’s stage is due to finish on top of Plateau Le Beille – about 15kms away. We had seen lost of Tour vehicles the night before and as we drove into Ax Les Thermes at about 9.30am people were already lining the sides of the road, even though the cyclists were still a good 6 – 7 hours away. One problem though the road was due to close in 2 hours, and not re-open until later that night. So we drove to Les Cabannes, which is where the cyclists turn and begin the final climb up Plateau Le Beille. We park the car past the turn off point – actually quite a long way past as there was cars and camper vans lining the sides of the road for several km’s. We had to walk about 2 km’s back to Les Cabannes, and after a quick lunch in a hastily set up restaurant in what looked like an unoccupied shop – the food came from the restaurant across the street, ( the Tour brings a lot of revenue to these small towns) we began to walk up the mountain. We only went about a km as we needed to get away quite quickly after the cyclists came through. The road by this age was lined 3 deep by this stage. We spotted an Australian flag and settled in beside 3 blokes from Tassie! The fever and hype was building and the 2 hour wait passed quite quickly before the first vehicle of the “caravan” passes through. The Tour De France caravan has nothing to do with cycling! It is a procession of 200 vehicles tooting horns and throwing out freebies of everything from hats to laundry liquid. It was quite funny watching grown men scrapping over a free key ring! Soon we had gathered quite a little collection of booty, and a yellow cloth bag to put it all in. After the caravan comes, a spasmodic stream of media vehicles, then the hum of helicopters – the cyclists were close. Around the bend came a car and about 6 motorbikes, and just behind them 3 cyclists. It was quite steep where we were and we noticed 2 things: 1. These 3 guys were all very small and wiry, 2. they were going quite fast! Loud cheering and shouts of Allay, Allay Allay, and the first group were gone. Where was Cadel – another group was approaching and he was in it! Come on Cadel you can do it. In about 40 minutes the tailenders had passed and we began our walk back to the car. We had no idea who had won, or if they had even reached the summit which was about 5 kms away, but it did not seem to matter – we had been part of “The Tour” it is hard to explain, but you get very swept up in all the hoopla.