Pyrenees 2011, 27/05-05/06, planning

[Jon Wildsmith]

Tuesday morning Eric and Louise found us a great place to stop for cheap fuel, shopping, coffee and pastries in Sant Julia de Loria, much emptying of the wildsmith wallet took place here securing [strike:31pd9h2a]bribes[/strike:31pd9h2a] prezzies to take home

Did I mention the climbs?

 

[Rob]

Got back at 20:30 yesterday after covering just under 2300 miles in total. A brilliant trip, halinka and I really enjoyed it. Thank you Jon for organising such a great trip and Gav thanks for those roundabout tours.

Pics will follow soonish, need to sort through them and post the best ones.

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

Later in the day (Tuesday still) we found a nice place to stop

so Gary could have his birthday lunch

and later passed through the remote village of Lletto. I can't remember if this was abandoned or the one with the solar panels Gav?

and had some fun with a little washed out section

 

[Dark Dude]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for these wonderful photo's, Jon! I can see you now, on top of a mountain and bursting into song......."The hills are alive with the sound of Land Cruisers".



Come back safe now.

John and Sharon

The Dudes

 

[SpinDrift]

I'll sort through the photos and put some up as well.

Regarding the price of diesel, it was in the region of E1.38 to E1.42 a litre in France (motorway), E1.28 in Spain and a cool E1.08 in Andorra. With the rate of exchange (E1 practically equal to £1) as it is, the price in France is pretty much the same as it here.

Unleaded was more expensive throughout and lpg iirc was in the region of 90 cents a litre.

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

We wild camped on Tuesday night except for Eric and Louise who went on to a hotel in the next town

the road out on Wednesday morning was twisty, we did lots of zig zagging all week

this track had some traffic but plenty of passing places

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

There were a few washed out sections to make us pay attention but nothing tricky

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

We took a 5 minute walk to the view point mentioned in the road book which gives some pretty impressive views, I think Gary has some fancy panoramic pictures of that? Who's this, I think he's an imposter because his passport picture shows someone completely different

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

I don't recall there being much mud but we were like children with a new toy when we did find some

Which arrived here first, the rock or the trees?

Water, got to splash it apparently with no encouragement from me

Wednesday came to a premature end due to road closures but we ended up at a really nice camp site with a pool that apparently wasn't too cold

 

[Red Oktober]

 

[sae70]

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

on to Thursday and I remembered to get a pic of these funny gates we'd been encountering all week. We can't work out how they keep stock in because you just drive through them and surely a cow can figure out to just walk through ...

along one of the tracks we found out what / how the log piles we'd seen are made

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

On to Friday, a nice little overgrown track we nearly missed so don't take any shortcuts Andy

This was a nice picnic spot off the track

Nice little ford

and another

Nearly at the sea

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

I'll make an album for the rest and post a link but that's about it from me, over to the others I logged 4058km door to door but we had an expected diversion on the way down to Dover and an unwanted traffic induced one on the way back from Dover

 

[karl webster]

Great pics.

Really looks like a trip that has to be done at some point

 

[AndyCook]

photos getting better and better!
some tricky bits, but look no worse than the "old post road"/"happy valley"

some of those ford crossings look long, did you spec them out first or just go for it!

quite a variety of terrain covered too.

Not sure i will spend 3 nights in Andorra though, looks more developed that i expected.
will prob have 2 non-driving days on the trip, to do some mountain biking, one on RB1 and another on RB2 - so if there were any nicer campsites worth stopping at for 2 nights let me know.

 

[vrecha]

Nice trip, beautiful country views!
Haven't been in these places yet, those pictures surely woke some appetite to go there and drive some of the routes.

 

[Gary Stockton]

Some more to give a flavour...

Car wash anyone??

 

[Red Oktober]

Excellent pics Gary

 

[Dark Dude]

Bless you Gary! This has really made my day, seeing these wonderful pictures (and as a professional photographer I have to give credit where credit is due). What really impresses me is that you don't have to do much modifications on a standard Land Cruiser to make it expedition ready. A snorkel
and a decent set of tyres and lots of money for the B&B's and a successful Euro tour could be had by all. Maybe that's a bit simplistic but it's reassuring to know that it's at least within my reach.

John

The Dark Dude