We climbed Mt Semnoz and lived to tell the tale!
We started caravanning late in life and have enjoyed our annual visits to France but after our last trip in 2013 when we returned home via 3 low loaders we said it would be the last,but we had this vision of Lake Annecy in our minds painted by some fellow travellers we met in St Emilion. Lake Annecy was everything it was described as and more, one of the most beautiful places in the World to visit but one we will remember for other reasons.
Everything had gone to plan from our start in the suburbs of Manchester to the stopovers at Troyes and Dole until we arrived at the outskirts of Annecy and the beginning of our nightmare accent of Mt Semnoz.Initially it was a normal roadworks detour but we hadn't gone more than 100 yards when the detour took another direction due to a Fire brigade incident and we were on the road of no return. We just had to keep going but all the time we realized we were climbing and the roads were getting bendy. To make matters worse it was the local annual cycle race up Mount Semnoz used by the Tour De France but we didn't know this at the time and the stewards were not listening to our cries for help.
We came to a fork in the road but with no clear instructions on the best route we took the wrong one and the bends became hairpin bends and we were screaming both literally and mechanically all the way to the top which was a lookout viewing point of the French Alps. We met some startled faces up there because I don't think they had seen a caravan at 5500 ft before or people with ashen faces like ours.The only disappointment was we were so gob smacked with the views we took no pictures of the caravan in situ to confirm our achievement. The rest of the holiday was above expectations and well worth the trip. Will that be the last trip? We will have to think long and hard on that but we haven't given up yet.
In case you are wondering what our outfit was it was a Avondale Avocet and Toyota Avensis 2.2 Diesel which we had only just purchased a few months before and did the job and got us home.
Comments
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Incidently I would like to claim this climb by caravan as a record but DSB took a photo of a caravan abandoned on another peak and that might have beaten my climb of 5500ft. The climb we took was used by the Tour De France so if I cannot claim the record
i may be entitled to the Yellow Jersey:-)0
