So this year is Italy for Stuff The Consequences' Rob Haley, joined by 3 of the procrastinate lads. The plan is to meet Matt McKnight out there, who was one of the Irish boys we met in Corsica last year. So it's Thursday, and I'm packed to go. The plan is to meet the boys after work, to make the 4 hour journey to Dover, catching the 22:05 ferry work felt so long, but at 14:30. I was out, and in Cardiff not long after. A little bit of packing and the trip to Dover seemed fairly easy. Clearly the repetition of the trip annually has made us pros at it. Entering Calais, Max said he had downloaded Sat Nav maps for France and Italy, but we were going to take the Swiss route. Not an issue, because it's just head south anyway, Stu's words, not mine.
At this point we had a hatched Tamagotchi, called Tyrone, and Max had spent a long time nursing him during the drive. Being the only single man on the trip, we had convinced him that the ladies love a bloke who can take care of children, and this being the only minor he would be given the chance to look after, as no parent would
want his vegetarianism rubbing off on their children, he was doing a cracking job - better than we had previously in the French Alps. We made our way through France to Strasbourge fairly well, but we were hitting rush hour traffic. The decision to go into Germany was made, albeit with Jonny King at the helm, luckily he had been driving fairly well, except the first five minutes where he was stalling and stopping mid road to adjust mirrors, etc. Fortunately I was sleeping during most of his driving, so I wasn't grinding my teeth at the sights of near death around every corner (although we were on straight French toll roads, Jonny can make anything seem like a corner, it just depends how aggressive' he feels at the time). We headed into Germany and during the changeover, we managed to hit a McDonalds where Max could get the Swiss and sat Nav map. So I took the wheel again, and we drove the long road to the apartment we are staying in. We arrived about 16:30, so the journey lasted a whole 24 hours from Cardiff. Bleary eyed, gagging for food and sleep and being told there was a cheeky Pizzeria down the road, we were there in a heartbeat, only to be told that we had to wait 2 hours before it opened. In the end we got the food, put on a film and fell asleep.
Saturday morning we hit up the supermarket, but not after morning necessities. Within the apartment we have a bidet, either that or a foot spa (we're not terribly sure, but it seems oddly foot-accommodating). Max ignored our cry's for hygiene, and took the chance, exiting triumphantly saying he enjoyed the clean feeling it provides, so now I am excited for my next bowel movement to see what benefits it does provide.
It should be noted that none of us can speak a word of Italian, so every time we had to chat to a local, we had our tails between our legs and spoke like naughty children. Yet this didn't stop us using Italian accents when talking English to everyone. Luckily the ability of the Italians to speak English has come to our aid most of the time, so we got a shed load of food for the week. During our time in the supermarket, a little old lady had seen my rippling muscles and asked me to put a rather large crate of water into her trolley (in fluent Italian, that she kept speaking even after I was replying in English). She was very thankful, saying Grazie a lot, and also said that I was a hunk of a man and that if she was 30 years younger would be jumping at the chance to spend even one night with me (albeit I don't know the exact translation of what she said, it sounded very close to this). We also found out that Matt was under the weather and couldn't get his flight; hoping he gets well soon, yet unable to make it out, we were now without the 2 cars needed to shuttle the rivers. So we geared up to do the Lower Sesia, I dropped the boys off at the get in and drove to the get off hoping to catch a lift. Driving about 3 miles down a steep enough hill to make my bum clench every time a crazed Italian driver came at me in the middle of the road, was sweating at the thought of an energy sapping run. Luckily I chatted to some locals at the get off, who offered me a lift. Thank God, because I was not in the mood for a horrendous run on the first day.
The river was meant to be an easy grade 3, with a tasty grade 4 at the start, however we had been told the levels are nearing the higher end of the scale, so we jumped on thinking that well be looking at this harder entry rapid soon. 200m on the river and we come to it, we looked at it and we portaged it. The classic Corsican move was now our go to Italian move. This may have been a record, and how much of a bitch the walk was. The rest of the river was fun and bouncy with everyone getting the feel for the water with a decent run under our belts, we were to look at the Middle Sesia for tomorrow we looked at the two harder sections, which are sometimes run, often portaged, and we decided that if they looked any way likw they did today, we'd probably walk:
The end of the evening was spent at the river festival campsite listening to live music.
This was written from my phone, so apologies for mistakes. Keep an eye out for the next installment.
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| The lads |
want his vegetarianism rubbing off on their children, he was doing a cracking job - better than we had previously in the French Alps. We made our way through France to Strasbourge fairly well, but we were hitting rush hour traffic. The decision to go into Germany was made, albeit with Jonny King at the helm, luckily he had been driving fairly well, except the first five minutes where he was stalling and stopping mid road to adjust mirrors, etc. Fortunately I was sleeping during most of his driving, so I wasn't grinding my teeth at the sights of near death around every corner (although we were on straight French toll roads, Jonny can make anything seem like a corner, it just depends how aggressive' he feels at the time). We headed into Germany and during the changeover, we managed to hit a McDonalds where Max could get the Swiss and sat Nav map. So I took the wheel again, and we drove the long road to the apartment we are staying in. We arrived about 16:30, so the journey lasted a whole 24 hours from Cardiff. Bleary eyed, gagging for food and sleep and being told there was a cheeky Pizzeria down the road, we were there in a heartbeat, only to be told that we had to wait 2 hours before it opened. In the end we got the food, put on a film and fell asleep.
Saturday morning we hit up the supermarket, but not after morning necessities. Within the apartment we have a bidet, either that or a foot spa (we're not terribly sure, but it seems oddly foot-accommodating). Max ignored our cry's for hygiene, and took the chance, exiting triumphantly saying he enjoyed the clean feeling it provides, so now I am excited for my next bowel movement to see what benefits it does provide.
It should be noted that none of us can speak a word of Italian, so every time we had to chat to a local, we had our tails between our legs and spoke like naughty children. Yet this didn't stop us using Italian accents when talking English to everyone. Luckily the ability of the Italians to speak English has come to our aid most of the time, so we got a shed load of food for the week. During our time in the supermarket, a little old lady had seen my rippling muscles and asked me to put a rather large crate of water into her trolley (in fluent Italian, that she kept speaking even after I was replying in English). She was very thankful, saying Grazie a lot, and also said that I was a hunk of a man and that if she was 30 years younger would be jumping at the chance to spend even one night with me (albeit I don't know the exact translation of what she said, it sounded very close to this). We also found out that Matt was under the weather and couldn't get his flight; hoping he gets well soon, yet unable to make it out, we were now without the 2 cars needed to shuttle the rivers. So we geared up to do the Lower Sesia, I dropped the boys off at the get in and drove to the get off hoping to catch a lift. Driving about 3 miles down a steep enough hill to make my bum clench every time a crazed Italian driver came at me in the middle of the road, was sweating at the thought of an energy sapping run. Luckily I chatted to some locals at the get off, who offered me a lift. Thank God, because I was not in the mood for a horrendous run on the first day.
The river was meant to be an easy grade 3, with a tasty grade 4 at the start, however we had been told the levels are nearing the higher end of the scale, so we jumped on thinking that well be looking at this harder entry rapid soon. 200m on the river and we come to it, we looked at it and we portaged it. The classic Corsican move was now our go to Italian move. This may have been a record, and how much of a bitch the walk was. The rest of the river was fun and bouncy with everyone getting the feel for the water with a decent run under our belts, we were to look at the Middle Sesia for tomorrow we looked at the two harder sections, which are sometimes run, often portaged, and we decided that if they looked any way likw they did today, we'd probably walk:
This was written from my phone, so apologies for mistakes. Keep an eye out for the next installment.
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