France 2010 - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

On our way back from the snorkelling yesterday we stopped to admire the view at one of the many lay-bys along the road.  We noticed that there seemed to be a road down to a small cove at the bottom and could also see one or two cars down there.  Being the very slightly adventurous types that we are, we cleverly thought that as we were the proud owners of a 4x4 vehicle that we could easily reach the cove down below.

The tiny cove seen below us from the viewing point in the lay by.

The following day we made our plans to venture down to the cove.  As we reached the lay-by where the road began we paused and waited for the people admiring the view to move out of the way.  I put the Ennio Morricone CD into the player and played the classic tune, ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ to create some atmosphere.  Oh, it certainly did that.  We moved slowly forward and slowly tipped over the edge.  It was like the moment before you drop on Oblivion at Alton Towers.   OMG!  It was hair raising to say the least.  It was very high and the road, no track was very narrow and made of loose rubble and dirt.  We slowly crept down, myself being white knuckled clinging one hand on the side of the door and one on the edge of my seat.   We made it to the bottom of the hill to find there was very little space to turn so had to reverse back up the hill about a hundred metres until the track was wide enough to turn around.  I could smell the clutch burning out under the stress and smoke was starting to plume from the exhaust.   Eventually the car was turned around and facing up hill so we parked up and walked back down to the stony cove below.