The Mille Rivieres 1999!
Gastric Wombats and The Anoraks Off-Road Club were there!

The Cevenne mountains in southern France hosted the 10th annual Mille Rivieres off-road event. A group of happy go-lucky off-road types headed off for a few days in the warm sun of Southern France. Or so we thought! The weather was very cold, with a ton of snow falling in the first 3 minutes. Have a look at the photos below for a glimpse at what we had to deal with!

Team ANORAK was...

 Series III Landrover:
   Driver:            John Douglas
   Naviguesser:  Mari Numada

NAS Defender 90:
  Driver:        Richard Taylor
  Navigator:   Simon Banks

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All Photographs: Mari Numada & John Douglas
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Day One:
After "Le Stickage" at the Fire Station in Chambon Sur Lignon, we met at oh-dark-hundred for the briefing. Unlike the Trophee Cevenol, there were no changes to the roadbook, so off we went. As we climbed, the weather got colder and windier. By the time we arrived at the first "obstacle", the queues were already well under way! Click on the thumbnails above to see a larger picture, with a small description of what was going on at that time...

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Still stuck at the first obstacle, some people needed a bit of a push. Most needed a winch, but the 6-wheel Pinzgauer above just stormed through anything in its way. Even the 4 wheel Pinnies had problems with this bit! After three hours of waiting, and with Richard and Simon all fired up to have a go, the Suzuki in front split its oil sump on a rock and the obstacle was closed for the remainder of the day. Urgghh.

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Day Two:
Meandering through the forest tracks saw some spectacular scenery, a real winter wonderland! It was getting colder though, and Richard and Simon in the Landie Cabriolet were getting well and truly frozen, even though they both say they had to turn the heater off because they were getting too hot! Yeah, right... We spent most of the rest of the day sitting and waiting for "trees to be cleared" (French expression for drinking coffee) during which time, we amused ourselves making snowmen on the bonnet, and chucking snowballs at each other... (what more do you expect from boys who can't play with their toys?)

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By the end of day one, we were no where near getting finished, and were probably a good four hours behind schedule. It was just as it got dark that we hit a nasty obstacle that had many people scraping expensively across some very large rocks at the summit of a small rise (last photo). We continued until just after 20:30hrs, some thirteen hours after starting that day, until we decided we'd had enough.

The next day didn't improve, with some very annoying drivers flashing lights, tooting horns etc in an effort to scream past us, only to find them stopped in the middle of the narrowest part of the track ten minutes up the road and drinking coffee. Not able to get past, and being rudely told to wait while they finished their coffee, we looked all set for a repeat of the day before. It was right about now that the steering column upper bearing in the series III packed up completely and we decided to bug out and head for home while the steering would still get us there.

Some aspects made this a disappointing trip for us really, but it certainly had its moments, and on the whole we enjoyed ourselves a great deal. As always, we met some very friendly people, swapped some stories, learned some new techniques, saw some highly original engineering solutions to common problems and shared a few beers. What more could you ask for? Its worth having a read of a different (and much better) account of the trip by the crew from Surrey Off-Road. They managed to avoid most of the hold-ups and complete all of the course that hadn't been closed. Well done guys!

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