427. Smoked off

Bordeaux

Woke to a hard frost, a beautiful day, and a dog waiting outside with two balls.

The two inductive cookers are fantastic,
even when frozen. We do all our stove cooking outside,
and use the Giantavan's internal oven and microwave

That's why. 2ºC/1,000ft makes is 9ºC
colder here than sea level

Getting cold here in the next few days
We got lucky with the weather

A tennis ball and a football

Through the Italian Alps into France

We drove in here in the dark so couldn't see how beautiful it was. Departing today, we were absolutely stunned by the Aosta Valley, it is quite something. Throughout the drive today we were staggered by the lack of traffic, we found out why in two days time.

Margherita Camping to Pont-Saint-Martin

It was a continuous steep drive down narrow roads out of the Aosta Valley dropping three and a half thousand feet in twenty six kilometres. As we got nearer to the bottom I noticed white smoke billowing from the Giantavan wheels. Unable to stop as I didn't want a fire and there was nowhere to stop I initially assumed that the hydraulic fluid had boiled which wasn't surprising. I wasn't concerned about the gradient as the Disco has massive brakes and could easily cope with the gross load. I then remembered that the Giantavan's brakes are override mechanical. The smoke couldn't be from the pads and it was extremely unlikely that wheel bearings had simultaneously failed, both sides. There is no lock out for reversing so no point in stopping, blocking the traffic. Gave me plenty to think about negating the narrow hairpins coming into Pont-Saint-Martin. The Giantavan brakes are fantastic, operate on all four wheels and never push the Disco at all.

Empty roads

Fantastic autumn colours the whole way

A hundred years ago it would have taken a whole day
just to get up the Aosta valley 

Deserted roads

Arriving at the Mt Blanc tunnel into France

Chamonix
Must ski here sometime

Roman, Audrey, Fyfe and Iris
at Chamonix

No front hubcaps, burnt off

Burning hubcaps, both sides, was the source of the smoke.
The hub caps have survived massive downhills but on
average, even the Atlas mountains in Morocco were
faster roads.