Day 5 : Champagne, Convoy and Calais

The last day, and we awake to glorious sunshine.  The  route today will be pretty much a straight-shot back to Calais, with a minor detour, although we don't quite know where that detour might be.  While waiting for the route cards we cook up a double helping of bacon and dry off the tents ready for the road.

Last night there was an ambulance on site, and we weren't sure exactly what happened.  Today we find out one of our fellow ScumRunners is in a coma.  In the background of picture above, you can see a set of steps leading down. Apparently he ended up falling down the embankment next to them, and doing some serious damage to his face.  Beer was almost certainly involved, but the actual details are a bit sketchy.  All our thoughts are with him and his family as he recovers.

With that rather scary news out of the way we get our route cards, and hit the road.  Our single check point today is the Billecart-Salmon Champagne house.  One of the few still Family owned. Sounds a bit posh...

Team Axles of Evil took the lead for a more circuitous route round the fun roads of central France, the glorious sunshine had given way to drizzle so we took in some of the rather damp scenery.

It was at this point that the Axles' Cougar decided to spit out another spark plug.. this time the rear bank.   Fun fun fun..

The fix wasn't that difficult although it did require some duct-tape shenanigans to actually get the plug back in place.  Back on the road we headed for the vineyard.

Once we reached Billecart-Salmon we took a look around.  Gregg did his best to make a first impression.  Not entirely sure it went down well though.  We grabbed a bottle (not the cheap stuff, but not a silly expensive bottly) - because why the hell not? - and then made haste towards Calais.

On our way out of town we passed the actual vines for various well known brands of Champagne. Surprisingly there was no kind of security around them, but I guess the money comes from the actual fermentation process, not so much from the grapes.

The route back through France itself was fairly uneventful.  Toll roads all the way meant there was little traffic but we did get stung for a bucket-load of euros in tolls.  Damn those Frenchies...

We arrive at Calais only to find no-one else there.  We appear to be the first ones in the queue for the ferry.  Woot.

We take the opportunity to reward team Axles of Evil with a "Fail" sticker.  They made it, but only just :)  A few moments later the Standard 10 turns up, shortly followed by a few others.   Then a whole chunk of runners arrive.  Apparently many of them were parked up in a carpark around the corner.  Still... we claim moral victory as we were first in the actual queue.

At 7:50pm local time we all load on to the ferry ready for the voyage home.  They really do pack them in on the boats.  We ended up in one of the forward sections.

Once on board we de-camped to the bar for debrief and cocktails.  Well, debrief and prizes at least.  A quick detour via the rear deck to say good bye to France.  It was fun.

Everyone was chilling out, catching up on snacks etc... then we get the call to gather for the final briefing and prizes 

Ed White addresses the masses, hands out a few prizes to teams that made a big effort.  The fairies, the shermanator (tank), and the mexicans.  We didnt win anything, but as always, its the taking part that counts. 

There was also an auction for some various goodies.  All proceeds direct to WellChild.  The total raised this event was in excess of £60,000.  Well done everyone.

We arrive in Dover at about 8:30pm local time.  Then its time for the trek home.  :(  Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. Will we be back next year ?  who knows.  Watch this space for future Team SkunkWorks endeavours.