Emancipation

Tensions were running high. We sat at the WiFi spot most of the day, killing time on useless little things to pass the hours. The tension grew as 7pm neared.

A couple of days before we had fixed the shipping issue with our part and it had arrived the following day after spending close to a week sitting in a postal depot in the nearby town of Annecy. The receptionist, who we now knew well after countless chats, had promised the car would be ready the evening of the following day.

My feelings were mixed as we walked into the shop. Was it going to work? Neither of us had any idea.

Two weeks before we had also thought we would be leaving as we walked into the shop. A week before that she told us the ignition coil was “ashes” but when we walked in she looked at us with pity and simply said, “Big, big problem...”. That's when we found out it was actually the distributor, a much more expensive part, that was done. Now the distributor, which we bought second hand off eBay was finally here. And the suspense was killing us.

We walked in and she smiled. I made a little small talk and she announced that it was indeed working well. But then she said, “Big problem.” Uh- oh. One of the brake discs was considerably worn and she was compelled to install a new one.

Instead, being a nice, reasonable woman, she let us leave without having a new one installed at the small cost of having “forbidden to drive” written in both English and French on our form, mooting our insurance and making us liable for any accidents we caused. We would have to drive pretty conservatively...

We returned to the campsite and packed everything up, seeing it for the last time, which had been home for three weeks, just as the last light was escaping from the sky.

We were back on the road! For the first hundred kilometres or so we followed the roads I had followed in three weeks earlier but from then on the roads were all new. We ended up camping somewhere on the outskirts of Auxerre in an apple grove at sometime after three am, exhausted.

The newly acquired flashing light... enough said. 

We stoked up in the city the following morning after a late start and drove the remaining couple hundred kilometres to Fontainebleau, the surrounding forests home to the birthplace of European bouldering and still some of the most famous blocks in the world. The sport has such a standing in France that circuits have been created, coloured arrows accompanied by a number, the former suggesting difficulty and the later providing a simple fluid order that the problems should be climbed in.

As we arrived in the provincial French town of Fontainebleau itself we saw several training yards for horses, a huge grand chateau and many up-market curbside restaurants but no sign of the bouldering. After difficulties finding anywhere we could sit and get charge and WiFi we took off again, deciding to try a slightly different tact in finding the blocks- guessing. How hard could it be, it's a renowned, world class destination for the sport right?

It turns out none of the iconic sectors are obvious from the road side. Sometimes you can gather there's boulders in the area but you can rarely actually see them from the road. We drove around for around 30mins and climbed at the first one we saw.

The climbing is definitely interesting. Apart from the classic, powerful slopers Fontainebleau is so famous for we found huge water jugs on some of the top outs and all kinds of tiny, intricate and complex holds that really beg the question of how they were actually formed. The formations are like nothing I've seen elsewhere in the world.

The next day, back in town, we finally found a bar with WiFi and did more research. We visited l'elephant, one of “font's” most iconic sectors, characterised by huge boulders in a beach like environment and three or four other sectors over the five day period we stayed. We mostly had good weather but the friction was mainly atrocious, particularly on the footing. It just can't be trusted.

Chateau Fontainebleau

It's common to see tens and tens of people in the forest in any given sector at any given time of day, from families to groups of friends that would easily be pushing sixty. This forest really is a thing of pride for the French and its awesome to see such a huge range of people enjoying a sport that would be considered “extreme” in many parts of the world. Some people are simply out for a walk. Families stroll nowhere in particular, their kids darting in and out of the maze of boulders. However, I'd have to say that well over half the people you meet in the forest have crash pads, an unmistakeable sign that they're there to boulder. Is great to see how much the people from the surrounding area appreciate their forest.  

Europe really teaches you how to find parks...