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| Arthurs Seat; on another day! |
What a beautiful and sunny day it was
up on Arthurs Seat this afternoon. It was somewhat spoiled however, by the
number of petrol heads trying to imitate their VA Supercar heroes who’ll be
driving at Bathurst early next month. By comparison, there were the majority of
drivers who didn’t mind slowing down for a few seconds while cyclists and
61-year-olds like me, pedalled slowly around a hairpin bend.
It reminded me of one particular day
in France when I began my journey through the Alps. It was my final climb of
the day, up the Col de Turini.
From the top of the Col de Braus, I found myself on
the rather tired, neglected, and more noticeably remote D54, which took me over
two more small cols, the Col de l’Ablé (1,149 metres) and the Col de l’Orme
(1,005 metres). It had a rough and pothole-patterned surface, but the canopy of
trees that accompanied the narrow road for most of its length made it the most
enjoyable part of the day’s ride. It also led me to the D2566, and my final
climb of the day, up the Col de Turini.
Besides hot Sunday afternoons, where imbibing
drivers forget they have a vehicle to return to, the only time I
feel a little anxious at home on Arthurs Seat is the time between Boxing Day
and the first two weeks of January. That’s when many aspiring Formula 1 drivers
come roaring up and down the mountain as though competing for pole position in
the Melbourne Grand Prix. It’s mayhem.
What Arthurs becomes during these three weeks, so it seems the Col de Turini is most weekend
afternoons. The climb winds, at an average gradient of 5.2% along stretches of
perfectly zigzagging road. It is an
absolute mecca for cyclists, and evidently
for car enthusiasts as well. But invariably, the two don’t mix.
Little more than a few minutes into the climb, the stillness and serenity were broken by the
sound of reverberating car engines below me, about 20 of them. They looked an
ominous sight, each one hot on
the heels of the one in front. You could hear
each vehicle’s acceleration on every straight, followed by the
synchronised screech of brakes as it hit the corner. I’d avoided trucks, traffic jams, motorbikes, mopeds, cattle, barricades, just about everything you could
imagine. The last thing I
expected was a speedway full of petrol-heads. There was
nowhere to hide and little I could do other than simply swallow my pride, get off my bike, stand as close
to the side of the road as was humanly possible, and cringe as
each one sped past. |
| The Hotel les Chamois at the summit. |
Gone in 60 seconds, the cars were soon nothing more than a bad memory. I was again riding along a tranquil road. The lacets had disappeared, and with them the
severity of the gradient. Soon I was standing outside our evening’s
accommodation at the Hotel les Chamois, right at the
very summit of the Col de Turini. Like the genie out of the bottle it literally
appeared out of thin air. Roz was nowhere
to be found; she was temporarily lost and with diminishing fuel supplies,
somewhere along the road between Sospel and L’Escarène. Unable to offer any more than my token concern
over the phone, all I could do was wait—and indulge myself in a few French
beers—until she eventually arrived.
Books by Mark
Krieger:
‘High Spain Drifter’ is available on Amazon , Barnes and Noble, Booktopia and other online bookstores.
Both books are also available at local bookshops on the Mornington Peninsula: @ Rosebud Bookbarn and @ La Brocante
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