Rod at Rare Adventurers

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Rod at Rare Adventurers

Now that I’m technically retired I decided to make a start with a blog

For years my friends said I should write a book about my adventures as perfectly normal situations seem to spiral out of control without much warning or explanation.

31/08/2026

So after a summer of drought and missed camping opportunities, we finally managed to get ourselves organised to go away in the camper for the weekend, heading to darkest Cornwall for a music festival in a field with our chums Tony and Tans in their posh camper. Claire only agreed to come on condition she could sleep in their camper.

The drought came to an abrupt end on the way down and by the time we arrived at the site it was gales force winds and rain, plans for outdoor dining was abandoned as we headed for cover in local farm shop, and then back to the posh van for pre party drinks, so far so good apart from having to intervene to help a mum and her son erect a tent in a storm that threatened to blow them and their tent off the cliff.

We then had a great night out with lots of fun and vigorous dancing in the field and it didn’t even rain.

Things then took a turn for the worse, Claire woke up the next day in pain with a DANCING injury, her whole knee had swollen up and she was in a lot of pain, luckily it wasn’t in my van or she would have blamed me. We decided the best option was to abandon the camping and head back to Bristol as it was hurting so much. Tony and Tans moved on to Padstow so we packed up the van and headed north.

Then the s**t really hit the fan, as soon as we go on the A30, there was a metallic grumbling noise, the smell of burning in the van and a serious wheel wobble, one of the wheel bearings had seized up, a wheel bearing that I had only had replaced 6 weeks ago as pre-emptive maintenance – how can this happen !

Now we were the lap of the Gods, or rather, the AA who are absolutely terrible, and you just know that hell is on it’s way.

Luckily, the van limped to a layby so we were safe, which meant the AA left us there for 6 hours, it took 4 hours for the bloke in the van to turn up to do the assessment (mainly because the AA had sent him to the wrong place) and then another 2 hours for the transporter to turn up, then 3 hours to get loaded and back to Bristol.

Can’t wait till next year !

17/08/2026

A little stop over at the end of the summer’s French adventures, at a place most people bypass which is a bit of a shame.

Calais has a really nice beach and fabulous seafood restaurants, so a nice b**r on the beach watching a band was just the tonic after an 8 hour drive to get here.

It’s been a great summer with friends visiting but the heat in the Alps has been hard work at times.

Riding up on the mountains on the trails it has been a lot better, a few spills and injuries this year with Frank and Chris getting injured, and I smashed my ribs on Friday so trip home hasn’t been too comfortable, but lots of b**r and fun to compensate

Time to plan our next adventure.

13/08/2026

Today was the big event of the week, the cable car up, the Aiguille Telecabin to one of the peaks on Mt Blanc to 3800m.

Things started well enough. We got there within an hour to spare part the car sat had a lovely cup of coffee and joined our slot in the queue bang on time.

Unfortunately, when we put our ticket against the final gate, it turned out there have been a booking glitch and for some reason they thought we should be going up on the gondola on the 19th of August not the 12th.

There were no options for refunds or transfers so how to get in the queue and buy two more tickets with our gondola schedule time being 3pm rather than 1115pm.

So four hours to kill in Chamonix, a nice lunch, a wander through very pretty streets and a bit of memory lane, remembering when we used to go there snowboarding back in the day.

Finally, 3 pm arrived and we started queueing, and to be honest we didn’t stop queueing until we returned to the bottom at 6pm - the whole excursion is just queueing up either for a gondola or to have your photo taken.

To make matters worse in the morning the peak was clearly visible but by the time we got there it was covered in cloud.

That’s not to take anything away from the magnificent views, and also to wonder the ingenuity of mankind to build such a huge structure on the peak of a mountain.

So we’ve now done the famous gondola, looked across to Switzerland and Italy, marvelled at the engineering and have really nice day in Chamonix.

12/08/2026

Today’s adventure took us on a long tour through the mountains to discover the source of one of the best money
making schemes ever - bottling the free water heading towards Lake Geneva and selling it all over the world for a massive fortune - what a brilliant scam

Anyway it was a beautiful
drive to get there. Evian itself run along the banks of Lake Geneva with views across to Lausanne in Switzerland.

The water in the lake is crystal clear, really quite amazing and the super rich had their speed boats.

Nice place to chill and have a cup of coffee, wander down the high street do Claire could do dine window shopping, then home after an ice cream.

Very pleasant and uneventful and Claire was very happy after refusing my offer to rent a speed boat and cross the lake to Switzerland

11/08/2026

After the roller coaster of Frank and his misadventures, I managed to sneak in a couple of good bike rides before Claire arrived and bought calm to the world.

So this is Claire’s first summer holiday to the Alps so I have to be on good behaviour

First day was a walk, we got the lift up to 1700m and planned a nice little walk to the next village 1600m lower - so all down hill.

Not quite - what I hadn’t allowed for was steep drops and steep climbs in between the two points - so by the time we had walked the 5K to the next village we had actually dropped 800 m and climbed 700m !

Anyway, a flat walk back along the Valley gave us a 14km loop, not the gentle stroll I had promised so time to head to the bar, not sure if I’ve lost House points or not, but we won’t be going for a walk tomorrow I suspect

09/08/2026

Took me eight years to persuade one of my best mates, Frank, that he should come mountain biking in the Alps, and finally this year he relented.

Things did not start too well last Monday when I arrived and was caught in a huge thunder and lightning storm that shut down the entire train system in South West France and left me stranded with a £70 taxi bill.

But when Frank arrived the next day things got significantly worse, the region had another huge lightening storm, so EasyJet took him on a tour of the airports in South West France, because they couldn’t land at Geneva. They took him firstly to Nice and then they flew him back and dropped him in Lyon at midnight.

By the time they transferred him back to Geneva by Bus, it was 5:15 am, 10 hours late.

So, after only a couple of hours kip, we decided to skip mountain biking for the day and go for a walk in Cirque Cheval, an amazing canyon with waterfalls everywhere. Unfortunately, the storm from the night before had caused the floods down through the valley and surge had washed the roads away and it was all closed, in fact, even worse people had been killed. So we curtailed our walk and went to the bar.

Next day, we headed off to Avoriaz to show Frank around the spectacular scenery before doing the fantastic bike trails. In fact, Frank never got to see the fantastic bike trails because on the rundown one of the link paths he hit a rock and flew over the handlebars and broke his wrist.

Yesterday was Frank’s last day and he decided it was safer to sit at our pad and watch the Indiana Jones Trilogy rather than going on my next plan activity, which was understandable.

So it’s not only me that has these misadventures it rubs off from my friends as well but we still had a great time and lots of b**r !

As often say what’s the worst thing that could happen?

17/07/2026

A quick video of the high performance cars at Blarney Castle as part of the OTR Atlantic Wild Coast run through Ireland

14/07/2026

So that’s a wrap - we finished our adventure in Ireland with the On The Road guys who have organised a great trip. Great job Richard and Kevin car tours

Our last run was from just outside Cork back to Dublin before saying goodbye to eclectic mix of friends and their cars who have been our travelling companions for the last 7 days.

First up a visit to Blarney Castle where I submitted myself to the bizarre ritual of kissing Blarney Stone, so you will be pleased to know I will now inherit the gift of the gab.

Then it was a 200 miles back to
Dublin via the Sally Gap, a wild mountain range on the edge of Dublin.

After the ferry ride it’s Holyhead back to Bristol tonight - then a couple of days rest - oh but England are in the semi final tomorrow night - that should be emotional.

13/07/2026

Another super day on the road as we gobbled up more miles to reach the south coast of Ireland and more spectacular scenery.

This was the longest day with 280 miles to cover and after a late night supporting England it took a while to get going !

Spectacular bits were the Ring of Berra which took us through a beautiful and rugged lake area and then later over the spectacular Healy Pass over the mountains.

Lots of sheep and pretty towns and villages along the way

12/07/2026

Another fabulous day racing around the roads of Ireland

Beautiful scenery, great company and great fun.

We ended up at the Abby Glen Castle Hotel which is absolutely fantastic and we were lucky enough to get the best suite with a balcony overlooking history.

Fantastic dinner with a singing singing Chef and then Irish rendition Bohemian Rhapsody from the owner.

Then is on to watch the England game and things started to unravel a bit and the baby Guinnesses didn’t help but I had to keep my promise that if we won, I’d jump in the fountain. - so at 1 am, I did

Address

Maysfield Close
Portishead
BS206RL

Website

http://Www.rareadventures.uk/, http://www.rarefutures.com/

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