Day 1 on the mountains Salbertrand to Mt Jafferau

I made a check of all the fluids before we set off and all were fine. German Mike lent us a spare plug in CB so we could be in contact and we fitted the aerial on the roof.

A trip to the supermarket and we were off. The convoy was formed as follows

1. German Mike in his Series III soft top which was also his accommodation
2. Chris and Gillian in their excellently specced out Land Cruiser
3. Us in Katy
4. Mike and Mandy in their Tomb Raider 90  and their Oz tent

I was very nervous as to how Katy would cope with the steep tracks to come. Mike advised 2^nd gear, Low Ratio and difflock for the loose stuff, avoid having to change gear when on anything steep. All of that was good advice so we took it.

Up the steep hills and into the trees where we made our 1^st stop for wood for the camp fire, which was duly loaded on top of the Tombraider 90

On to our next stop for mountain spring water where we filled up the new carrier we had from GO Outdoors. I stowed it carefully in the back, but about  2 minutes later there was a call on the CB, "Andy you are leaking water" and the carrier had split. We eptied what was left so as not to get our gear soaking and checked what we had on board. It was about 10 litres anyway so we continued.

By this time we had done a lot of climbing and the tracks were levelling out and we were making it into 3^rd gear (low) on the flatter sections.

Through some more woodlands we found our first problem with Katy that she was larger than most of the vehicles that come up here and therefore was collecting branches from trees as we went which did the awning rail no good at all and I had to bend it back into shape to user it this evening.

The tracks levelled off in places and we got into 3^rd gear before arriving at the first fort of the day. Spectacular cliffs and a superb place for lunch.

On the top of the Rochers de l'Aigle it became more lunar in nature and we made our way carefully up to the ridge

We then headed up to the summit of Mount Jafferau which was about 9200 ft (about 3000m) and took a look at some more forts at the summit where I saw Mike put rocks under each wheel despite us being parked on the level. His reason seemed sensible “I don’t trust Land Rovers”

The views from there were superb and we spent quite a few minutes looking around and down on the tracks we had already followed

Before retuning to our small convoy of vehicles which were just as we'd left them with the rocks still in place

From there it was a simple descent to get a chance of the wonderful Edelweiss flowers which are now quite rare in the mountains

Below the summit there was another large fort with many windows with excellent views and there was a superb silver Unimog/caravan combo parked up which we duly admired. 

Finally we headed back down to our final fort of the day for tea and camp fire chat. I was quite surprised when we got a map and were able to check out the distance we had covered this first day.

All in all a really good day I was shattered, but exhilarated , about 50km (30 Miles) off tarmac roads in total according to my measurements.

What have we learned so far.

1. Katy is very capable off road
2. She does roll a bit and is not as good as shorter vehicles at going around corners (as expected)
3. The Anti Roll Bar and suspension upgrade was worth every penny
4. You use a lot less fuel than I had thought the gauge is showing full at the end of the full days driving 
5. Even more needs to be tied down than we thought. The jar of honey made a bid for freedom and we nearly had a very messy bed
6. Looking at Chris’s Land Cruiser with 2 spare wheels makes me think I really should have brought both of ours. It’s no use to us at home if we’d had a problem. We'd been warned about weight, but weight on important things is not wasted 
7. Learn from Mike and don't trust Land Rover brakes

Damage / Problems so far

1. We bent the awning rail coming through the woods- it needs to be put on properly some time
2. Nesting USB and other devices in a single charger socket didn’t work as we had devices that needed more power. We need more proper connections
3. Don’t buy cheap water carriers in GO Outdoors they split and you lose all the water you have carefully collected