Day 2 on the mountains Mt Jafferau to Argentiera

A wonderful sunny dawn at the fort and a leisurely start of the day with hot water for our tea from Mike's Kelley Kettle (I've fancied one, but they are quite bulky), and we made our way back down Mt Jafferau being treated to excellent views all the way.

We've got the packing up down to about 20 minutes even including the awning so we're good to go when our leaders are ready, something I think they were concerned about when they saw it.

We went back the way we came up and Katy behaved as well downhill as she had going up, for control a mix of 3^rd, 2^nd and 1^st gears were used with very little use of the brakes other than stopping for the obligatory three point turns. Mike asked us to stop at one location to check the CB aerial which was coming loose having been battered by the trees. A good lesson for when we get our own in thinking carefully about where we fit it, and we collected some more wood whilst we could (that Tombraider is starting to look like a real working Land Rover). 

As we came down we were treated to some superb views though

We then made our way across to Claviere via the highways which involved a steep uphill section and a lesson on different gearing as we were going at a speed that had me changing between 2nd and 3rd all the way and we had to take a quick stop for Katy to cool down before turning off and taking to a set of really nice woodland tracks with a lakeside stop for lunch. In the tunnels it was noted one of our headlights was dim so we need to check on that later. 

Even though the track became a little dusty at times we could still see Chris and Gillian's Land Cruiser following German Mike's Series III

But finally a stop for lunch

From Claviere we made our way to the Argentiera valley which is a long gentle run up in the main as can be determined by the number of road cars making it a good distance, eventually it thinned out and we past the last few cars (the final being the obligatory fiat panda 4x4 which get everywhere)

finally we headed up into open space and our wonderful camp-site at the head of the valley near a wonderful waterfall, looking back from the end of the trip this was my favourite campsite of the ones we used.

As we arrived early we spent ½ an hour sorting and cleaning to remove as much dust as possible and also put things in better places for storage before Rhian cooked us a wonderful pasta bolognaise supper.

Here you can see Mike and Mandy's Oz tent. I was quite interested to see how they work and how fast they are to put up. I can see that the basic tent is quick nut the awning takes time and even when packed they are very bulky so it does depend on what you want as to whether they are good for you

Here's the view from our front door from that campsite

Whilst out strolling Rhian spotted this wonderful Apollo Butterfly 

And it really didn't matter which Land Rover you put into your pictures they seemed somehow to look in place and picturesque

Another 49k (30 Miles) of non tarmac roads and some more experience in overland driving. I now feel comfortable in most up and downhill situations as long as there is room to manoeuvre. 

What more have we learned

1. We should have closed the vents to keep (some of) the  dust out
2. We need to think about dust proofing the bedding storage
3. We attract a lot of waves and smiles – that’s always good J
4. We need to fit spot lights and fog lights. It will give us more options if we have a lighting failure
5. Chris explained how his second fan was fitted on the outside of his radiator / intercooler and controlled by a manual switch and with a gauge inside so he could decide when to put it on and control it as needed – sounds a good idea
6. We nearly lost the top of the CB because of the trees so need to think of better fitting when we buy one

Damage / Problems so far

1. Katy’s right headlamp and sidelight are dim. Probably an electrical poor connection  I need to sort out before we head home