Day Five
Melissa and her dad are also on the trip, they too are father and daughter and a similar age to us. Their chariot is a bit different to ours, a 1.4 Megane convertible called Rosie but they have a much nicer tent, and BEDS. At the end of today they are chatting to us over dinner.
“I’ve discovered,” says Melissa’s dad afer our first experience of Swiss passes, “that I am not a good passenger. Are you managing OK?” he continues.
“Do you know a guy called Neil?” I reply “I remember a lap of Oulton Park with him where he demonstrated that the car woudn’t turn in because we were going too fast, and he was right – we were going too fast. I think that sort of thing desensitises you.”
“Oh.” Says Melissa’s dad, with a look in his eyes that makes me suspect he wishes he hadn’t asked.
“Does your dad keep telling you to slow down?” asks Melissa, causing an AUDIBLE eye roll from my daughter and allowing her to recount what had happened earlier.
What happened earlier.
We’d started the day with a convoy from the campsite to Lucerne and a very cool transport museum where Marko and Gaelic Bryan have arranged for us to arrive (and exit) via the giftshop. In our cars…
But this afternoon is the start of the main events with the Grimsel and Nufenen Passes. The sun is coming out, the roof went down (and stayed down) and once we started to climb the traffic thinned and we started making progress. Before we left the UK we fitted the best brakes I can find , with the roof down visibility is excellent. The little Mazda is coming back into its element.
“Are you happy driving on the passes?” I ask Mil.
“Yeah, but keep giving me feedback,” she genuinely says. I’d done a bike course last year and was just doing what the instructor on that did, if the instructor was Michael Caine and it was 1969.
“Right stay wide let’s have a look and see if there’s anything coming.” I say as we approach the first of many hairpins, “Great road’s clear, don’t turn in until I say, keep your foot down, keep your foot down, why are you braking. Right off the brakes and power power power.”
We make the whip crack noise as the poor little Mazda gives us its all pulling us up the hills, second gear the whole way, foot buried in the carpet, don’t think about the drops.
Whilst we certainly can’t do power overtakes, we carry a LOT of speed through corners and take up very little road space. Which helps. What also helps is pop-up headlights, which the co-driver can operate too.We look adorable in it, no-one can get angry with the tiny MX5, even when we beep-beep the horn to let them know we are going past. Whether they like it or not.
Scenery really pretty. Campsite also fine. Saw some Lotuses. The splittie caught up. Magnificent effort.
I give today 4.5 stars. And that’s only because I know what’s coming tomorrow.
