The first garage that was open appeared to be staffed by the collective 'Chris Waddle' fan club- a group so dedicated that they had individually kept alive his mullet haircut from the late 80's/early 90's. A differing diagnosis was given by Chris's fan club and the landy was seemingly repaired with Gav still muttering words about pistons and sockets. Back on the road and back into the valleys passing some lovely villages which we wished we had time to visit. Just into the jaws of a huge tunnel the Landy went again, but this time no words were spoken, as we were both quite clearly terrified as juggernaut's flashed and beeped us. We were preparing to hit the tunnel walls (well not really preparing just thinking 'oh shit were going to hit the tunnel walls'). Gav managed to regain control and we literally staggered to the next turn off, attempting to locate another garage with the help of the friendly local police (who incidentally had a large moustache was mulletless and failed to recognise that we had no road tax). Eventually after reaching a mechanic he looked initially stunned at the prospect of dealing with a very strange looking ex MOD engine. However, as they were one mechanic down he offered to call another garage in the morning – for now we were stuck there for the night.
Things could have been a lot worse, beautiful scenery, (the local shop), the token church, token church spring water and a local bar which was populated entirely by people who did not realise that it was or would never be cool to dress up like a member of the village people. Some great moustaches (the bar incidentally reminded me of a very poor seventies porn set supposedly set in Mexico).
We awoke to a miserable morning weather wise (Gav rising first – a feat probably never to be repeated!!) and Landy wise. We set off with directions to another garage praying (not really) that the Landy would make it. A special thanks here to he mechanic who let us stay parked over night outside the garage, the coffees and general helpfulness no thanks for the 30 Francs bill though (we did however, leave him a few presents round the back of the place).
Back into the tunnel of death !! We made it to the next turn off in a fairly decent amount of time considering a convoy of 6 ice cream vans actually over took us. It took a while for us to locate the land Rover garage (after more helpful police directions – cue missing road tax again). The garage told us to go to the next garage down the road as they were 'too busy' and were 'a number of mechanics down'). The next place took a look at the Landy and told us it was 'basically f____ed' they would they claim, have normally helped us but they were missing 'three of our four mechanics'. It was obvious we were in the midst of an epidemic of mechanic flu. This time however, they gave us directions to Land Rover headquarters Switzerland, were we found Thomas – a genuinely nice guy who seemed concerned at our plight. Surprisingly he said that Land Rover were flat out but after a lot of phone calls on there part (Thomas actually) and a lot of begging and pleading on our part they agreed to look at it. But not until after the weekend.