Marseille - Barcelona (607km)
Saturday 7th December
(Stage 7)

Rallye mail

Rallye Sud has the luxury of an open ended schedule, we are not bound to a fixed timetable, like virtually everything is in the busy, modern world. Our original plan, to be at Victoria Falls for New Year, now looks unlikely but it would be a shame to have to rush to meet some arbitary deadline.

On the 7th December 2002 we drove through France and into Spain

(07:00) the Rallyists left Marseille (14C cloudy) driving through the Bouches du Rhone, through the Roman town of Arles and across the magnificent river Rhone and skirting the Carmargue to...

(08:45 130km) Nimes, the Roman City of the Petite Carmargue before taking the south western route to.....

(09:15 52km) Montpellier, we continued south west under Road Rallye rules ...

(Rallying is often done these days off-road with fastest time - highest points scoring. This section of the Rallye Sud was run under Classic Road Rallye rules where all laws and by-laws are respected and speed limits, traffic controls and other official instructions are all obeyed. The scoring is based on the accuracy of the arrival time (and departure) against a pre-set, and agreed time(s) for each section of the stage.)

We continued through Beziers, capital of the Languedoc vineyards, following the Mediterranian coast to

(10:45 105km) Narbonne where we had a stop for Elevenses (English coffee). After our rest stop we followed the coast, now southward to

(11:45 65km) Perpignan, we here the rallye picked up the road to

(12:15 40km) Port Vendres and followed the beautiful winding coastal road through Cerbere and across the border into Spain to Portbou and then to

(13:00 20km) Colera 20km for a special lunch. We set off at 14:00 following the main road away from the coast to

(14:45 60km) Girona then continuing southward to pick up the coast road again at

(15:45 70km) Tossa de Mar we stop for tea and then took the final section into the second City of Spain (our starting point, Marseille, being the second City of France)

(17:30 80km) Barcelona - All teams arriving safe and sound, most having very good times.......