Today is AFL Grand Final Day. For the record, the match was played between Adelaide and Richmond, with Adelaide going in favourites to win their first Flag since 1998. I’ve always wanted to be a part of the AFL community abroad on Grand Final day so today that became a reality. The nearest place where there was a gathering of AFL fans was in Paris at Belushi's bar, only 550kms away. Because Emily was going to be there to represent us we thought the drive would be not necessary. Had it been Carlton or Essendon……. After trying in vain to find a PayTV channel that would play the game we conceded defeat and paid the EUR 22.00 to the AFL to watch the game.
The alarm rang at and 6:00am so up I got to fire up the computer and watch the Foxtel pre-game commentary. Didn’t see any of the pre-game entertainment at all. So the next 3hrs was spent watching Channel 7 coverage through Foxtel, Bruce McAvaney et al. After a good start by Adelaide they were eventually succumbed to the relentless Richmond pressure and went down by 48 points – a result that surprised even the most one-eyed Tiger supporters, like Kevin Bartlett.
Directly after the presentations the relay ended, so having already had breakfast during half time, we went back to bed for a couple of hours kip, happy in the knowledge that the Cup was going to spend another twelve months in Victoria. Congratulations to all my Richmond readers and commiserations to all my Adelaide readers.
By the time we got going again it was 1:00pm. We fetched the car and headed to the town of Audrix, about 38kms away. This part of France sits upon quite extensive limestone deposits and near the town of Audrix is a huge underground cavern – the Gouffre de Proumeyssac. We entered the cavern via an elevator that passed through a small opening on the forest floor, the same way the original tourists did more than 150 years ago. We enjoyed a spectacular descent, giving a unique perspective on the structures attached to the cavern floor 50 metres below and the stalactites clinging to the ceiling and walls.
A guided tour started once we reached the floor where we joined others who had entered via a man-made tunnel. Two interesting facets of the tour, one natural and one man-made. In one small pool perfect isosceles triangle-shaped formations had grown over the years. Near the main large pools in the middle of the cavern sat numerous tables of pottery in the direct line of fire of the constantly dripping stalactites above. Over many months the pieces become naturally calcified. The tour was interesting but it turned out be not the one I had intended to visit. We went to the wring cavern! We’ll see if we get to the other one next week.
After Audrix we motored on to the town of Souillac about 25kms East of Sarlat. We has passed through this town on Thursday and Kerry was keen to go back to check it out. Well, it was Saturday afternoon and the town was asleep. Nothing going on at all. We wandered aimlessly around the lanes, found an open bar for a beer and a Perrier, an open chruch and that was about all. By now it was about 6:00pm so we turned for home, catching glimpses of the Dordogne River as we went.
We we arrived back in Sarlat we parked the car in the secret “residents-only free car-park” and went straight home to continued consuming our green cheese and foie gras pâté feast and watch to Grand Fina replay. The Tiges won again!
They're good those Tigers - winning twice in one day!!
ReplyDeleteThe cavern sounds very good - imagine how good the one you intended to see will be!
That town looks totally deserted - where was everyone? Surely not all home watching the replay?? Didn't know AFL was that big over there! Any idea how the isosceles triangle formations came about? Intriguing.
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