So what do you do when you see a post on Facebook asking do you want to go to a huge event in the South of France?......... This weekend............casually say yeah ...ok! ... we'll do it ! ...or.....................?

Well thats what happened last Thursday and by Saturday we were in Montpellier after a mission of 22hours (it happens when you set off on a bank holiday ). Sensation group and Alliance Mag sent us down to pick up a system 2 and whilst we were there it would be a good oportunity to check out the action !

Tim needed us to pick up a system 2 cable unit that was being used at the event in Monpellier and bring it back to be tested at another event the following weekend in the TEN80 Wakepark in Tamworth. 3m would just about fit into the van and with a little rearranging it wouldnt be a problem (remember that bit )

We got the final go ahead on Friday morning at 10.30am and by 12noon the van was ready and well on on its way for a 6p.m. evening ferry .....what could go wrong !

Well it was BANK HOLIDAY..................... THATS WHAT! The traffic was horrendous and a journey that normally takes 4 ish hours to complete was only just finished at 7.30 p.m. a full 8 hours in the van !.......ouch

This now meant we wouldnt hit France until 11p.m. and with unloading and etc we wouldnt be back on the road until midnight with another 10 hours plus of driving ahead. Saturday was going to start at 10.30 so we had no leeway for anymore rests, or mistakes ..........mission !!!

Fortunately the roads in France are quite good ...once you have navigated around Paris and with a few cans of energy drinks (Monster left over from previous events and  a couple of new cans of Relentless) that would see the night drive fly by.

As the sun rose over the Millau viaduct we were still on target for arriving in Montpellier for 10.30am but only just. Finding somewhere to park would be the next problem especially near to the event site which happened to be in the centre of the city along the river and with Montpelliers one way system and diversions due to FISE this proved harder than anticipated. Eventually we stopped the van about 1/2 a mile away from the river and here it would stay for the weekend.

On the river was an amazing setup of activities ranging from wakeboarding (obviously) bmx, skateboard and inline, canoing, trade villages, have a go areas and the place was buzzin. Spaced over approx 1 mile of the river the crowds were massive and with the weather cracking the flags (it was only around 30 degrees) everyone was in a festival mood.

It was hard to get around everything especially as we had come down for a specific purpose. The event was massive on a couple of sites so rather than trying to explain what was happening check out some pics from the various disiplines we did manage to see.

The Sunday brought the dismantling of the system 2 and loading up of the van .... now remember that comment earlier on ? it would fit into the van problem no problem ...... well problem .....the length was 3.10 and not 3m with the width of the structure and the fittings of the van it meant that we would have to drive the 900+ miles back with the tailgate tied down and not fully closed. Again it was the end of a French Holiday so we managed a grand total of 92 miles in the first 4 hours oh .... finding somewhere quiet to pull up I suddenly realised that my bed was somewhere under the system 2, front seat it was thenwith one eye open as most of my camera gear was in the back and accessible to anyone who wanted to sneak inside the tailgate.

Would the ferry allow me on like that would customs pull us over, would be be stopped for being overloaded? Got to admit there was a sigh of relief when we drove past all the border controls not that we'd done anything illegal but i didnt want to have to empty the van to reload it again .... especially on my own ..... ;-)

So Tuesday morning we arrived at Ten80 in Tamworth after yet another mission of a total journey time of 36 hours. So with the van unloaded it became apparent just how much stuff there was in the back.

we will try and get back to Ten 80 in Tamworth for the Think Tank event next weekend

For a small gallery of images from Fise click here (coming soon)

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