Little mini-report, not many photos to do the place justice. Text taken from my blog.
Although the lack of posts may suggest otherwise, it has been a busy summer. Partly exploring, partly doing festivals, always partying. We recently had the honour of being invited to to this lovely sand mine near Paris for a party hosted by some of our French underground friends. The weekend previous a carload had joined us for a party in England, and seven days later three carloads of 'rosbifs' completed what was basically a jumped up French exchange. Didn't take loads of photos as it was a party, but here are a few.
Visited with a whole load of people.
A little bit of roughly translated history borrowed from The Franconian's report:
Seems it's about 30 millions years old, very clean and used for the production of glass and more. Partwise the sand is very fine, stored in layers of a few meters of height, some is fixed to something like rock and you also find bigger rocks of hard sandstone,rounded by the weather, stapled to hills with sand between. These are used for bouldering, high difficulty climbing in low height and risks.
Speed, Angelika and I kipped in Dover the night before, before picking up Idavoll, now with passport, at silly'o'clock and heading for the tunnel. After a while we made it to Paris, and annoying close to catas access picked up Bump. After a picnic at a Carrefore we made our way to the village, where we were soon joined by Chewbacca and our French friends from the weekend before. We made our way down to the crevasse outside the mine where we drank alcohols while we waited for everyone to show up.
Soon enough all the rosbifs arrived, with more Canadians, Belgians, French, a German and probably some other nationalities too. A while before a tour from Starbucks, Angelika and I nipped into the mine for half an hour for a few photos, using glowsticks to trace our route around what turned out to be a bigger mine than we thought.
These photos don't really do the place justice, nor the insane amount of sand that is down clear. The sand is clean, deep, and after a while a bit tiring to walk in. Despite having overalls on I still managed to fill everything - thank you Maniac.
At various places things were carved into the sand - a lighthouse, a woman, another woman...
It was a cracking night, and a fair few casualties were strewn around the pit the morning after. I for one had a really comfy night's sleep on the sand. Thanks again to Chewie for inviting us along, we will be back soon.
There was of course a large, full frontal, group page 3 shot. Not for here...
SJP
Although the lack of posts may suggest otherwise, it has been a busy summer. Partly exploring, partly doing festivals, always partying. We recently had the honour of being invited to to this lovely sand mine near Paris for a party hosted by some of our French underground friends. The weekend previous a carload had joined us for a party in England, and seven days later three carloads of 'rosbifs' completed what was basically a jumped up French exchange. Didn't take loads of photos as it was a party, but here are a few.
Visited with a whole load of people.
A little bit of roughly translated history borrowed from The Franconian's report:
Seems it's about 30 millions years old, very clean and used for the production of glass and more. Partwise the sand is very fine, stored in layers of a few meters of height, some is fixed to something like rock and you also find bigger rocks of hard sandstone,rounded by the weather, stapled to hills with sand between. These are used for bouldering, high difficulty climbing in low height and risks.
Speed, Angelika and I kipped in Dover the night before, before picking up Idavoll, now with passport, at silly'o'clock and heading for the tunnel. After a while we made it to Paris, and annoying close to catas access picked up Bump. After a picnic at a Carrefore we made our way to the village, where we were soon joined by Chewbacca and our French friends from the weekend before. We made our way down to the crevasse outside the mine where we drank alcohols while we waited for everyone to show up.
Soon enough all the rosbifs arrived, with more Canadians, Belgians, French, a German and probably some other nationalities too. A while before a tour from Starbucks, Angelika and I nipped into the mine for half an hour for a few photos, using glowsticks to trace our route around what turned out to be a bigger mine than we thought.
These photos don't really do the place justice, nor the insane amount of sand that is down clear. The sand is clean, deep, and after a while a bit tiring to walk in. Despite having overalls on I still managed to fill everything - thank you Maniac.
At various places things were carved into the sand - a lighthouse, a woman, another woman...
It was a cracking night, and a fair few casualties were strewn around the pit the morning after. I for one had a really comfy night's sleep on the sand. Thanks again to Chewie for inviting us along, we will be back soon.
There was of course a large, full frontal, group page 3 shot. Not for here...
SJP
