Big birthday for me this year so always had the plan for another big road trip with friends and I knew where we'd head .. the Austrian alps & the Dolomites in Northern Italy ( an area i'd done a previous trip to and loved )
So with a route planned and hotels booked we headed off, 2 groups either to Hull or to the Tunnel, with the aim of meeting up for beers at the first hotel in Germany.
Day1 …
Weather looking good as we approach Rotterdam
For me and 6 other cars , we were off the ferry in Rotterdam with an expected 455 mile / 7.5 hr drive to get down to Ulm , just south of Stuttgart. We always start these days with confidence which gets slowly eroded away the minute WAZE starts flagging up 20 min traffic delays at various points along your route ! I'm not sure whats going on in Germany with the roads, but traffic was a nightmare with roadworks etc everywhere. This was before we even saw the fuel prices ! 2.4 euros a Ltr !
This long run is what it is , but we had walkie talkies to keep ourselves entertained along with stretches of autobahn to mess with. Plenty of old man stops and the journey was ok. It was all going well until just north of Stuttgart when we had our first mechanical of the trip …
An enthusiastic gear change and the thing got stuck in 4th … luckily Adam being able to cruise into the next parking area.
With a bit of help from Mike Bainbridge on the phone along with JohnM knowing gearboxes we managed to diagnose the problem but couldn't repair roadside. Decision was made to get Adams car recovered to the local Porsche dealership so he stayed with his car and another one of our group followed him along whist the rest of us headed off for the remaining 2.5 hrs drive to the hotel .. with us arriving at 8:30 pm ... just over 12 hrs on the road !
... yet , being greeted by the rest of the group, who'd travelled via the tunnel and already a few beers in ,made it worth it ... along with one of our group who had cheated and flown into Germany & turned up to the hotel in an Audi TT convertible.
Adam finally turned up with out car at 10:10pm, propely p155ed off . We were hoping a few beers and banter would lift his spirits .. either way, now was teh start of the holiday
As part of the tunnel crew, I took one single photo of the journey down.
Outside my house
We caught the 7.20 train which meant a really early start. One of the group set off from the midlands at 2 am!!!
We all arrived a bit battered and ragged after between 12 & 15 hours travel. Beers quickly ordered and the ferry crew turned up a bit later… sensible people would have got some sleep. Happily, we’re not, so a good number of beers, banter & catch up meant we all went to bed late too
As a fellow tunneller with Rich we took the (maybe unwise!) call to stay in Ashford Thursday night. Having avoided a stabbing and peeling ourselves off the sticky chairs in the pub we got set for an early start Friday.
With a few minutes we were at the tunnel and joined by JP and Mark
On the tube:
Second tank in:
And arrived tired but happy at the hotel ready for the big adventure
Day 1 sure was a boring slog along Belgian roads..Germany improved matters somewhat..too many road works but tons of sunshine..sobering calculation at first fuel top up we me having achieved a mighty impressive 17.1 mpg….!..motorway cruising…. ..with 2,000 miles to go and the odd hill along the way this was going to be thirsty
1974 2.7 Carrera
(full restoration. now as an RS Touring)
1963 3.8 E Type
( 11 years in the making…………………….)
1952. XK120…the next one ……….……..)
Woke up to a beautiful day …. Except it was 6:45 as the local workman decided that was the time to start using his mini digger up and down the village followed by the traditional 7am village clock chiming for a solid few minutes .. not that it mattered as today we had a good run from Ulm in Germany all the way to Kaprun ( Zell am See ) in Austria going the cross country route through some stunning scenery.
Before that though, the previous day we had had another mechanical.. Boydy had lost an exhaust tip as we entered the village but over a beer the night before had found out the guy across the road had a welder to repair the clamp
Everyday we stuck to the same timings of leaving the hotel at 9:30am as each days route was approx 6 hrs driving
Although, this morning not everyone headed off in the same direction. Jason managed to talk adam into getting a hire car and driving the rest of the weeks routes in that , so off they went with the aim of meeting us a bit later that morning .
A bit further down the road we all stopped to meet up, and what do we see .. 2 black Audi convertibles flying into the car park ..with a big grin on Adams face as he had an A5 and it turned out both Jason's TT & Adams A5 were still on winter tyres on what was begining to be 20+ deg temps
..with 2,000 miles to go and the odd hill along the way this was going to be thirsty
