Custers Last Stand

The Battle of Little Bighorn went down in American history as a struggle against the odds. The heavily outnumbered 7th Cavalry surrounded by Cheyenne, Lakota and Arapahoe. Alas as everyone knows, it didn't end well for General Custer. 

We had also been having our battle against the odds, getting our partly incapacitated van back from Copenhagen. Like Custer too, we ended the day surrounded by cowboys and Indians. 

We had made it to a campsite near Brugge. Barely 40 miles from the Dunkirk ferry terminal and (relative) safety. We have recovery in the UK through the previously reliable Green Flag. 

We had started the day back in Germany, 360 miles from our intended target of Ghent. A long drive but not impossible and we were on our way by 8. 

The campsite had obviously seen I had something about me. I was honoured that they recognised it on my bill. Nice camp site too. A deer enclosure (or were they German elk?) and some young peacocks. We had had a pleasant evening sat around the fire, pleased to be back in contention and watching the many bats hunting. It was getting dark too ! I'd really missed the dark strangely.  

Jezebel was running well. Comparatively well I should say. A little bit lumpy but still able to cruise at 60 or 70 on the motorway as we gradually ate away at those miles. 

Just as we reached Ghent we were diverted by John. The campsite was hosting some enormous gig and was jam packed with raucous, drunken teenagers. So, Brugge was the next choice. Camping Klein Strand ticked most of the boxes, including having vacancies. We splashed out on a cabin for our last night. 

A trip to the supermarket caused some concern. Jezebel was coughing and spluttering as we arrived. I was just thinking how cruel this was, to get us over 600 miles of the 652 from Copenhagen, only for her to have a relapse. 10 minutes rest and a little oil and she was fine though. Phew !

So, the last Windy night together. A Wild West Themed night. 

Some impressive costumes, some less so. Group photos, a bit of reminiscing, plenty of wine and beer and certificates for all who made it around. I was hugely pleased to get one of these myself. 

The frivolities went on until late in to the night. 

It was sad and emotional that it was all coming to an end. The group had been brilliant. A close knit team who had come together to help each other out when needed but all capable of working, thinking and travelling independently. Many great characters and people who I would now class as good friends. Best of all, every single person I spoke to during the evening has expressed a desire to come along on the next adventure, no matter where it might be. 

So, you ask, what are the plans for next time ? Well, I need to get home, unpack, water the garden and chill out for 5 minutes at least. There are a number of ideas being floated. We shall have to see where these lead, but it looks very likely that there will be some sort of Windy main event next year. A very good chance of some smaller events too. Windy mystery camping weekends anyone ? 

I hope you have enjoyed the blog. It's been a great adventure, again. I have enjoyed the vast majority. Even the stressful bits can be looked back on with some amusement afterwards. 

There is still so much more to see and do in Europe, still many, many fantastic roads to drive. There are oodles of possibilities, sights to see, cities, towns, natural attractions. I'm certain I could come up with another great adventure or two. How firm are the boundaries of Europe ? Perhaps we shall find out soon. The group has had a fresh injection of participants this time but there is always room for more. We have had team members ranging from 6 to 67. We had some members older than that last year. What is stopping you ?

If you think you might like to be kept informed of future trips we are organising, please drop us a line. windy500@hotmail.com and we shall keep you updated. The Windy 500 Facebook page also has many, many pictures and comments from this years trip. 

So, as we sit in the queue for the ferry back to Blighty, I'm going to sign off for now. Until the next adventure is in the planning stage anyway...

Thanks for reading, it's been a blast. 

Spooky

The End of the Road ?

We have had some amazing views over the last 2 weeks or so. Stunning natural beauty and even some superb man-made sights. Places that it really was a pleasure to get the chairs out and gaze at the view for a moment, enjoying a bite to eat and contemplating life.... However this wasn't one of those views. I guess as housing estates go, I've seen worse. Addis Ababa for example. The rough end of Serbia. The slums of Bangalore in India. We had definitely seen nicer parts of Copenhagen though and after 4 hours the appeal of this particular street was wearing thin. Time for another terse call to the 'recovery firm' who were so far failing to live up to their name. I amused myself on their company Facebook page letting them know what I thought of their service. 

Jezebel had started the morning sounding like a 40-a-day smoker and a few miles further on sounded like she had a terminal case of pneumonia. I had tried fiddling and cleaning the spark plugs. She still wasn't playing ball. 

Well, I guess nothing for it but call for some roadside assistance. At least it wasn't raining. 

The thunderstorm and torrential rain was quite a sight. 

Well, I'm sure it would have been. We somehow managed to amuse young Lucas in between the infuriating calls to Drive 24/7. 

Finally a Danish mechanic showed up. Danes struggle with some English words and sounds. 'V' causes them some issues. I made him repeat 'valve' a few times, mainly for my own amusement. It had taken him a little while to diagnose this as being the problem, he had even called for a colleague. I'm not sure if the colleague was more knowledgeable about VW engines or just better at pronouncing 'valve' but he did more of the talking once the diagnosis was made. 

So, Jezebel needed to be taken to a garage. I wondered briefly if it was going to be Mike from Marsh Road Garage. It wasn't. 

We had a budget of £40 a head for a hotel for the night, according to Drive 24/7. We've looked it up since, their policy says £50 a head. The recovery driver dropped us off at a hotel he recommended, the Scandia. Their cheapest option was a suite for 5 for £260. I think we shall be quibbling this with Drive 24/7. 

The garage, so we were told, started work at 6-30, they had been told what the issue was and would be on it first thing. Meanwhile, the rest of the teams were 3 hours ahead near the German border. 

I phoned the garage at 7-30. No answer. Or at 8. At 8-30 I was told they were just about to look at it. At 9-30 I was told again they were just about to look at it. I set off to walk to the garage, about 4 miles away. I called the garage again and got a stroppy reply that they would call me when it was fixed. 

On arrival the van had at least moved. The mechanic spoke pretty good English, including 'valve', much to my disappointment. Not good news though. The engine needed to be taken out, it was going to take a long time, the garage was shutting for the weekend in under 2 hours and they couldn't start it until Monday. 

Back to Drive 24/7 to give them the good news. Their offer was to fly me back to Copenhagen some time next week once she was fixed. I pointed out this would probably require 3 days that I didn't have. I would prefer recovery as they state in their paperwork. 652 miles to Dunkirk. This would apparently cost more than their upper limit on cost per breakdown. They might consider this if we paid a share of the costs.... So, for £1000 they would dump us on a ferry 200 miles from home.... I questioned why they called themselves a European Recovery operation if they couldn't recover vehicles from Europe. 

I took some advice from the mechanic. Is she able to run ? What damage can be caused if I did ? Do we know exactly what the problem was ? What is that Swedish make of car over there ? (Well I had to check to see how he pronounced 'Volvo'). I even took some advice from Jason who had sold me Jezebel in the first place. 

So, she can run on 3 cylinders. She won't be healthy. You'll need to check the oil regularly (where is Sean when I need him ?) and it's possible you mighty do more harm to the engine. Well, I think she's been running on 3 cylinders for a fair bit of the trip...

A quick call to Drive 24/7. If we set off driving without the repair, would we be covered ? Bearing in mind at the very least there would be less miles to recover us and just possibly no recovery costs at all if we did somehow make it back on 3 cylinders to England. No. They weren't interested. They would not assist if we broke down again between Copenhagen and home. 

Call me wild and reckless if you like, I'm usually up for a challenge. An 800 mile run for home on 3 cylinders, with no recovery back up (well, let's face it, we didn't have much support from them before). Sod it, let's do it. To hell with Drive 24/7. I screwed the two missing spark plugs back in, fired her up and drove her out of the yard. 

Strangely she was running as smoothly as she had in days. Jo wanted to drive as we took the route with the lowest mileage  and ran down to Rodby for the ferry to Germany. 

So, 537 miles to Dunkirk. We are avoiding hills (easily done in Denmark and Holland) and we are riding our luck. Will we make it ? I shall let you know in the next blog. 

The Bridge to Nowhere

The Oresund Bridge was opened 14 years ago to connect the cities of Copenhagen and Malmo. Truly an amazing feat of engineering. It is 7.8 km long as it crosses from Sweden to the newly created Island of Peberholm. Here, the road does something amazing. It just vanishes. 

I had led the Windy convoy through the toll booths, negotiating hard in my fluent Swedish. Ok, the Swedish guy wanted to practice his already perfect English, so I let him. With my 10 trip discount ticket secured, the rest of the rabble followed me through like a bunch of jostling school children. 

As we approached the Island of Peberholm, I was beginning to wonder if the ticket I had bought was such good value any more. Bravely I let some of the more eager teams to overtake. Peberholm didn't hold much of a draw to be honest. Limited history, zero population, not even a parking space. 

Thankfully, I didn't have to explain to the others that we had been fiddled. The road disappears under ground and then under the sea to reach Denmark. An interesting bridge/tunnel combination. 

Having arrived in Copenhagen, all following our own brand of Pratt Nav, the group bomb burst. 10 different variations of how to get to the same camp site 10 miles away. Of course, ours was scouring the area for Albanian Goat Tracks. Luckily few and far between in Central Copenhagen. 

Camping Bellahoj is relatively convenient for seeing the city. I'm afraid any other descriptions of the place are going to be less favourable. It looks like some playing fields next to a housing estate. The corregated iron toilet block resembled a sheep shearing shed. Still, there was plenty of space. Lucas was able to drag as many teams as he liked in to a game of football. 

It seemed we didn't have a single kroner between us. Well, maybe some Swedish and Norwegian but not Danish. Thankfully the camp site is equipped to deal with such eventualities. I managed to purchase a large handful of bus tickets to get us in to the centre. 

Tivoli Gardens, a World renowned attraction. More amusement park than gardens, but they do have plants and ponds. Lucas was happy with the rides. My wallet, less so. Jo took him on the Goldmine ride and managed to break it so got some bonus tickets given to her.

Eileen dragged me kicking and screaming in to the man crèche and made me drink a small beer. 

Most of us linked up for dinner. Hercegovina found us space for 25 and we were entertained by some live Gypsy music. A bit of a shame our Tarmaccers had accidentally ordered food elsewhere, they probably would have enjoyed it. All you could eat buffet, a Bosnian style restaurant in Denmark with Romany style band playing American tunes. Never did Elvis Presley on the accordion sound so good. 

Lucas was strangely able to persuade a good number of normally (relatively) sensible adults to try break dancing to gypsy music on a stage in the restaurant. We said a fond farewell to our Spanish contingent, Raquel, who flies to Madrid tomorrow. I hope we shall see her on a future Windy 500. 

The Tarmaccers

It's a well known fact that Scandinavians in general speak excellent English. Most are fluent by the time they leave school. Having been brought up on a diet of ABBA songs and Volvo adverts (all in English of course), your average Swede will have little choice but to learn to speak English (albeit with a jolly, sing-song accent that we all love). However, both ABBA and the Volvo advertisers only use a very plummy sort of English accent. Once your poor Swede is faced with any sort of regional accent, they are stuffed. Next time you meet a Swede, just try singing a Wurzels song to them. I have done, they just look bemused. Be it a West Country accent, cockney, Scouse or Irish, it's bound to confuse. 

So, when two rough looking geezers, a bit dishevelled from a week or two on the road, pitch up in a white van at your camp site and tell you that there are 9 other similar groups turning up soon, I'm guessing if you couldn't tell a Dorset accent from an Irish traveller accent, you might be a little apprehensive. Team George, searching for a place to stay rather than a place to tarmac. 

I still think the 'No English Groups' rule that Aspen Camping enforced was a little over the top though. Perhaps Dave tried to sell them some lucky heather or pointed out that their gutters needed cleaning. Either way, we found ourselves at the far superior Liseberg Camping. 

Awaiting our arrival there were Team Swede. Anna, Jonas and Martin. Veterans of last years Windy 500 in their Peugeot with the exhaust fixed with baked bean cans. 

They are hoping to be on the next Windy 500, college and jobs permitting. 

It was a long old drive down from Hamar, past Oslo and across the border for yet another new country for me. I was even allowed to drive as I had whinged a bit the evening before. We blew the last of Eileen's Norwegian jubblies on sweets and other rubbish and got lost near the border as the dear sat nav advised us to drive up a road for a mile then do a U turn. Stupid bloody contraption. It further amused itself by taking us through a Swedish housing estate, trying to persuade us to jump over a barrier across the road. 

Jo was happy. We found a wine shop. The prices not much different to UK prices. She stocked up and had a silly grin on her face. Not much of a beer drinker is Jo. Or tequila or Jaegermeister either for that matter. 

It was an alcohol free evening for me as I had to drive out to the airport to collect the last 2 team members. Young Lucas, number 2 son and his other grandmother Kath (or Dwarf Mumsie as she prefers to be known, probably). Their flight was late so we ended up creeping quietly through the camp site at around midnight. Well, I say creeping. More like driving a rattly old camper van with an unhealthy engine though the campsite.

So, that was Gothenburg, that was Eileen's birthday, that was the Mowlams' 36th wedding anniversary and that was Sweden. Off to Denmark again tomorrow. The Oresund Bridge, Tivoli Gardens and the Mermaid Statue. More importantly and rather depressingly, the ABBA soundtrack gives way to bloody Aqua again. Surely Denmark you can do better than bloody Aqua ? So long Sweden and 'thank you for the music'. 

Olly to the Rescue

I would like to point out that I did not join in the mocking of poor Steve when he ran out of fuel 3 miles from the campsite. I would also like to point out that I had not been in the drivers seat for 2 days. Now that I have completely absolved myself of all blame...

Eileen had left Jezebel with at least half an egg cup full of petrol. Jo was first in the hot seat in the morning as we set off towards Hamar. Having quickly established the evil trick that Eileen had played and that the nearest fuel station was 6 miles back towards Oppdal, she took the brave decision to head towards Hamar and a filling station 23 miles away. 15 minutes later I was making a sheepish call to the rescue limo. At least they were discrete. Well, apart from the blaring air horns, the photos and the immediate postings on Facebook. 

So, after the embarrassing delay (I gave the team a good dressing down, including Sean. Well, he did overfill the oil last week so it's only fair that we keep on bringing it up. )

We popped in at Lillehammer on the way. Two reasons for this, to see the Olympic Ski Jump and also to do an interview for Norwegian Radio. 

You know how it is when you start a sentence and you aren't quite sure how to finish it and you end up saying something which wasn't quite what you meant.... Well, I think I shall gloss over the interview contents and tell you all that it was fine and dandy. 

Sveastrada Campsite near Hamar is on the edge of the lake. Sean immediately grabbed his new fishing rod and fishing tackle and set off to catch us some mackerel for tea. I had heard that Norwegian freshwater mackerel are cunning fish, so it was no surprise that, like every single fisherman who had tried to catch one before, he was unsuccessful. How did I have such a blonde son ? 

Our last night in Norway was taken up with the nail game, but a drinking variation. Tequila and Jaegermeister. What a lovely mixture. I'll miss Norway. Getting fed up with A-Ha though. Let's get those Abba songs on !

Heat

Well, it turns out that we have visited Norway during their coldest summer in 120 years. Who's stupid idea was that ? It was bad enough for those who stayed south of the Arctic Circle. Those who ventured North were reporting snow and freezing temperatures. There were also some dubious reports of elk being spotted. Team Trigger even had photos, but it could have been a cow with antlers photoshopped on. 

We departed the campsite at Alesund, with its rude and grumpy owner to head towards the Atlantic Ocean Road. It  meant taking the ferry to Molde again, my third trip on this particular ferry in 24 hours. 

We were travelling in convoy with Teams Milly and George (or should it be George and Mildred ?) until we got the pleasant and picturesque town of Bud. Gary and Dave announced they were in Central Paris, well according to their sat nav. They were taking it apart to teach it a lesson. 

The Atlantic Ocean Road is every bit as bleak and windswept as you would expect. Small granite islands are dotted off the coast and some scrubby vegetation cowering from the stiff breeze and rain. The cold, damp air whistling through the van was getting to us all. 

The road starts off with the iconic humped bridge. 

After that the road hopped from rugged Island to rugged island. I don't know if it was just the ridiculous amount of stunning scenery we have seen over the last week or just the cold and drizzly weather but I have to say I was a little disappointed with the Atlantic Ocean Road. 

Teams through the day had been checking in from Oppdal.

Team Olly had driven through the night to get there and we found them at the camp site wallowing in opulence in a log mansion. The Mowlams had a shed in comparison. As more teams drifted in, we congregated in the west wing of the mansion, with central heating, Sky tv and sleeping quarters for a full battalion. 

It wasn't just us making use of Team Ollys facilities though. Steve and Raquel ran out of fuel 3 miles from the campsite. A quick phone call and a limousine with fuel can arrived 10 minutes later. Now that's what I call Windy service. 

Such service. It wasn't long before we would need our own rescue by limo. But that tale can wait until tomorrow. 

Up in Smoke

Whilst the others slept on, I was up and about doing some washing and experiencing 4 seasons of weather in an hour. Another stunning location for breakfast on the banks of Geirangerfjord. 

It was a bit chilly, but nothing compared to those teams who had chosen to venture up to the frozen north. Not a lot above freezing at the Arctic Circle by all accounts. 

We were on the road before 11am, winding up the famous Trollstigen Road. The views were just getting better and better. 

Again we found snow on the ground (and rain in the air) at the top. 

Alesund was apparently burnt to the ground in 1904 and rebuilt in the Art Deco style of the time. It's a pretty town. Their big celebration in the town is on Midsummer. What a stroke of luck ! Alright, I knew about this before we arrived. 

For the last few weeks, a bunch of avid Norwegian arsonists have been hording wooden pallets, nailing them together in a big pile. They do this every year for the amusement of the Alesund population. In 2011 they managed to achieve 40 metres. This years was a smaller, but still impressive 32 metres. 

I had a quick wife related errand to complete before the lunatic arsonists got down to the evening's business, a drive to Molde airport to meet her Jo off her flight. 

We arrived back to find the others hob knobbing. The mayor, a nice chap called Paul, had invited them in to his fishing house to watch the festivities from the balcony. He was grateful for what the British had done for Norway in the War apparently. 

4 ape-like lunatics without harnesses were hanging off the top of the tower taking selfies on their phones. If this wasn't enough to make a Health and Safety Inspector start sweating, then when they lit a large barrel of something flammable on the top then scrambled down as fast as possible, he would have been gibbering. 

The party at the base continued without batting an eyelid. Some raucous Norwegian singing and drinking was going on and no poxy smouldering bonfire was going to put them off. In fact the base of the fire made a convenient urinal as the beer flowed. Falling cinders and lumps of burning wood falling around their ears was a minor irritation. 

Families and children slowly started to drift away from the party as the lower tiers caught. 

"Most years it falls over" we were cheerfully informed, "they often jump in to the water to escape". I think that Health and Safety Inspector would have succumbed to the inevitable heart attack by now. 

It finally crashed in to the water, narrowly missing several foolhardy boat owners who had claimed ringside seats. 

1am, with darkness not arrived, we said farewell to the very hospitable mayor and headed back to the campsite. Another excellent day in Norway.