OK, so we arrived at the campsite 13 hours late, but we made it before everyone left so I count that as a result. As we finally pulled into the campsite we got a few folk asking what time we managed to arrive last night. The answer of we are just arriving now surprised and amused.
We had been in touch with 5 & 0 and knew where they had camped on site with Jon and the hillbillies so headed to the far corner to meet them.
We stopped by one of the other teams and asked how their night went and without too many details being put on here, it sounds a stormer. Ice cubes were eaten from places you wouldn't imagine.
Once we met up with our convoy boys we got a run down of the previous evening. We were charged about 60p for a pint just inside Prague, but those that went out apparantly got stung for nearly 6 quid a pint. The return taxi's that should have cost 10 quid or so were being billed at about £40 by the local firms trying to rip off the brits and some of our lot took offence. A few simply legged it without paying but I understand fisticuffs occured with one unfortunate driver.
Back at the campsite in the evening various changes of clothes and hiding in tents took place to avoid identification. Quite a few of the scummers didn't go out and stayed at camp and got drunk instead. One of the guys next to our convoy from team Add Energy got a little too wasted, tried to climb over a gate that wasn't locked, fell off the top, smashed his face and broke his arm. By the time we had got there, their team had disappeared - presumably to a local A&E.
Regardless, we were held back from the anticipated leaving time as Ed and co semed to be frantically re-routing us to get out of the Czech republic in the shortest route available to avoid any further issues. By 10.00 AM the local police had started to gather in strength at the gates of the campsite and it's at this stage that most runners realised they needed tax discs. Unfortunately, there wasn't a handy place to get them from within a quick walk so myself and 0 collected some cash and trundled off to bulk buy some from a garage a few miles off. When we returned with them they were handed out and a few other teams trotted off to get theirs and extras for those without.
Alongside the numerous police cars we parked up in bulk awaiting the anticipated aggro. Surprisingly, none came immediately. Instead, we seemed to attract the local boy racer in his 15 year old skoda with the blacked out windows and a random middle aged bird who kept filming the cars and occasionally screaming whooooo when an engine was turned on.
At the time of a few leaving, the local filth followed and we know a couple got pulled for no reason so as usual, we hung back and figured out a plan. That plan was easily figured out as Jon and Kelly were the only ones with a Sat Nav that covered the country. Plan was as simple as the local woman. Follow the Volvo. In the last day or so we had nothing but issues with every car. Except the sodding little polo. That thing was bullet proof and as much as we admired their car for holding together, we cursed it. Bloody little thing. We left the campsite, got less than a minute away and our prayers seemed to be answered. The polo broke. We laughed. Their exhaust was being dragged along the ground and we thought it might be something major. It turns out it had just fallen from it's mount and 30 seconds later it was back on and running fine. That was the only mechanical issue they had all rally and I'm still impressed with that thing.
It seems that Jon and Kelly's satnav in the Volvo is more technical and superior than everyone elses as it not only has the usual avoid toll roads, use main roads where available, shortest route functions etc, it also has an amazing route option of use every bloody potholed, unrepaired, cobbled road available setting. We were a little shaken in ours, we don't think it did the FTO any favours with their dodgy turning circle, Jo was nearly in tears with an average moving speed of 1mph trying to navigate his low bug to avoid smashing bits off of it, the Volvo was fine and the polo, well that had us laughing again as it appears they hadn't shut their boot properly and as we got onto a busy roundabout, the boot pinged open throwing trainers and various clothing into the paths of traffic. We caused chaos by simply blocking the roundabout whilst they collected their belongings .
Eventually, we managed to get onto some sensible bits of road and found a McDonalds. Always a great place to get stared at.
Our next checkpoint was at a place called Euro-Eddies, somewhere in Germany, a parent and child play center some miles away and we made good time along the roads. We discovered (well the FTO boys did) that the rumble strips were different to ours. The UK strips make a horrible sound but we got the CB message from them with a cryptic "try the rumble strips - they're great". So we tried them. They give off a fantastic noise - a sort of high pitched whirring like a supercharger so many miles were spent weaving on and off the rumble strips. This confused Hill & Billy as they didn't have CB so were completely unaware why a series of 4 or 5 cars were drifting onto the white lines and coming back out again quite a lot. Bless em.
Not far into this stretch of journey, we discovered tunnels. Big, long tunnels. With our exhaust, the MX5's ridiculous exhaust and the FTO sounding like a jet fighter normally, those tunnels provided huge entertainment over a few hours. After a few hours, tunnel running was actually starting to get painful to the ears so we backed off a little.
We still had a lot of motorway and not a lot of sense so Jo & Dave and 5 & 0 decided to go into childish mode and had a bit of a dogfight. They disappeared into the horizon with impressive noise but we could still hear them on the CB's. I think the quote of the trip for me was from 0 talking to Jo... "I can see this ending one of 2 ways, we either stop now or someone dies". They pulled into a run off lane and waited for us to catch up.
We stumbled into a fair bit of traffic and waited patiently without moving very much, inching our way closer to the cause of the problem. As we were gettissed off we could hear a call on the CB channel for anyone that could hear the message to bring some jubilee clips or similar to the road we were on. Yup, One of ours had broken down and knackered the German dual carriageway. Turns out it was the green Audi and I hopped out, gave them a set of cable ties and buggered off.
Whilst we were trying to help them, those Hillbillies were busy attaching stickers to the back of stopped cars without being spotted. Hats off lads I was impressed at your subtlety. I was even more impressed the day after we got home and I found one of their stickers on the back of my car - no idea when they did that.
Once we got into the clear and free we passed a fair few miles and saw a sign for Colditz. We had lost the volvo and MX5 by this point so only FTO, Polo and ourselves. It's not really my sort of thing but Gruff's well into his misery type thing so he suggested we g see it. We checked with the others and made a detour to the castle. Whilst on said detour we stumbled across a couple of motorcycle cops waiting at a set of traffic lights looking none too impressed at our choice of chariots. I pulled out the big camera started smiling and waving at them and they cheered up just a little.
It wasn't really until we got to Colditz that we figured out the FTO boys weren't really suitably dressed. It's not everyday you see a legendary prisoner of war camp whilst in the company of two guys dressed as US fighter pilots. Anyway, we had a wander round, killed an hour or so, then got back on track. including the detour travel and visting time, I reckon we lost at least a couple of hours. This was the basis of an argument I had with Gruff a few hours later.
We made it to Euro Eddies and had a couple of pics taken with their mascot. They were a little reserved with us as at some point during the day, someone had taken their mascot to their car for a quality photo and unfortunately broken it's arm.
We left there and desperately needed fuel. Our needle had been sat beyond red for 50 miles or so and we were getting a little twitchy. We found a petrol station in a village that seemed to only have VW's on its roads and most of those were heavily modified. Whilst there, a local guy in a woody VW Golf identical in every aspect to one owned by Hill, came over and said Hi. We exchanged pleasantries and gave him one of the flaming scumrun logo's obtained from the official stack a couple of days beforehand.
Leaving there, we set the satnavs for the next checkpoint. 5 & 0 led the charge, the polo behind them and us behind the polo making sure it didn't get lost of forgotten if they broke down. During this stretch we lost both sight andf radio contact with the FTO and simply hoped the polo guys could see them. A few minutes later the polo boys turned into a layby so we followed assuming they had spotted the FTO. No, they just needed a turd. Fair enough - we all need breaks at times but for some reason Gruff really had the arse on about it costing us time with an unnecesary pit stop and stropped a bit in the car. His bloody Colditz idea had cost us 2 hours and he's moaning like hell about a 10 minute brownload session. We got hold of 5 & 0 by phone and found out we had taken a junction they hadn't. We arranged to meet up with them in another spot a few miles down the road. After a bit of mucking about we met up with the guys and decided too much time had been lost to hit our 2nd checkpoint so headed straight to camp somewhere in a German forrest / mountain area.
We turned up miserable, late and generally hacked off. Thankfully we had a taste experience to show our Bristol Hillbillies. Turns out Billy had never had a pot noodle before and was in love with them. A swift few beers and it was time for lights out. We were shattered, grouchy and glad we knew the end was near.
What could possibly go wrong in the journey to Calais tomorrow?
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