Due to a few corporate sponsorship deals falling through, and budgets being a little tight, it is with more than a little sadness that we announce our stepping down from Scumrun 2012.
That said, I can't go without a bit of a driving sesh through Europe as it was so enjoyable, so myself and Gruff, together with a few mates are going for a jolly in the new year. We're intending to run through France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Holland and Belgium.
I'd like to point out that as we're going rogue, we've unofficially dubbed it Roguerun, but it is NOT an open to all event, it is NOT related to Scumrun in any way shape or form, it is simply a batch of mates going for an adventure.
We are tempted to try and raise some money for a charity that is very close to Marc who is coming with us, and with a bit of luck, we'll get some sponsors.
A seperate blog has now been set up at: www.roguerun.blogspot.com
Tuesday 11 October 2011
Wednesday 20 July 2011
A couple of vids...
Courtesy of Ian from Team MidlifeKrysis;
This is the one from Joe from Team Bugsplat;
If you were a 2011 Competitor, please forward on your vids and I'll patch them in. Would be nice to have loads in one place.
Savage.
The blog will be resumed shortly - loads to catch up on - silly engine, silly height, silly silly fun.
This is the one from Joe from Team Bugsplat;
If you were a 2011 Competitor, please forward on your vids and I'll patch them in. Would be nice to have loads in one place.
Savage.
The blog will be resumed shortly - loads to catch up on - silly engine, silly height, silly silly fun.
Sunday 3 July 2011
Does a Gruff shit in the woods?
Right, this is the last of the Scumrun 2011 posts. It's a sad fact, but true. The following is coverage of the last day leading from a frozen bloody hill to home. It covers Germany, France, Belgium and the UK. A long day with a lot to share. Those of you that like a smoke, go and roll a fat one. Those of you that like a drink, fill your glasses for today, we raise a toast to those that made it, those that didn't start it, and those that fall in the category in-between.
A few good friends were made along the way and a few very good friends were also made. We've endured tantrums, breakdowns, arguments, piss taking and recognition for our trouble. A lot of companies and individuals have been involved in getting the car ready and offering parts / sponsorship, donations and without these, we wouldn't have achieved as much as we did.
I'm sure I'm going to miss people out but, massive thanks to (in no particular order):
Dodo Juice, Creations in Vinyl, HSP Havant signs and Plastics, Triangle Cars, Paul @ PM Electricals, FEOC-UK, Escort Cabriolet Club, David Scraton, Ed White, Jon from Love those Photos, Jon from Endless Summer Campers, Everyone at Voltz International, Sheeepwear, Phoenix Independent Midwives, Jake Bullet Cybernautics, Mark Loveday, David Savage, Rita Varley, Morag Smith, Maria Savage, Ian @ Team Midlife Krysis, Jo & Dave (Team Bugsplat), Jon & Kelly (Team Blind Panic), Hill & Billy (Polo), Marc and James (Topscum), Amanda Simmonds, Christopher Hightower Flint, Allen (Marine Iguana), SlimJim, Wesley Potter, Jon Sabine, Varnie, Alaistair Cummins, Adam Norton, Neston Vasey, Maxine Cheshire, Mick Cheshire, Tesco Petersfield Store, Ken Wood, Louise George, Lee Groves.
We're waiting to hear about a finance injection at this point that will let us know if we are in it for next year or not, but a lot of improvements / waste of bloody time and money (depending which of us you listen to) have taken place to ensure that those buggers in their beemers do not steal the show the next time we rock up. Those mods will be covered in following blogs but lets get 2011 over and done with. A lot of fun was had and I would love to go back next year although not entirely sure if Gruff is as keen as I am. Maybe there will be a co-pilot seat up for grabs... Maybe not.
Now thats done I can relax and go about my story telling ways.
So far, we have covered a lot of miles, had a lot of fun, had a lot of not fun. Met British, French and German police and some of the finest auto electricians that Germany has to offer.
We knew when we woke up that the final destination was going to be Calais. That was pretty obvious as last day and we had booked the ferry. We had no idea of checkpoints on the way so had a think about that whilst scoffing a lovely laid out breakfast. Lots of meat, cheese and other continental stuff that the human body craves. And cigarettes. Lots and lots of cigarettes. We were running low so a detour through Belgium was inevitable as they are close to Calais and cheap.
Having had breakfast we awaited the route cards to tell us the checkpoints. During this time I started to take the tent down. Not only was it a git to put up, it was still proving to be a git to put down. I offered it to a couple of teams free to collect as I wasn't intending to use it again and I was having a tantrum that it didn't want to collapse. No-one wanted it so I was happy to just lave the poxy thing there. Gruff decided to have a paddy as well about me littering the campsite with a tent so a few poles probably got bent / broken but it ended up inside the car.
During the destruction of the tent we found that at some point over night, a mystery donor had let us have a pair of pants by our flap. Mens pants so not even worth a sniff. We all blamed each other and when no-one was looking I taped them to the back of the FTO. The FTO boys spotted them and again, stealthily attached them to the polo. Last time I saw them, they were hanging off the vovlo tow bar like a flag (although 've been told some bugger taped them to our car after that so god alone knows where those mystery pants are now).
Ed summoned us all to give us our route cards in his usual jump on the bonnet method.
The route cards contained no surprises, Bruges central, Eastenders cash and carry (Calais) and the ferry port by 8 PM. A lot of miles to cover, but mostly motorway so nothing should go wrong. Our electrics were fine, the Volvo seemed OK, the MX-5 sounded rough but ran, Polo was still showing signs of being the best built car in the world and the FTO was OK providing no tight corners as their turning circle seemed to be getting bigger on a daily basis.
We left the campsite with no drama and followed Jon & Kelly trusting their satnav to lead the way. After a couple of miles of trading estate, we decided to go rogue and made a breakaway with just us, FTO's and Polo boys. It's our last day and we wanted to end it competitively so gave the cars a run in the direction we thought was a good idea. Turns out we were right and made very very good time at a steady 80-90 as it took several hours before all the usual early finishers passed us.
Absolutely, precisely nothing of interest took place betwen the campsite and Bruges. We stopped off a couple of times for fuel and so Gruff could wee against various bushes and buildings but thats about it.
However. Ths is where it gets good / bad. We arrived in Bruges well before we had intended to and things were looking like we may knock in a fast time. All we needed was 1 photo of the cars near the bell tower and we were good to head to Calais. The first thing we noticed about the city was cyclists. And how it appears they must have priority over cars as they didnt ever look. We really noticed this as Gruff nearly took out a particularly fat woman on a pushbike when turning right. The next thing we noticed was how a lot of the route into the center was tight one way streets.
We were still going fine and trying to find the best place to stop when we got the CB messag from behind us "STOPPPPPPPPPP". We radio'd back to see what was wrong but a couple of things occurred simultaneously - 1. We were out of range which meant the FTO must have stopped completely as wehad carried on, and 2. Gruff's breakfast hadn't agreed with him at all. The poor Hillbillies behind had no idea what was going on as the FTO had disappeared behind them and we shot forward like some sort of speed test attempt through the traffic and red traffic lights. Gruff was driving and his poo had started. He needed to find a toilet. May settle for a layby, but this time, I thought, a toilet would be used. The hillbillies kept up and broke the same traffic laws as we did and parked in behind us at the roadside just in time to watch Gruff dive into a hedge. This hedge on one side featured a busy main city road and a childrens park on the other. The next thing the polo boys spotted was a toilet roll being flung into the bushes by me laughing. Gruff couldn't hold it. The age old question "Does a Gruff shit in the woods" had been answered - No, he craps in a bush.
As I got out of the car to explain to Hill & Billy what old age does to your bowel strength, my phone rang. Five sounded scared. Very scared. I could just about make him out over the top of the blaring horns and angry foreign shouting at the other end of the phone. This didn't bode well. As far as I could make out, he needed a jack. Can't be that much of a problem if they just needed a jack so I checked where they were and once Gruff had finished we headed off to where we had last seen them. In the maze of tight one way streets. It didn't take long until we got stuck in a huge traffic jam that definately wasn't there 15 minutes ago. We had found them. I took the jack out of our boot and swiftly ran towards the front of the queue. Then I jogged. I passed a few scumrunners in the jam and gave a friendly wave. Then I wheezed a bit. Then back to running. The backlog these guys had caused was immense.
I finally got to where they had chosen to have their issue. Right on the corner of a junction linking 2 one way streets into a bottleneck. They had blocked Bruges city center at rush hour. Nothing as simple as a flat, their driveshaft had come off. This in laymans terms means the wheel had fallen off and slammed the car onto it's nose.
What they needed to do, was jack the car back up, jack the hub up, raise the suspension, put the wheel back on, tighen the bolts and off we could go. After about 20 minutes or so of this, we found it wasn't that easy as one of the nuts that held the wheel on had sheared completely. In addition, we needed another jack. As I jogged my way back through the jam I came across Team Add Energy (remember them - last seen on route to A&E in Czech Republic) and borrowed their jack.
I got back to the FTO with the addtional jack just in time to watch Marc giving his details to a copper. It turns out if you block their main roads, they charge you. If you block it for an hour, they tow you. And charge for that. And store your car. They charge for that too. Things are really starting to look bleak at the hour marker as we had the town planner on site diverting buses across the pedestrianised square, the chief commisioner had popped down to see why he was getting so many complaints and we had a few other traffic cops trying to divert / calm people down. The only upside that we could see was that if they had decided to tow away, we had an hour headstart and the tow truck would be caught in the carnage.
http://www.facebook.com/v/10150167607576428
This is where we had several traffic cops diverting people to drive over the pavement to free traffic flow.
I figured it was probably at this point sensible to let Ed know what we had done to his reputation in Bruges so I filmed the situation, posted it on Facebook, and told him to take a look. He laughed the hearty laugh of someone watching christians get thrown to the lions. Good to see we had made his day :)
After 2 hours of blocking the heart of their city, the locals really were starting to get upset. I popped across the road to get something to eat in a Subway, and as soon as they noted the english accent and oily clothing they figured their staff member stuck in traffic was something to do with me. I'm not entirely certain that when you ask for a bit of everything in your roll they are meant to spit in it or maybe it's just a Belgian custom.
By the three hour marker the coppers had enough. A tow truck WILL be called. Marc agreed that this was the best course of action and agreed that who-ever turned up first could have the car. Would their AA recovery beat the cities own recovery truck was the only thing that mattered now. With the wheel still not attached it wouldn't make it onto any truck but we would let the recovery guys figure that one out. As Officer Caroline (we had come to know her by now) started to write out an enormous fine that rare thing happened. I was glad to be in the presence of an officer of British law. A sneaky flip of warrant card and a "I'm one of you wink" seemed to suffice and the fine was ignored. Oh happy days.
The AA contractor rocked up, and finished off the hard work that Hill had started with a minimal tool kit but knowledge like a Haynes manual and got the car on the back of the truck. Oh well, game over then, lets follow the tow truck to Calais?
No.
This is where it starts to get interesting and just a little surreal. The truck has the FTO on the back and 5 & 0 inside. Doesn't speak English but has taken a real liking to 0 and his pretty little mouth. A few re-assuring touches to the leg doesn't re-assure him at all. We got the text message "I'm going to be raped" and he actually believed it as we were driving towards somewhere other than Calais. As we got a couple of miles away into a small residential area the driver stoppped and we joined them. Turns out he had been told to collect the car, but not where to take it. We waited whilst he tried to arrange somewere to leave it and 0 tried to climb into one of our cars to avoid the scary man.
We got going and ended up with the FTO being dropped off at car hire place / garage. OK, it's obvious now. Hire car to Calais, FTO will follow when fixed? Nope. The guy would take the FTO but not give a car back in return. Apparantly he was only there to store the knackered Mitsubishi and not help out any further. This meant that our ridiculously small boot needed to take some of 5 & 0's possessions and some needed to go into the back of the polo. The AA would arrange for a hire car to be provided in the next few hours.
Beep Beep - Ice cream (private convoy smile moment)
A few more phone calls and the AA said they would pay the recovery driver a fortune to get the stricken FTO onto the ferry. Obviously, we missed the ferry we had booked but hoped P&O would be OK about it.
Whilst waiting for AA to confirm in writing (fax) we went for a explore around this guys grage. What looked like flour was dotted around most of the damaged cars and it turns out these were stolen and crashed and awaiting fingerprint type stuff. I think this proved too much for one of us (not sure who) but when we left, there was a smiley face drawn on one of them.
Another interesting couple of finds were a Harley (brand new except for import mileage) and a superbike that the garage owner was desperately trying to sell to us. Then he showed us the bike that had been brought in that day with the front half folded under the back half with blood across it. Not the best way to sell a bike but maybe the belgians do it differently. "You buy bike. It's quick. It's safe. Here's one where someone died. It's yours for 3,000 Euros".
Hill and Billy have gone back to normal and are no longer the genius mechanics they were an hour or so ago, merely magpies rummaging through the guys bins. The biggest grin cam across Hills face when he saw a numberplate in the bin.... "Can I have this please?" The guy said ok so then they started eyeing up the written off cars trying to steal sun visors and god knows what.
Having unloaded and reloaded the FTO, we set off to get some cheap fags and decided to meet the recovery truck on route just outside the French border.
We met up and headed towards the ferry terminal. The AA had already alerted P&O that we were coming and they had got us all on the next boat. The journey was over. We boarded the ferry, glad we had stayed as a pack and not left any wounded behind. I feel we have made some lifetime friends in this trip.
SAVAGE
GRUFF
FIVE / 5 / MARC
0 / PURTY MOUTH / JAMES
HILL / RICHY
BILLY / WESTY (Being licked by 5)
JON, 5, 0, KELLY (L-R)
DAVE THE RAVE & JO RICHARDSON
We are now hitting 5,000 readers a month so to all of you, thank you. If you have been following this, then please get in touch to let me know your thoughts. Alternatively, if you are looking for an advertisement with a difference, please get in touch as well.
The improved car will be at Ford Fair, Silverstone so if you happen to be there, please say hi.
Cheers and I have enjoyed re-living this.
Savage.
I'm going to carry on the blog, but it may go off on tangents about my life not just the scum.
Friday 24 June 2011
Last day but 1...
****First off, apologies. This was due up a few days ago but I've been a bit lazy. This isn't an entertaining read. My notes for this day were crap so it doesn't flow well. Theres not a lot of it, and I've padded it out a bit with pretty pictures stolen from various sources. The next update is the last day of the rally and for those of you that know me, the run, or how this finished off, that's goin to be the best of the series. I promise you that. Without any further waffling, here goes:*****
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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?
Wednesday 15 June 2011
Autobahn's, electrics, rain, titty bars and cheap beer...
It's been a while since we had an update on here and I have been left feeling just a little lazy by the way that both Blind Panic (Volvo T5) and Bugsplat (Mazda MX5) have completed their blogs and I haven't really scratched the surface of our Scumrun hell / heaven.
This could be a long update - Just one day, but what a day!!!
Where did I leave off last time? Barbecued rat, hannah Montanna plates and a lovely feeling that the world will be alright? Well, following on from that, we awoke in France in one piece with all our shiny purple dust caps still on and our possesions still where we left them.
Having a sleepy head on, dismantling a tent isn't the easiest of things but can't be that tricky to fold a tent back up and put it in a bag can it? Well, Gruff bet me a fiver that I couldn't get it broken down and in the bag within 10 minutes. I took this challenge on and I would like to tell you that the time taken was roughly 3 and a half minutes. Then I gave Gruff his fiver, had a tantrum, balled it all up and crammed it into the back of the boot tightly. Sodding thing. It's at this point that the 2 unshaven technophobes were introduced to me (remember I'm bad at names) who had been camping next to us. It appears that they had no convoy / friends and would like to join our rolling party of fun. That party now being made up of ourselves, Blind Panic (VolvoT5 turbo), Topscum (Mitsubishi FTO), and the mighty BugSplat (Mazda MX5). The chariot chosen by Hill & Billy???? Mr Bready the VW Polo. No CB, no satnav, not even a cigarette lighter so they needed to leave their phones in one of our cars to charge. They had entered the rally with the least amount of engine, technology or car permitted. This was going to be interesting.
As we had a wander around the campsite, we saw that overnight someone had painted a bloody great swasticka on the side of the camoflauged BMW. You remember that car... Working tank turret on top? Very very unsubtle especially being only a handful of miles from the German border. Lets hope for their sake, the next destination doesn't involve visiting a famous site where Hitler made wartime speeches(!).
Ed (Scumrun top dog) was calling everyone over to recieve their instructions and route cards and we were delighted to find out that we would be heading through Germany. To the main square where the first zeppelin was launched and where Hitler made large speeches about invasions etc... There was a little bit of chuckling and "ooooohing" as the Tank owners realised what they were about to have to face. I say a little bit, we laughed ourselves silly. Then, as that was only a checkpoint, the final destination was given, along with a timed deadline. We needed to be in the Czech republic campsite by 8PM. The reason? Ed had decided to take us all on a pub crawl through Prague and the bus was leaving at 8PM for the biggest titty bar in the roughest city on Earth.
A couple of problems immediately came to mind. One of the first was - Our satnav doesn't cover Czech. Another mini thought was that the Czech republic is out of "Western Europe". That means a different currency, but also means that our breakdown cover wouldn't cover us if we blew up out there. On the up side, for us to cover that many miles we needed to be fast, and back roads wouldn't cover it. Thankfully, between Strasburg and Prague, there are a lot of de-restricted autobahns. Theres a lot of them but fun fun fun.
It appears that overnight the mechanically minded pixies had rocked up and fixed our brakes. Although still soft, we had some so that's always promising.
As promised by the organisers a breathalyser was doing the rounds and just to put Gruff's mind at ease I had a go and passed it easily. Apparantly one of the other teams who were sure they were fine, weren't. Their most sober driver was still 4 times the limit!!!
We had a ciggy and a chat whilst we let the bigger boys get a head start, and then we left the campsite...
As we left the campsite we seemed to have grown. Not too bad except Gruff was leading the charge and the others seemed to think that he knew where he was going. Cast your minds back to leaving the M25 in the wrong direction....
After a mile or so a wrong turn was taken and everyone followed religiously. I think some of the natives raised an eyebrow or 2 when an illegal U-Turn was thrown at traffic lights by a convoy of 7 cars. After that surprisingly we reduced back to just Volvo, Mitsi, Polo and us. I think even Jo had disappeared by this point.
A lot of chatter over the CB's let us know that the French police didn't want us in their region anymore and stopped a few of ours so we decided to go for a low profile. Having got through a set of lights and veered off in a different direction to the rest of the scummers we checked we had everyone. Nope. Jon and Kelly in the Volvo weren't to be seen and as we know, they didnt have a working CB to contact us. Thankfully we had swapped numbers just for this kind of problem. We pulled into a fuel station and got in touch. Unfortunately, we didn't know where we had lost them, where they were, or indeed where we were. All we knew is that we were in a bright yellow petrol station and they should look out for us. Eventually they caught us up and time to go? Nope, Gruff needed a slash so we waited patiently as he walked to the back of the petrol station (with a working toilet), and wee'd against their wall. I swear he isn't house trained.
A swift check on the CB's to those in range seemed to let us know the coast was clear so off we charged again. As soon as we rounded the first corner we passed 2 coppers who had pulled a frenchman over and they looked at us. We looked at them. The FTO came off the throttle. The volvo tried to blend in. The Hillbillies (I'm friends with them now and still refer to them as Hill & Billy) happily bounced away to their classic rock album oblivious. With complete synchronicity both coppers jumped on their radios alerting any local patrols that we were still in the area so we simply ignored the suggested speed limit signs and hoofed it out of there. As soon as we got across the German border we figured fuel up, check maps, and get a lot of miles sorted as quickly as possible.
We've figured out the best route to the autobahn's and set off. At some point we met back up with the Bug and their poorly MX5. Due to something technical and mechanical, they were only running on 3 cylinders and the engine sounded rougher than rough. Gruff was still driving when we hit the first derestricted autobahn and he was absolutely thrilled to get to the dizzy heights of 85 mph. The FTO sounded like a jet fighter as it screamed past us, with the T5 happily tailgaiting behind. Via CB we had all agreed it would be sensible to keep 1 car behind the polo at all times to ensure they didn't get lost or have mechanical problems and end up starnded. We sat behind those guys happily admiring their enthusiasm. All 1054 cc of power being used and not skipping a beat at 80.
Traffic started to snarl and I was in need of a toilet stop. The worst thing in the world is knowing you're only a few hundred meters from a layby but not moving anywhere. Eventually, I gave in, got out of the car and went for a leak in the bushes. Magically like moses parting the waves, me getting my gigglestick out meant traffic flowed faster than fluids. With the tooting of horns the convoy progressed leaving me in the bushes watching. Gits. They pulled in a little bit down the road and if you watch Jo's video, you'll see me sprinting Usain Bolt style down the side of the road post piss.
I jumped in and we got going again. Despite the speed issues we had fallen foul of the previous day, the purple cab rocked to over the 100 marker so I was a happy little camper. Over the CB we heard (I think) the bug was having problems so we agreed to pull in. Unfortunately, Kelly "that space is plenty big enough" Foxhall performed a scary scary manouvere that worried us and scared the crap out of the German Merc driver she nearly took apart. It also created a warning light on the volvo that wasn't covered in the manual. Turns out it was a self protecting light that indicates Kelly shouldn't be allowed to drive the big ass volvo ever again.
After the bug was looked at we set off again. The weather was ideal so I lubed up in tan oil settled back and let the rays crisp me a little. A few of the others I could sense were starting to get a little jealous of Jo & Dave and Myself and Gruff having convertibles. We happily enjoyed the weather cruising at speeds illegal in the UK. Occasionally other teams and offical Scumrun cars passed us or got passed with a friendly toot of the horn. Happy times.
Not so happy times were to follow afterwards. A big grey cloud was appearing on the horizon looking very rainfilled. We're men not sugarmice, we will keep the roof down and get through it. And then it rained. I don't mean little drops, I mean proper biblical rain. Thick drops from the sky, with a rumble of thunder. Then we had a problem. The wipers wouldn't work. The windows wouldn't go up. The lights weren't on. Checking with he others via CB, it turns out we had no indicators either. The scene if you can picture it is 2 Brits, on an autobahn, pouring rain, windows and roof down, no wipers, no hazards, no lights not happy campers. The stereo still worked so that was a bonus :)
We pulled into a services as a convoy and the other guys were happy to wait as we figured out what had died. After half an hour or so of pulling fuses, manually lifting roof, and generally achieving nothing, I borrowed 0's waterpoof jacket and the ground sheet to their tent and we sent them on their way.
With just a handful of hours until the titty bar bus left, no point all of us missing it. With a bit of rain induced powersliding across the services car park the others disappeared into the horizon. Gruff phoned the AA (thankfully we had cover) and they sent a guy out. The anticipated delay was an hour so before he showed up so I went to the services cafe bit and bought us both a kitten bap. No idea what it was, but reasonably tasty.
The AA subcontractor turned up and didn't speak English so I was out of the loop straight away. However, I have found a new level of respect for Gruff as it turns out he is remarkably fluent in German. The problems have been described, the gonad has said he hasn't a clue and decided to bugger off leaving us stranded.
Another phone call to the AA got Herr Gonad to return to us (another hour or so) and again he explained nothing he could do as he already had a car on his flat bed. Ours started so we followed him. Having turned up at his depot I sort of understand why he didn't want our car there. It was an immaculate VW Audi dealership and we sort of lowered the tone. Entertainingly, it was in a town named "Feucht Wagon" or something very similar. We parked in his stunningly clean workshop and trickled some oily goo from the exhaust across his floor and tittered a little. A few minutes later a hobo looking chap in high-vis turned up and in perfect english explained he had nothing to do with Fords but was an Audi auto-electician and would have a look. 10 minutes later he had by-passed a relay and got everything tickety boo. He even made us a bit of fused cable and explained how to get it all running again should we encounter further problems.
All told, we had lost a lot of time (maybe 4 - 5 hours) and I had already phoned Ed and advised him we weren't gonna get on that titty bus, but we would phone him when we got to camp and get a taxi out to meet up with the rest of them at somepoint around midnight.
With a new found lease of life we kicked the arse right out of that car and despite darkness, we were happy and on the right trail. As we got to about 10 miles of the German / Czech border I was driving and passed a car "parked" on a sliproad. This should have put warnings into my tired little brain that maybe I should check my speed but no. I have Eastern european breasts to observe and I intend to do just that. The parked car was now approaching at a remarkable catch up rate so I eased off so he could pass us easily. But he didn't. Big alarm bells are starting to ring at this point. When he passed us it was a little bit of a relief. When the scrolling LED appeared in the back window advising us "Police. Follow" that relief went out the window. We were nicked. Banged to rights for speeding in a foreign country, by their unmarked coppers. Bollocks. Gruffs words of wisdom were "yes and no mate. Don't explain anything, don't have a conversation, just yes and no".
We pulled into the layby behind them and they indicated for us to stay in the car so we did. Then a series of unfortunate events unfurled...
Gruff got out of the car at their request and handed over the passports and driving licenses so they could check we weren't wanted by interpol. We're not, happy days. However, in a dark unlit layby, our replica AK47's in the doorpockets didn't seem to go down too well. Having been told (without a lot of manners may I add) to get out of the vehicle NOW and walk to the back of the car I did as instructed. At this point copper number 2 has told Gruff that his passport is in order and that Gruff is Irish. Remember yes and no? Gruff didn't. Despite having 2 armed german officers as opponents he did his best to strike an arsey argument about actualy being Welsh. Midway through him trying to get us killed, officer A has taken a look in my darkened door pocket and spotted what is in his opinion half a dozen CS spray canisters. In their eyes, they've just bagged 2 gun toting, CS smuggling Irishmen who are starting a fight. In Gruffs eyes, he's just being patriotic. In my eyes, I'm gonna be big Herman's cell toy for the next few years.
Thankfully after a little shouting orders on their part and snivveling on mine, I convinced them water pistols and energy drink but it could have been horrible. We unpacked the boot and the car to show them we werent smuggling, explained the rally and their little eyes lit up... "Are you ze first? There are more speeders yes?" Erm, no. Their eyes saddened a little bit as they realised they wouldn't be buggering up anyone elses evening. They were kind enough to explain to us that as soon as we hit Czech soil we would need a roadtax disc and they even escorted us out of their country to make sure we left. Very nice of them. By this point it had gone midnight. I asked Gruff where he had put the directions to the camp site (our satnav didn't cover Czech) and we twigged that they were in a services about 5 hours drive back.
We figured it was sleepy time coming. I wanted to crack on and just get to the camp site but Gruff wasn't having it. He's a grouchy bugger at times and this was one of those times. We pulled off the motorway about 5 miles from Prague and found a hotel. If we weren't going to see titty bars, then we were going to treat ourselves to a bed and a shower. First things first though, a pint in the hotel bar. Or 2. Or 3. Annoyingly the Czech's have their own currency, not the Euro, and we didn't have any. She said she could do the beer in Euro's but would have to charge us a whole Euro a pint. She was actually apologizing that we were having to pay 60p a pint!!!!!
After a couple of beers, it was time for showers and bed. Several well slept hours later and our alarms went off. Having stolen the toiletries from the room, we checked out and found the camp site with relative ease in the daylight.
But what followed was another interesting day...
This could be a long update - Just one day, but what a day!!!
Where did I leave off last time? Barbecued rat, hannah Montanna plates and a lovely feeling that the world will be alright? Well, following on from that, we awoke in France in one piece with all our shiny purple dust caps still on and our possesions still where we left them.
Having a sleepy head on, dismantling a tent isn't the easiest of things but can't be that tricky to fold a tent back up and put it in a bag can it? Well, Gruff bet me a fiver that I couldn't get it broken down and in the bag within 10 minutes. I took this challenge on and I would like to tell you that the time taken was roughly 3 and a half minutes. Then I gave Gruff his fiver, had a tantrum, balled it all up and crammed it into the back of the boot tightly. Sodding thing. It's at this point that the 2 unshaven technophobes were introduced to me (remember I'm bad at names) who had been camping next to us. It appears that they had no convoy / friends and would like to join our rolling party of fun. That party now being made up of ourselves, Blind Panic (VolvoT5 turbo), Topscum (Mitsubishi FTO), and the mighty BugSplat (Mazda MX5). The chariot chosen by Hill & Billy???? Mr Bready the VW Polo. No CB, no satnav, not even a cigarette lighter so they needed to leave their phones in one of our cars to charge. They had entered the rally with the least amount of engine, technology or car permitted. This was going to be interesting.
As we had a wander around the campsite, we saw that overnight someone had painted a bloody great swasticka on the side of the camoflauged BMW. You remember that car... Working tank turret on top? Very very unsubtle especially being only a handful of miles from the German border. Lets hope for their sake, the next destination doesn't involve visiting a famous site where Hitler made wartime speeches(!).
Ed (Scumrun top dog) was calling everyone over to recieve their instructions and route cards and we were delighted to find out that we would be heading through Germany. To the main square where the first zeppelin was launched and where Hitler made large speeches about invasions etc... There was a little bit of chuckling and "ooooohing" as the Tank owners realised what they were about to have to face. I say a little bit, we laughed ourselves silly. Then, as that was only a checkpoint, the final destination was given, along with a timed deadline. We needed to be in the Czech republic campsite by 8PM. The reason? Ed had decided to take us all on a pub crawl through Prague and the bus was leaving at 8PM for the biggest titty bar in the roughest city on Earth.
A couple of problems immediately came to mind. One of the first was - Our satnav doesn't cover Czech. Another mini thought was that the Czech republic is out of "Western Europe". That means a different currency, but also means that our breakdown cover wouldn't cover us if we blew up out there. On the up side, for us to cover that many miles we needed to be fast, and back roads wouldn't cover it. Thankfully, between Strasburg and Prague, there are a lot of de-restricted autobahns. Theres a lot of them but fun fun fun.
It appears that overnight the mechanically minded pixies had rocked up and fixed our brakes. Although still soft, we had some so that's always promising.
As promised by the organisers a breathalyser was doing the rounds and just to put Gruff's mind at ease I had a go and passed it easily. Apparantly one of the other teams who were sure they were fine, weren't. Their most sober driver was still 4 times the limit!!!
We had a ciggy and a chat whilst we let the bigger boys get a head start, and then we left the campsite...
As we left the campsite we seemed to have grown. Not too bad except Gruff was leading the charge and the others seemed to think that he knew where he was going. Cast your minds back to leaving the M25 in the wrong direction....
After a mile or so a wrong turn was taken and everyone followed religiously. I think some of the natives raised an eyebrow or 2 when an illegal U-Turn was thrown at traffic lights by a convoy of 7 cars. After that surprisingly we reduced back to just Volvo, Mitsi, Polo and us. I think even Jo had disappeared by this point.
A lot of chatter over the CB's let us know that the French police didn't want us in their region anymore and stopped a few of ours so we decided to go for a low profile. Having got through a set of lights and veered off in a different direction to the rest of the scummers we checked we had everyone. Nope. Jon and Kelly in the Volvo weren't to be seen and as we know, they didnt have a working CB to contact us. Thankfully we had swapped numbers just for this kind of problem. We pulled into a fuel station and got in touch. Unfortunately, we didn't know where we had lost them, where they were, or indeed where we were. All we knew is that we were in a bright yellow petrol station and they should look out for us. Eventually they caught us up and time to go? Nope, Gruff needed a slash so we waited patiently as he walked to the back of the petrol station (with a working toilet), and wee'd against their wall. I swear he isn't house trained.
A swift check on the CB's to those in range seemed to let us know the coast was clear so off we charged again. As soon as we rounded the first corner we passed 2 coppers who had pulled a frenchman over and they looked at us. We looked at them. The FTO came off the throttle. The volvo tried to blend in. The Hillbillies (I'm friends with them now and still refer to them as Hill & Billy) happily bounced away to their classic rock album oblivious. With complete synchronicity both coppers jumped on their radios alerting any local patrols that we were still in the area so we simply ignored the suggested speed limit signs and hoofed it out of there. As soon as we got across the German border we figured fuel up, check maps, and get a lot of miles sorted as quickly as possible.
We've figured out the best route to the autobahn's and set off. At some point we met back up with the Bug and their poorly MX5. Due to something technical and mechanical, they were only running on 3 cylinders and the engine sounded rougher than rough. Gruff was still driving when we hit the first derestricted autobahn and he was absolutely thrilled to get to the dizzy heights of 85 mph. The FTO sounded like a jet fighter as it screamed past us, with the T5 happily tailgaiting behind. Via CB we had all agreed it would be sensible to keep 1 car behind the polo at all times to ensure they didn't get lost or have mechanical problems and end up starnded. We sat behind those guys happily admiring their enthusiasm. All 1054 cc of power being used and not skipping a beat at 80.
Traffic started to snarl and I was in need of a toilet stop. The worst thing in the world is knowing you're only a few hundred meters from a layby but not moving anywhere. Eventually, I gave in, got out of the car and went for a leak in the bushes. Magically like moses parting the waves, me getting my gigglestick out meant traffic flowed faster than fluids. With the tooting of horns the convoy progressed leaving me in the bushes watching. Gits. They pulled in a little bit down the road and if you watch Jo's video, you'll see me sprinting Usain Bolt style down the side of the road post piss.
I jumped in and we got going again. Despite the speed issues we had fallen foul of the previous day, the purple cab rocked to over the 100 marker so I was a happy little camper. Over the CB we heard (I think) the bug was having problems so we agreed to pull in. Unfortunately, Kelly "that space is plenty big enough" Foxhall performed a scary scary manouvere that worried us and scared the crap out of the German Merc driver she nearly took apart. It also created a warning light on the volvo that wasn't covered in the manual. Turns out it was a self protecting light that indicates Kelly shouldn't be allowed to drive the big ass volvo ever again.
After the bug was looked at we set off again. The weather was ideal so I lubed up in tan oil settled back and let the rays crisp me a little. A few of the others I could sense were starting to get a little jealous of Jo & Dave and Myself and Gruff having convertibles. We happily enjoyed the weather cruising at speeds illegal in the UK. Occasionally other teams and offical Scumrun cars passed us or got passed with a friendly toot of the horn. Happy times.
Not so happy times were to follow afterwards. A big grey cloud was appearing on the horizon looking very rainfilled. We're men not sugarmice, we will keep the roof down and get through it. And then it rained. I don't mean little drops, I mean proper biblical rain. Thick drops from the sky, with a rumble of thunder. Then we had a problem. The wipers wouldn't work. The windows wouldn't go up. The lights weren't on. Checking with he others via CB, it turns out we had no indicators either. The scene if you can picture it is 2 Brits, on an autobahn, pouring rain, windows and roof down, no wipers, no hazards, no lights not happy campers. The stereo still worked so that was a bonus :)
We pulled into a services as a convoy and the other guys were happy to wait as we figured out what had died. After half an hour or so of pulling fuses, manually lifting roof, and generally achieving nothing, I borrowed 0's waterpoof jacket and the ground sheet to their tent and we sent them on their way.
With just a handful of hours until the titty bar bus left, no point all of us missing it. With a bit of rain induced powersliding across the services car park the others disappeared into the horizon. Gruff phoned the AA (thankfully we had cover) and they sent a guy out. The anticipated delay was an hour so before he showed up so I went to the services cafe bit and bought us both a kitten bap. No idea what it was, but reasonably tasty.
The AA subcontractor turned up and didn't speak English so I was out of the loop straight away. However, I have found a new level of respect for Gruff as it turns out he is remarkably fluent in German. The problems have been described, the gonad has said he hasn't a clue and decided to bugger off leaving us stranded.
Another phone call to the AA got Herr Gonad to return to us (another hour or so) and again he explained nothing he could do as he already had a car on his flat bed. Ours started so we followed him. Having turned up at his depot I sort of understand why he didn't want our car there. It was an immaculate VW Audi dealership and we sort of lowered the tone. Entertainingly, it was in a town named "Feucht Wagon" or something very similar. We parked in his stunningly clean workshop and trickled some oily goo from the exhaust across his floor and tittered a little. A few minutes later a hobo looking chap in high-vis turned up and in perfect english explained he had nothing to do with Fords but was an Audi auto-electician and would have a look. 10 minutes later he had by-passed a relay and got everything tickety boo. He even made us a bit of fused cable and explained how to get it all running again should we encounter further problems.
All told, we had lost a lot of time (maybe 4 - 5 hours) and I had already phoned Ed and advised him we weren't gonna get on that titty bus, but we would phone him when we got to camp and get a taxi out to meet up with the rest of them at somepoint around midnight.
With a new found lease of life we kicked the arse right out of that car and despite darkness, we were happy and on the right trail. As we got to about 10 miles of the German / Czech border I was driving and passed a car "parked" on a sliproad. This should have put warnings into my tired little brain that maybe I should check my speed but no. I have Eastern european breasts to observe and I intend to do just that. The parked car was now approaching at a remarkable catch up rate so I eased off so he could pass us easily. But he didn't. Big alarm bells are starting to ring at this point. When he passed us it was a little bit of a relief. When the scrolling LED appeared in the back window advising us "Police. Follow" that relief went out the window. We were nicked. Banged to rights for speeding in a foreign country, by their unmarked coppers. Bollocks. Gruffs words of wisdom were "yes and no mate. Don't explain anything, don't have a conversation, just yes and no".
We pulled into the layby behind them and they indicated for us to stay in the car so we did. Then a series of unfortunate events unfurled...
Gruff got out of the car at their request and handed over the passports and driving licenses so they could check we weren't wanted by interpol. We're not, happy days. However, in a dark unlit layby, our replica AK47's in the doorpockets didn't seem to go down too well. Having been told (without a lot of manners may I add) to get out of the vehicle NOW and walk to the back of the car I did as instructed. At this point copper number 2 has told Gruff that his passport is in order and that Gruff is Irish. Remember yes and no? Gruff didn't. Despite having 2 armed german officers as opponents he did his best to strike an arsey argument about actualy being Welsh. Midway through him trying to get us killed, officer A has taken a look in my darkened door pocket and spotted what is in his opinion half a dozen CS spray canisters. In their eyes, they've just bagged 2 gun toting, CS smuggling Irishmen who are starting a fight. In Gruffs eyes, he's just being patriotic. In my eyes, I'm gonna be big Herman's cell toy for the next few years.
Thankfully after a little shouting orders on their part and snivveling on mine, I convinced them water pistols and energy drink but it could have been horrible. We unpacked the boot and the car to show them we werent smuggling, explained the rally and their little eyes lit up... "Are you ze first? There are more speeders yes?" Erm, no. Their eyes saddened a little bit as they realised they wouldn't be buggering up anyone elses evening. They were kind enough to explain to us that as soon as we hit Czech soil we would need a roadtax disc and they even escorted us out of their country to make sure we left. Very nice of them. By this point it had gone midnight. I asked Gruff where he had put the directions to the camp site (our satnav didn't cover Czech) and we twigged that they were in a services about 5 hours drive back.
We figured it was sleepy time coming. I wanted to crack on and just get to the camp site but Gruff wasn't having it. He's a grouchy bugger at times and this was one of those times. We pulled off the motorway about 5 miles from Prague and found a hotel. If we weren't going to see titty bars, then we were going to treat ourselves to a bed and a shower. First things first though, a pint in the hotel bar. Or 2. Or 3. Annoyingly the Czech's have their own currency, not the Euro, and we didn't have any. She said she could do the beer in Euro's but would have to charge us a whole Euro a pint. She was actually apologizing that we were having to pay 60p a pint!!!!!
After a couple of beers, it was time for showers and bed. Several well slept hours later and our alarms went off. Having stolen the toiletries from the room, we checked out and found the camp site with relative ease in the daylight.
But what followed was another interesting day...
Wednesday 1 June 2011
Finally, we have day 1 of rally, day 2 of event...
We last left the story with us in the car, horns blaring, silly o'clock local time about to leave the boat at Calais...
Where do we go from here? Well after the bug and lorries were allowed off (team bugsplat was loaded into the base of the ferry as it was too low to go up the ramps to higher deck), we left the ferry and with true style and spirit of the scumrun waited for our friends from the boat. No, my memory of that bit is wrong. Gruff was driving and against all things holy, he figured, sod it, boot it, lets get some miles done. So roof down, mist stinging cold, we have hit the French motorway at a sensible speed without seeing much apart from fog and dark smudges with tail lights. After about half an hour of this I was getting proper chilly and fed up with the game. This just wasn't fun - open top car, mist, dark, horrible weather and sleep deprived. On the upside, with the roof down the natural weather conditions made a wonderful fridge alternative for our crate of energy drinks on the sound cabinet. With the occasional chattter on the CB and not a lot to see, I dozed off and let Gruff drive.
Skipping forward a few hours I awoke as we entered a fuel stop. My first proper daylight glimpse of this country in many years and whats the first thing I spot... We are drowning in tea. Yes. If you cast your mind back somewhat you will remember that the carpet got ditched some months back and we left the electrical cables unprotected in the theory that we are grown ups and whats the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is that 20 stone of bloody Taff will be unable to operate a polystyrene cup. Apparantly the cup of tea I had bought him earlier wasn't "perfectly round" and because he can only accept perfection when it comes to tea his body rejected it and poured the tea across the floor pan. That would be the floor pan where lots of bits are earthed next to live cables. I was tired, grumpy and I may have been a little harsh in my choice of phrases but the question is still valid... How hard is it to drink a cup of sodding tea?
As usual, I seem to have gone off a little so lets drag back a bit. Before the fuel stop, at the start of the toll motorway, Jon & Kelly caught up with us. Now I'm back on track.
OK, so we pulled into the fuel stop and lo and behold theres one of ours in front. It's James and Marc in the FTO. Top Scum dressed as US Fighter Pilots. I say James and Marc. If I recall correctly Marc was off paying for fuel and getting essentials whilst James was holding a single windscreen wiper looking a little unsure of why exactly he was holding a wiper. I never did find that out.
What I did find out at that moment was exactly why you shouldn't fill your fuel tank when you are insanely tired. By this point, Gruff was starting to look weary and it was his turn to fill the tank up. I watched with great amusement as the fuel barrelled out of the filler nozzle (as the tank was full), ran down the side of the car and over his foot. Quite a lot of unleaded was wasted across the floor and Gruffs shoes and socks before he twigged. How I chuckled at the time but karma bit me back. Twice. Firstly, it was my time to pay for the fuel so I had to cough for fuel foot as well as the tank, and secondly the stench of petrol in the cab wouldn't shift.
As I was paying for fuel I was impressed by Jon (Volvo T5) and his bilingual abilities. he seemed to be speaking quite well in his quest to pay for fuel (I simply pointed at the car and waved a card - This worked everywhere) and I couldn't understand a word. Right up until "erm... je suis erm... pump....erm... five". God alone knows what he was telling her before that point. Probably that handbrakes are awesome or something similar in french.
Suitably coffee'd and pasty'd up we went back to the cars (remember, we are in a full services at this point) to discover Gruff having a slash in the bushes. A point worth noting here that it was a longer walk to the bushes than the toilets from where we were parked...
Our route cards for the day we had worked out so with fuel on board, off we went to both the headquarters of Verve Clique and Moet et Chandon. Both predictably in the Champagne region of France.
The Verve Clique was a relatively simple find with no drama. We turned up, met a bunch of other scummers, got pics taken outside and drove to the Moet HQ. This checkpoint was in a narrow bit of a fairly busy town. What the tow planners hadn't thought of was 100+ cars turning up and stopping in their warren of streets. We buggered that towns roads for a fair few minutes. Not drawing attention to ourselves was easy. Not drawing attention to our group was nearly impossible as right outside the Moet building were the YMCA boys, in full outfits, standing on top of their police car doing the signature dance with the stereo at full whack. It's at this point we broke free and left.
By this point we had swapped drivers and I was in control whilst Gruff had nap time. We had Jon & Kelly leading, us following and the FTO with Marc and James behind. Having got the checkpoints done, all that was left to do was find the campsite. With plenty of time left before dark we had figured we weren't going to clock in on the fastest 10 cars (a prestigious plaque and parking spot allocated each day to these champions of cheap chariots), so we could either a) try and drop in with some of the faster cars times or b) actually enjoy some of the fantastic scenery. With that in mind, we dropped away from the motorway network and wound our way (at a fair pace may I add in here) through the back lanes and roads towards camp.
By mutual agreement we pulled in for a spot of lunch at a cracking park and the three cars drew quite a lot of looks at they turned up.
Regardless we walked into the shop and promptly found an interesting pairing of crisp flavours - Donner and chicken kebab favour crisps. Whilst we were deciding what to get from the foreign menu snacks an unmissed feeling cropped up. Yet again, either scroll to the relevant blog post or take my word for it, I had a very very poorly stomach the week leading up to Scumrun and loaded myself up to the limit on pooblockers on the Monday evening. This is now Friday. I hadn't had a "movement" for 4 days so I told Gruff to pick me something to eat and I'd see him outside in a bit. Without aiming for the vulgar note, it was a mixture of relief and pain as I gave birth to the largest, roughest traffic bollard in the history of man.
Outside we got chatting about what we do and I already had a hunch that Jon was an officer of the law. This was proven to be correct and Kelly is some sort of IT - turn it off and turn it on again helper (sorry Kelly, I couldnt resist that as I know how much you hate tech support being grouped). It's no secret that Gruff drives lorries and I play with numbers, but it just left Marc and James to stop being coy. After a bit of nudging and hinting, Jon recognised the boots (of all things) and twigged. Thats right guys, Gruff and I have been speeding through France with not 1, not 2, but 3 of her Majesties finest. Jon is Medway but the FTO guys are full on Met officers.
I think I mentioned before that I was crap with names so we just dubbed Marc and James with the tags "5" & "0" respectively. We're still friendly with these guys and the tags have stuck. As much as I love slating the job that these guys do, you'll find out later that it's a very good club to be in and they're handy to know at times.
Having discovered occupations and watched them exchanging stories which I won't go into (but take my advice now... If you are ever in London and need directions, just hope it's not 5 & 0 that give them to you). Absolute quality and brought tears to our eyes.
Having got the un-named meat sandwiches eaten, we agred that dinner shopping would probably be a good idea so aimed to find a big supermarket in Strassburg (where we were camping that evening).
A few hours later we arrived at a beautiful stretch of road. A couple of miles of insanely sweeping and tight hairpins combined with a steep downwards hill. The volvo handled like a barge on steroids due to it's size and the FTO was struggling wiith left turns. Every left turn needed to be done wide as they couldn't control the lock. Which put us in our element. Both the other cars have larger more powerful engines but steering / handling issues whereas we are light and nimble, agile and fun. Remember it's drive it like you stole it Savage in the hot seat, not Drive it like Miss Daisy, so I leadfooted that poor little cabby with last minute braking, over the lines on blind corners to get the apex just right before off the brakes and powering on to the next corner. Oh such fun. Oh the joys. Oh shit. At the end of this stretch we got caught behind traffic (in honesty, they were probably speeding but we had been giving it the beans and still caught them). Whilst in that traffic we could smell burning. Really rancid, mechanical burning. A quick check on the CB revealed none of us had any warning lights showing but there was definately an issue with one of our cars. The Volvo seemed OK, the FTO said they could smell it strongly through their vents which meant it was us.
5 & 0 dropped back a bit to slow the traffic behind them and I took the car up to 50 and went for an emergency stop to check out if it was our brakes. That emergency stop was laughable. We had no brakes at all. Time to pull into a supermarket carpark and have a look. The once pristine white alloys were now a combination of black and grey. The heat being generated from those front wheels was ridiculous and worrying. So we decided to go to the shop to let them cool off.
As usual, Gruff needed a fluid loss so rather than use the toilets inside the shop he wandered off to the edge of the car park with his flies in his hand, ready to release the one eyed gopher. I believe it was Jon that told him this may not have been the smartest idea as he was about to start reliving himself yards away from a fully marked French police unit.
We wandered into the shop determined to get some meat for the barbecue in the car and some cans of fizzy pop. We knew we wanted burgers, sausages and steaks so the mission was simple. Find them. We couldnt. What we did find was the butchers counter but he didn't speak english and the labels could have said anything. What we bought meat wise I dont know, but they were the nicest chilli covered steaks I have ever tasted.
Whilst on a wander round the shop Gruff had got lost trying to find sandals and whilst we were trying to find him, 5 made a friend. This friend looked ever so slightly "special" but unattended and without any carer so I can only assume that he was normal by French standards. He tried striking up a conversation but when we politely blanked him, rather than being upset, he simply started stroking the fighter pilot outfit 5 was wearing. It's not the only bit of worrying man action those boys got this weekend, in fact it set the tone for the guys I reckon.
I'm looking at my notes and realise that I have missed out a bit somewhere. Not overly exciting but I know we set off a speed camera somewhere just outside Champagne region so I'm pretty certain the Volvo and FTO did also.
Back to the train of thought, we left the shop and made our way cautiously to the campsite. We found it with ease and circled the cars. Jon and Kelly had a simple tent that took seconds to construct. 5 & 0 had a slightly more complex variant but our bloody great hotel made of canvas was a mystery to us. A deal was struck and I fired up the barbecue, 5 & 0 made our tent, Jon wandered to the bar and Gruff got out the way.
After eating the nicest meat off Hannah Montanna plates (cheers sweetie for sneaking them into the shopping trolley - I didn't get stick for them at all), we then moved onto the sausages we had bought. Not being a full barbecuist I dont know when things are ready so got 0 to try one. He said they were just the right side of luke warm in the middle so we got stuck in. A beverage was needed at this point.
After that, it was time to wander up to the bar to meet everyone else who had made it in one piece. A pleasant time was had and we called it a night and crawled to our sleeping bags.
Tomorrow is a fresh challenge but an interesting story to tell...
Breakdowns, titty bars, cheap beer, and deresticted autobahns coming up next.
================================================================
================================================================
Joe Richardson (Team bugsplat) has created a cracking bit of video foootage - check it out here...
A seperate note, the engine is now in, has been tested, and I'm due to pick the scummer up on Saturday...
Here is a taster of the new and improved Juliette - put it on full screen and turn your speakers up:
Where do we go from here? Well after the bug and lorries were allowed off (team bugsplat was loaded into the base of the ferry as it was too low to go up the ramps to higher deck), we left the ferry and with true style and spirit of the scumrun waited for our friends from the boat. No, my memory of that bit is wrong. Gruff was driving and against all things holy, he figured, sod it, boot it, lets get some miles done. So roof down, mist stinging cold, we have hit the French motorway at a sensible speed without seeing much apart from fog and dark smudges with tail lights. After about half an hour of this I was getting proper chilly and fed up with the game. This just wasn't fun - open top car, mist, dark, horrible weather and sleep deprived. On the upside, with the roof down the natural weather conditions made a wonderful fridge alternative for our crate of energy drinks on the sound cabinet. With the occasional chattter on the CB and not a lot to see, I dozed off and let Gruff drive.
Skipping forward a few hours I awoke as we entered a fuel stop. My first proper daylight glimpse of this country in many years and whats the first thing I spot... We are drowning in tea. Yes. If you cast your mind back somewhat you will remember that the carpet got ditched some months back and we left the electrical cables unprotected in the theory that we are grown ups and whats the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is that 20 stone of bloody Taff will be unable to operate a polystyrene cup. Apparantly the cup of tea I had bought him earlier wasn't "perfectly round" and because he can only accept perfection when it comes to tea his body rejected it and poured the tea across the floor pan. That would be the floor pan where lots of bits are earthed next to live cables. I was tired, grumpy and I may have been a little harsh in my choice of phrases but the question is still valid... How hard is it to drink a cup of sodding tea?
As usual, I seem to have gone off a little so lets drag back a bit. Before the fuel stop, at the start of the toll motorway, Jon & Kelly caught up with us. Now I'm back on track.
OK, so we pulled into the fuel stop and lo and behold theres one of ours in front. It's James and Marc in the FTO. Top Scum dressed as US Fighter Pilots. I say James and Marc. If I recall correctly Marc was off paying for fuel and getting essentials whilst James was holding a single windscreen wiper looking a little unsure of why exactly he was holding a wiper. I never did find that out.
What I did find out at that moment was exactly why you shouldn't fill your fuel tank when you are insanely tired. By this point, Gruff was starting to look weary and it was his turn to fill the tank up. I watched with great amusement as the fuel barrelled out of the filler nozzle (as the tank was full), ran down the side of the car and over his foot. Quite a lot of unleaded was wasted across the floor and Gruffs shoes and socks before he twigged. How I chuckled at the time but karma bit me back. Twice. Firstly, it was my time to pay for the fuel so I had to cough for fuel foot as well as the tank, and secondly the stench of petrol in the cab wouldn't shift.
As I was paying for fuel I was impressed by Jon (Volvo T5) and his bilingual abilities. he seemed to be speaking quite well in his quest to pay for fuel (I simply pointed at the car and waved a card - This worked everywhere) and I couldn't understand a word. Right up until "erm... je suis erm... pump....erm... five". God alone knows what he was telling her before that point. Probably that handbrakes are awesome or something similar in french.
Suitably coffee'd and pasty'd up we went back to the cars (remember, we are in a full services at this point) to discover Gruff having a slash in the bushes. A point worth noting here that it was a longer walk to the bushes than the toilets from where we were parked...
Our route cards for the day we had worked out so with fuel on board, off we went to both the headquarters of Verve Clique and Moet et Chandon. Both predictably in the Champagne region of France.
(Jon parked the big Volvo on the grass somewhere overlapping a disabled spot at Verve HQ)
The Verve Clique was a relatively simple find with no drama. We turned up, met a bunch of other scummers, got pics taken outside and drove to the Moet HQ. This checkpoint was in a narrow bit of a fairly busy town. What the tow planners hadn't thought of was 100+ cars turning up and stopping in their warren of streets. We buggered that towns roads for a fair few minutes. Not drawing attention to ourselves was easy. Not drawing attention to our group was nearly impossible as right outside the Moet building were the YMCA boys, in full outfits, standing on top of their police car doing the signature dance with the stereo at full whack. It's at this point we broke free and left.
By this point we had swapped drivers and I was in control whilst Gruff had nap time. We had Jon & Kelly leading, us following and the FTO with Marc and James behind. Having got the checkpoints done, all that was left to do was find the campsite. With plenty of time left before dark we had figured we weren't going to clock in on the fastest 10 cars (a prestigious plaque and parking spot allocated each day to these champions of cheap chariots), so we could either a) try and drop in with some of the faster cars times or b) actually enjoy some of the fantastic scenery. With that in mind, we dropped away from the motorway network and wound our way (at a fair pace may I add in here) through the back lanes and roads towards camp.
By mutual agreement we pulled in for a spot of lunch at a cracking park and the three cars drew quite a lot of looks at they turned up.
Regardless we walked into the shop and promptly found an interesting pairing of crisp flavours - Donner and chicken kebab favour crisps. Whilst we were deciding what to get from the foreign menu snacks an unmissed feeling cropped up. Yet again, either scroll to the relevant blog post or take my word for it, I had a very very poorly stomach the week leading up to Scumrun and loaded myself up to the limit on pooblockers on the Monday evening. This is now Friday. I hadn't had a "movement" for 4 days so I told Gruff to pick me something to eat and I'd see him outside in a bit. Without aiming for the vulgar note, it was a mixture of relief and pain as I gave birth to the largest, roughest traffic bollard in the history of man.
Outside we got chatting about what we do and I already had a hunch that Jon was an officer of the law. This was proven to be correct and Kelly is some sort of IT - turn it off and turn it on again helper (sorry Kelly, I couldnt resist that as I know how much you hate tech support being grouped). It's no secret that Gruff drives lorries and I play with numbers, but it just left Marc and James to stop being coy. After a bit of nudging and hinting, Jon recognised the boots (of all things) and twigged. Thats right guys, Gruff and I have been speeding through France with not 1, not 2, but 3 of her Majesties finest. Jon is Medway but the FTO guys are full on Met officers.
I think I mentioned before that I was crap with names so we just dubbed Marc and James with the tags "5" & "0" respectively. We're still friendly with these guys and the tags have stuck. As much as I love slating the job that these guys do, you'll find out later that it's a very good club to be in and they're handy to know at times.
Having discovered occupations and watched them exchanging stories which I won't go into (but take my advice now... If you are ever in London and need directions, just hope it's not 5 & 0 that give them to you). Absolute quality and brought tears to our eyes.
Having got the un-named meat sandwiches eaten, we agred that dinner shopping would probably be a good idea so aimed to find a big supermarket in Strassburg (where we were camping that evening).
A few hours later we arrived at a beautiful stretch of road. A couple of miles of insanely sweeping and tight hairpins combined with a steep downwards hill. The volvo handled like a barge on steroids due to it's size and the FTO was struggling wiith left turns. Every left turn needed to be done wide as they couldn't control the lock. Which put us in our element. Both the other cars have larger more powerful engines but steering / handling issues whereas we are light and nimble, agile and fun. Remember it's drive it like you stole it Savage in the hot seat, not Drive it like Miss Daisy, so I leadfooted that poor little cabby with last minute braking, over the lines on blind corners to get the apex just right before off the brakes and powering on to the next corner. Oh such fun. Oh the joys. Oh shit. At the end of this stretch we got caught behind traffic (in honesty, they were probably speeding but we had been giving it the beans and still caught them). Whilst in that traffic we could smell burning. Really rancid, mechanical burning. A quick check on the CB revealed none of us had any warning lights showing but there was definately an issue with one of our cars. The Volvo seemed OK, the FTO said they could smell it strongly through their vents which meant it was us.
5 & 0 dropped back a bit to slow the traffic behind them and I took the car up to 50 and went for an emergency stop to check out if it was our brakes. That emergency stop was laughable. We had no brakes at all. Time to pull into a supermarket carpark and have a look. The once pristine white alloys were now a combination of black and grey. The heat being generated from those front wheels was ridiculous and worrying. So we decided to go to the shop to let them cool off.
As usual, Gruff needed a fluid loss so rather than use the toilets inside the shop he wandered off to the edge of the car park with his flies in his hand, ready to release the one eyed gopher. I believe it was Jon that told him this may not have been the smartest idea as he was about to start reliving himself yards away from a fully marked French police unit.
We wandered into the shop determined to get some meat for the barbecue in the car and some cans of fizzy pop. We knew we wanted burgers, sausages and steaks so the mission was simple. Find them. We couldnt. What we did find was the butchers counter but he didn't speak english and the labels could have said anything. What we bought meat wise I dont know, but they were the nicest chilli covered steaks I have ever tasted.
Whilst on a wander round the shop Gruff had got lost trying to find sandals and whilst we were trying to find him, 5 made a friend. This friend looked ever so slightly "special" but unattended and without any carer so I can only assume that he was normal by French standards. He tried striking up a conversation but when we politely blanked him, rather than being upset, he simply started stroking the fighter pilot outfit 5 was wearing. It's not the only bit of worrying man action those boys got this weekend, in fact it set the tone for the guys I reckon.
I'm looking at my notes and realise that I have missed out a bit somewhere. Not overly exciting but I know we set off a speed camera somewhere just outside Champagne region so I'm pretty certain the Volvo and FTO did also.
Back to the train of thought, we left the shop and made our way cautiously to the campsite. We found it with ease and circled the cars. Jon and Kelly had a simple tent that took seconds to construct. 5 & 0 had a slightly more complex variant but our bloody great hotel made of canvas was a mystery to us. A deal was struck and I fired up the barbecue, 5 & 0 made our tent, Jon wandered to the bar and Gruff got out the way.
After eating the nicest meat off Hannah Montanna plates (cheers sweetie for sneaking them into the shopping trolley - I didn't get stick for them at all), we then moved onto the sausages we had bought. Not being a full barbecuist I dont know when things are ready so got 0 to try one. He said they were just the right side of luke warm in the middle so we got stuck in. A beverage was needed at this point.
(L-R, Jon 5, 0, Kelly)
After that, it was time to wander up to the bar to meet everyone else who had made it in one piece. A pleasant time was had and we called it a night and crawled to our sleeping bags.
Tomorrow is a fresh challenge but an interesting story to tell...
Breakdowns, titty bars, cheap beer, and deresticted autobahns coming up next.
================================================================
================================================================
Joe Richardson (Team bugsplat) has created a cracking bit of video foootage - check it out here...
A seperate note, the engine is now in, has been tested, and I'm due to pick the scummer up on Saturday...
Here is a taster of the new and improved Juliette - put it on full screen and turn your speakers up:
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