expoweb/years/1991/driver.htm

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>1991: Cambridge Underground report</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../css/main2.css" />
</head>
<body>
<center><font size=-1>Cambridge Underground 1992 pp 21-25</font>

<h2>How (not) to drive round Europe</h2>

<h3>Wookey</h3></center>

<p>The plan was to for Wook, Henri, Tony, Fran, Andy &amp; Olly to go for a
week's caving in the Vercours, France, after the expo, and then for
Wook &amp; Ol to go on to the ExCS Berger trip and then on to the East
Dorset Italian expo, taking in the Swiss National Caving Conference in the
middle. Unfortunately things didn't go quite as expected:

<p>Mo29Jul91: We set off from Hilde's at 11.30pm, two days late after
an entire day's packing. This 'expo caver' packing meant
that the van was extremely full, indeed probably overloaded, allowing for
the weight of me &amp; Henri.

<p>Tu30Jul91: Awoke to notice that Henri's karrimats had all fallen off the
roof already - oops. Lots of driving. Got stuck on the Arlberg pass again
(last year Wookmobile I had simply been unable to get up without conking
out); overheating this time, but half an hour's rest and another litre of
water did the trick. Decided to take the motorways for the rest of the trip.

<p>Oh dear, Henri rolled the van: started drifting towards outside lane,
beeped at severely by passing fast car, swerved back into lane and then lost
it with about 3 more swerves before rolling over 1.25 revs to end up on the
bank/hard shoulder pointing back upstream with a phenomenal amount of shit
scattered about. 'I think you should turn the engine off now dear'.

<p>Climbed out through where windscreen used to be. Onlookers amazed to
find that we were fine. Bits of CD, disks, toffee &amp; hangers all over
the place, as the back door had burst open when the hole it was supposed to
fill became a radically different shape. We had both lost our specs. The
roof was where the passenger's head should have been, trapping the seat
and thus my rucksack, which had been stuffed behind it. Quite why I
hadn't been crushed, or at least banged my head wasn't clear.

<p>Sat around in my shreddies (it had been a hot day) surveying the mess for
a bit &amp; then started trying to sort out all the shit. Everything was
covered in gook from the beer bottles, milk, and eggs which had been stuffed
in the back.

<p>Two plods and two rescue men arrived and shifted gear. They got fed up
after an hour or so and started shovelling it all into bin bags - my poor
floppies!. We travelled with the plods, and watched them reset the caution
signs by remote control and also open gates to secret backways. Festered and
starved for another hour in the police station before being told that we
hadn't bent their motorway and the registration document didn't have a
taxable weight on it so we wouldn't get done for probably being overloaded,
but we would have to pay for the recovery.

<p>The garage men took us away to get stuff from the van. They were somewhat
surprised when we asked to camp rather than go to a hotel. Had a vesta and
kipped under the shelter the van had been left in, sleeping on a trailer to
avoid the water from the impressive thunderstorm. Got bitten to death by
mozzies (esp henri) but otherwise very nice.

<p>We31Jul91: Taken from the compound to the garage (at the other end of
town) by Herr Schwagli (the owner) and started the long and tedious process
of sorting things out. Rang GESA rescue people but we couldn't find
green card and UK insurance company was still in bed. Had two hours to wait
so went off to find green card in van but couldn't find it (the van
that is). Were found wandering around the town by an English-speaking woman
who had translated for the garage.

<p>After another phone call or two (including Tony's mum) we were taken
back and had dindins, then returned and sat in the garage all afternoon
while GESA tried to sort out a hire car - v.boring. Rang up to pester and
point out that there was a bank holiday the next day so they had better get
it sorted.

<p>Nasty garage woman mentioned uberladen (overladen) to GESA - silly cow. 
Tried to point out to her that if the insurers got wind of this then she
wouldn't get any money either. Were informed that Swiss hire cars were
no good as they aren't allowed out of the country, so we had to get a
taxi to Basel to pick up a French hire car. Just as taxi arrived everything
went potty as all the customs faxes (for leaving the car behind) came
through, the garage revealed its collection fee of &#163;225 !!, and Ol/Tony
rang up just to confuse things. We had to ring up National Breakdown to get
them to promise to pay for the portion or the recovery that GESA
wouldn't cover (their limit being &#163;150). There was no time for a
confirmation fax so Henri paid then except that they had to ring up the bank
to deal with a visa card.

<p>Finally we left with now fuming taxi-man and his massive horse-box sized
trailer to collect all our gear. We noticed that the receipt we had been
given said that we were uberladen (again - morons) - pointed out to Herr
Schwagli that he wasn't going to get any bloody money if he wrote this
sort of thing. It finally clicked so he went back to the garage and
re-wrote it - tee hee.

<p>The Taxi man gave us loads of stress to go as fast as possible and so we
just had to throw all the still largely unsorted bin-bags of stuff into this
horse-box thing - he even managed to get the windsurfer in, but couldn't
quite manage the hang-glider.

<p>He then dropped us off in the Swiss half of Basel airport. I rang the
number he gave us and was told there was an Avis car for us. Avis desk knew
nothing and neither did any of the others. After much phoning it eventually
transpired that our car was in the French half, unlike us. The Avis people
were very upset by the size of our gear pile (and the concept of us putting
it in one of their cars, I think). They tried to get us a Traffic van or
similar but failed - no idea why. I pursuaded customs man to let me onto
French side, and eventually got a Passat estate and garbled instructions
from by now almost rabid Avis woman.

<p>Took the car round past snotty border guard (you have to drive 8km to get
from French to Swiss side of airport, despite being able to see the point you
are aiming for on the other side of the fence as you set off). Get back to
dejected-looking Henri sitting atop the gear pile to find severely annoyed
Avis people as I hadn't signed any papers before driving off in their car!
Couldn't find my driving licence which pissed Henri off lots, but Avis gave
up in exasperation about then (10pm) and buggered off.

<p>We tried packing the car and (not surprisingly) it didn't even
slightly fit...

<p>Round about now things started to get a bit much - it was 11pm the day
before the biggest bank holiday for years, we were stuck in an airport
carpark with half an expo's worth of gear that wouldn't even pretend to fit
in our car and we were generally fed up.

<p>At this point an angel appeared - in the form of Dr Noelpp, a middle-aged
woman on crutches. She first offered us 40Sfr (about &#163;15) for a taxi,
and then the use of her garage to put our stuff in. Then she went and
negotiated with the taxi drivers for us. Eventually a plan was formulated
to get another estate-sized taxi &amp; take half the shit to the railway
station &amp; bung it on a train back to England. She wrote out her address
and left us to get on with it. 

<p>Another taxi was duly filled (although its owner looked decidedly unhappy
about how grubby our stuff was), and we trailed off to the Bahnhof. There
Dr Noelpp re-appeared as she had forgotten to give us the bit of paper with
her address on - dedication!  She attempted to negotiate with the railway
staff but they said nothing doing tonight, and the left luggage people were
even more unhelpful. Things didn't look too good so we gave up &amp;
went back to her garage and unloaded the taxi-full of stuff into one corner
of it. Here 40Sfr conveniently exactly covered the taxi fare (easy come,
easy go).

<p>Finally, rather than disturb her flat-mate, she took us to an extremely
posh hotel round the corner and paid (gold VISA) about &#163;100 for both of
us to stay the night and have breakfast, incredible! People do not behave
like this!

<p>Th01Aug91: Get up in our nice hotel to nice(ish) brekky and go to Basel
bahnhof to sort out gear transportation. SBB (Swiss railways) told us it
would be 428Sfr (&#163;150 odd) for 100kg, and suggested that the French
might be cheaper. SNCF (French railways) told us 13Sfr per bag (much
cheaper), but only if travelling with the baggage - for separate baggage
travel go to Societ&eacute; Express. Much hassle finding appropriate,
'obviously closed', dingy office. In there we were told (in
incredibly fast French) that it would be 441Sfr but Swiss loading bays were
shut so it couldn't be done until tomorrow. If we went to Mulhouse
(which was properly in France and thus wouldn't be bank-holidayed) we
could do it. Apparently roadworks meant that Mulhouse-ouest was easiest.

<p>Went back to Dr Noelpp for a drink and I was lectured on getting young
ladies in to trouble in this way. I refrained from pointing out that it
wasn't me that had crashed. :-)

<p>Then we got back to the now familiar routine of sorting gear. We needed to
pick things for shipping that we didn't need, that weren't worth too much,
weren't too heavy, and would survive the experience.  We were extremely
unenthusiastic about packing the car to see how much we could get in, then
taking it all out so that we could take what was left to Mulhouse, as we had
had enough of packing, unpacking &amp; re-packing in the last couple of days.
Thus we just sort of guessed &amp; hoped. The pile that was left looked
worryingly big.

<p>Went to Mulhouse, found ouest. 'Nous voudrons emmener pr&egrave;s de cent
Kilos de baggage &aacute; Angleterre, S'il vous pla&icirc;t' 'Sorry, haven't
been able to do that here for years'. Told to go to Mulhouse central. At
central told that we could only take 3 bags of 30kg each and only if we
travelled with them - arghhhhh! - must go to Mulhouse nord. Found a friendly
postie who showed us where to go.

<p>Eventually found huge, kilometer-long Victorian goods station. Told there
that we needed a container(lorry) which would cost 8000ff! - Must find an
expediteur who packs containers. 'Well, where's one of them then?' At the
other end of the platform. Sernam. By now we were becoming a little
disheartened again - time was ticking by and it didn't look like our car-full
of gear was going anywhere fast. However Sernam were stars! 1180ff for 150kg
excluding UK customs charges. After a bit of yakking, and abuse about my
French being crap they just told us to just put everything in a big box. It
weighed in at 200kg, but the man wrote down 180. After writing customs
letters we just had to hand over 2000ff (&#163;200) and 'twas done - hooray.

<p>Went back to Basel to pack rest of gear into car and got fed gaspacho
soup, melon, salad, and generally had a nice swiss tea party with jokes
about cannibals in two languages - surreal. Eventually set off at 9 and
drove to within 11 kloms of Annecy by 1am and kipped by the side of the
road.

<p>Fr02Aug91: We had agreed (via Tony's parents) to meet Tony and co. at
either the Carrefour or the Hang-gliding site in Annecy. This was because
we were also going to meet Julian here, and we needed him to go and get the
hang-glider (which was now festering next to the van) back to the UK, as it
appeared miraculously not to be bent.

<p>We met Fran and Andy on way out of the Carrefour - hooray! Spent the day
festering at the HG landing field. I was worried that the insurers were
going to call the van a write-off. If they did I would get nothing and have
my perfectly good diesel engine stuck in Switzerland even though it still
ran (I checked) and thus was worth money, so I hatched a daft plan to drive
the van back with Olly, and leave Henri to take the Passat back. Henri was
extremely unenthusiastic, and there were obvious difficulties like having
some of the lights smashed, probable poor handling (depending on how bent
chassis was), and getting nicked for driving a vehicle which has obviously
just been rolled - also UK customs could be difficult about it all. Agreed
that if GESA/Provincial hadn't already decided it was written off I
would give them the benefit of the doubt &amp; leave it. It would be always
be possible to come back for it for not too much expense. They hadn't
decided yet so loony plan A was shelved.

<p>Then went to Chambery to wait (from 4pm) for Julian who eventually turned
up at 10.43pm, having been waiting in some other Carrefour carpark since
6.00pm.

<p>Sa03Aug91: Finally pack cars for the last time, distributing gear between
Julian &amp; Tony, as we will have to carry our stuff onto the ferry, leaving
the car in France. Also have to make room for Olly as Tony can't stand him
any longer. Julian heads off to collect hang glider (he ends up having to
steal it because the compound was shut as it was Sunday). They also drive van
around to check it still works and steal the battery, as even if I don't get
the van back the battery will be useful to the expo.

<p>Meanwhile Tony &amp; I have a great drive across France with two (too)
fast cars, consistently giving Tony a hard time trying to follow due to
yobby overtaking.

<p>Have a hard time at ferry port with most of the gear in Tony's car
but still two shopping-trolly-fulls which must be unloaded on the boat, and
all the gear carried up &amp; off the top. Also have to do more
phone-calling to sort out hire car in UK. Apparently no cars available so
we will have to have a taxi instead - how sad!  We are the only foot
passengers and get lots of personal Customs officials! 

<p>Took gear back off Tony - put it into Taxi and were driven straight to
Spalders - luxury.

<p>The box that we had put on the train was supposed to take 3-4days to get
to Britain, but actually took 3 weeks in the end having gone via Holland for
some inexplicable reason. Henri got bored of camping in Spalders back
garden waiting for it and went back to Bristol. When it did arrive her
clothes were mouldy.

<h3>Part II - Wookmobile III</h3>

Now, for most people, this would be the end of the tale, but I'm a sucker for
punishment and decided that, having missed the ExCS Berger trip, I would at
least go and do the third part of my summer holiday - the East Dorset Expo to
Piagga Bella in Italy. This required a car so I nobbled Bullet, our
neighbourhood wide boy, who put me in touch with a mate of his with a Volvo
264 V6 2.7 litre air-conditioned monster for sale for a mere &#163;300 (as it
didn't have an MOT). The deal was struck (for &#163;275 in fact) and
Wookmobile III was born. At this stage I was still arguing with NB and GESA
about getting the van back - they insisted that it was a write-off. I
insisted that it was worth at least &#163;800 just for the engine so they
should bring it back. It looked like I was going to have to do it myself so
the gear for going to Italy included a tow hitch, emergency windscreen, car
battery, ropes and a scaffold pole so we could tow the van back. Fortunately,
an hour before we left NB finally agreed to do it for us so we were able to
leave all this impedimentia behind.

<p>Sat07Sep91: Drove out to Italy (me, IainM and Olly). Fairly boring and
car far too full. Only interest was running out of rear brake pads halfway
across France and having to find some and fit them in a Carrefour car-park.

<p>Tue17Sep91: Ran of other brake pads in Switzerland. More running about to
find a shop and payment method.

<p>Th19Sep91: Set off in the afternoon, giving us 40 hours to get to the
BCRA conference at UMIST. This thus gave a good 12 odd hours for disasters
before we actually became late. As we drove across Italy it became obvious
that the car was underperforming badly, with acceleration only just possible
- too much throttle just made it splutter. We got as far as the road up to
the pass between Italy &amp; France, but after doing 5mph up it for ages
stopped to try and fettle it. This was a grave error. Looked at huge V6
injection thingy and realised that we had no idea how to fix it - or even
work out what was wrong. 

<p>Gave up after deciding that it was probably the fuel, and set off to ring
Nat Bdown. Walked 4 or 5 clicks back down the road to find a phone but as I
only had about 1800 lire I got about 4 seconds - not terribly useful. It was
now about 2am. Mr plod spoke fuck all English and was pretty useless. He
suggested ringing 116 appearing to claim that either the call or the service
was free, but it didn't work with no dosh. Gave up and walked back up hill to
re-try attempt on summit and get into France if at all possible, as it is
closer to England and we speak the language. Car now wouldn't even start so
gave up and just rolled back down the hill and went to sleep. 

<p>Fr20Sep91: Woke at 07.30 and set off to find a phone/change. If we could
get the car fixed by midday we could still get to the conference (and
probably sleep through most of it). Used a hotel phone and after a bit of
difficulty because their ring-back number was wrong I got through. The repair
man arrived by 9.00 and after scraping a big hole in the tarmac with the
exhaust pipe dragging the extremely full Volvo onto the transporter. We were
on our way. The first garage wouldn't even let us off the transporter, so we
went on to a Volvo garage, halfway back to Torino (grrr).  They did all the
usual things and after a false alarm about water in the fuel they decided
that they couldn't fix it. 

<p>By now it was past the midday deadline and we were definitely going to be
late. Soon, we were off to the central Volvo garage in Torino. But we had to
sit in the car for two hours in mid transport as it was siesta time! Then we
wasted about an hour arguing about payment; I was trying to explain that Nat
Bdown should pay &amp; this Italian just kept shouting at me a lot. Crazy
scene of me &amp; Italian ranting at each other in alternate languages -
neither understanding a word the other said! Eventually I realised that
despite transporting us for over an hour he only wanted 35,000 lire
(&#163;17) (bit cheaper than &#163;225 for 10mins in Switzerland). Complete
inability of Italians to deal with concept of Access or Eurocheques, and my
lack of cash meant he took a &#163;20 note in the end.

<p>Finally Volvo looked at the car (and kept comparing it with another one in
the corner). Eventually decided that the fuel controller was knackered and
that they could probably get one by Monday, and I couldn't leave the car in
the garage - I would have to park it outside. All translation was done via
one poor secretary who spoke halting English.

<p>We finally gave up hope of getting to the conference and Iain &amp; Ol
decided to go home while I would wait for car to be fixed. So after a
couple more hours of wandering about making spurious phone calls to NB for
confirmation (discovering that you need at least 200 lire to prime a callbox
for freephone calls), Ol and Iain set off by train. I was immediately
befriended by the man whose house I was now camping outside, and given a
shower, wine and fruit, whilst attempting to communicate in schoolboy
german. He took me to see his friend Giovanni who had been a Cornish tin
miner 30 years ago! They decided that the garage Giovanni worked at would
have a look at the car tomorrow, as Volvo were shut for the weekend. 

<p>Sa21Sep91: Team mechanic came to push the car round the block to the
garage to see if they could fix it. It only took them a bit more than an
hour to decide that it was a job for Volvo (surprise, surprise). 

<p>I now had two days in Torino to kill - yum, yum. Went for a wander into
town to get some dosh and do some shopping, and had a look round Torino
centro. Italy is improving rapidly - it is the first country which has
cashpoint machines that actually recognise my eurocard and will give me dosh
(and English instructions). Checked out the very cheap and revoltingly
uncensored porn in the high street, and spent the rest of the day festering
in the car (doing the expo accounts), except for a couple of hours in the
evening watching all 29 channels of Italian tv, in the nightwatchman's
hut in the garage (it was manned 24hrs as it doubled as a lock-up car park
for rich Italians).

<p>Su22Sep91: I was woken up by Maurizio (Modolo), the garage manager, and
told that I could have dinner at his place. He had obviously been
practising his English as yesterday he had been frustrated by a complete
inability to communicate with me (I was not particularly frustrated as this
had become the standard state of affairs - and just smiled at him a lot
until he gave up the attempt). After being stuffed silly on ham, melon,
pasta, roast beef, chips and salad, by his mother, I was taken on a tour of
Torino: Including the Basilica Superga, a huge cathedral on a mountain
thingy, then ice cream and some bloody great tower in Torino Centro which,
of course, one wasn't allowed to climb to the top of or to ab down the
side of. Then it was back for tea (his mother is trying to kill me with too
much food). He even let me use his phone to ring Henri in England!
Astounding hospitality, these Italians.

<p>Mo23Sep91: Rolled back to Volvo by Giovanni, and Maurizio. Punto Auto
Volvo finally get their act together, identify a shagged fuel pump and
replace it by 11.30am. Had to pay by cash as they are such tossers, so to
avoid being lunchtimed again I had to sprint into town to find two banks
that would cash Eurocheques to cover the 473,000 lire they wanted (about
&#163;180, gulp). I just made it, and was impressed by the mechanic's
English efforts!

<p>Then the relatively trivial matter of 11.5hrs drive to somewhere
nondescript in France. 

<p>Tu24Sep91: Car took 15mins to start: badly in need of a fettle - good job
it has a battery that will turn the engine forever. Crashed slightly en
route - oops. Accelerating uphill on tightly left curving dual carriageway. 
Just made it past an artic when the back started to drift. Caught it, but
it thrashed back the other way, I ran out of steering travel, and thus
bounced off the barrier (front left corner), directly in front of the artic. 
Fortunately the hgv stopped (I thanked him when I overtook him again a few
klicks later). The only damage was a deformed bumper, and the radiator
grill fell off (good gear, Volvo's). This was the first time I had
driven the car in the rain in the three weeks I had had it, and had
discovered that it was a bit frisky. Arrived at Bologne at 3pm and told pay
&#163;38 extra or wait. I waited - another few hours after spending 5 days
trying to get back to the UK was no big deal.

<p>So there you have it. National Breakdown are stars. However they do
have limitations, and in order not to have epics it is worth remembering not
to:-

<p>a) crash your vehicle if it contains more shit than can be got into a
large estate car.

<p>b) break down in Italy if you have an ancient Volvo &amp; you don't
speak Italian.

<p>Just remember these simple rules and you should have years of
trouble-free European motoring.

<hr />
<!-- LINKS -->
<ul>
<li>Cambridge Underground 1992,
<a href="../../../jnl/1992/index.htm">Table of Contents</a></li>
<li><a href="../../piclinks/wkmob.htm">Photo</a> of both Wookmobiles involved</li>
<li>1991 Expedition info:
<ul>
<li><a href="index.htm">Index</a> (more detail than in this list)</li>
<li><a href="report.htm">Austria '91</a> Report</li>
<li><a href="log.htm">Logbook</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="../../pubs.htm#pubs1991">Index</a> to all publications</li>
<li><a href="../../index.htm">Back to Expeditions intro page</a></li>
<li><a href="../../../index.htm">CUCC Home Page</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>