Saturday 29 September 2007
Day one; Calais to Basel
The day started with our van blowing the fuse for the wipers/indicators and charging circuit. A bad omen perhaps? No chance! If you remember from earlier posts, I rewired the van and used a slightly unsuitable switch for the wipers meaning that if you turn it one way the wipers operate, if you turn it the other way, it blows the fuse. Whoops, learnt that lesson quickly!
When we arrived at Cite Europe, the carpark was already full of other Scally cars- what a fantastic sight to behold. Everything from our van, Fiestas, numerous Audis, Golfs a Metro and Volvos right through to a Mercedes 308 van (moreabout that later)and the Batmobile. Yes, almost certainly the real thing with Batphone and evrything. Once again, more about that later.
At 9 o'clock, the legends (last years entrants) set off on their way trying to avoid being spotted by the "Newbies" as the days challenge was Legends and Newbies "Cat and Mouse". The idea being that each Newbie team were given 6 Legends team numbers tht had to "catch" and photograph to get points for, the legends losing 20 points each time they were caught and the Newbies gaining 20 points. We faired quite well in this chalenge. Was it because everybody felt sorry for us or because our car was so fast, we could outrun them. I'll let you decide!
After a long days drive (in convoy with Paul and Kim of team 6 "Harrison Ford"), we finally reached Basel and the Hotel Mercure, very nice.
After a quik shower, we all waled up intothe twn to meet with everybody and have a pint (or two) of Guinness and a bite to eat.
On joining everybody in the Irish pub, people kept asking how the van was, we didn't know why people were so concerned until we heard the rumour that we had broken down! It transpired that obviously loads of teams had seen our van in a layby by the side of the road with a bright yellow Escort van (Team 6) and had thought it was the AA!
It couldn't have been further from he truth, after our fuse problem-the van performed faultlessly only using a drop of oil in the first 400 or so miles.
When we arrived at Cite Europe, the carpark was already full of other Scally cars- what a fantastic sight to behold. Everything from our van, Fiestas, numerous Audis, Golfs a Metro and Volvos right through to a Mercedes 308 van (moreabout that later)and the Batmobile. Yes, almost certainly the real thing with Batphone and evrything. Once again, more about that later.
At 9 o'clock, the legends (last years entrants) set off on their way trying to avoid being spotted by the "Newbies" as the days challenge was Legends and Newbies "Cat and Mouse". The idea being that each Newbie team were given 6 Legends team numbers tht had to "catch" and photograph to get points for, the legends losing 20 points each time they were caught and the Newbies gaining 20 points. We faired quite well in this chalenge. Was it because everybody felt sorry for us or because our car was so fast, we could outrun them. I'll let you decide!
After a long days drive (in convoy with Paul and Kim of team 6 "Harrison Ford"), we finally reached Basel and the Hotel Mercure, very nice.
After a quik shower, we all waled up intothe twn to meet with everybody and have a pint (or two) of Guinness and a bite to eat.
On joining everybody in the Irish pub, people kept asking how the van was, we didn't know why people were so concerned until we heard the rumour that we had broken down! It transpired that obviously loads of teams had seen our van in a layby by the side of the road with a bright yellow Escort van (Team 6) and had thought it was the AA!
It couldn't have been further from he truth, after our fuse problem-the van performed faultlessly only using a drop of oil in the first 400 or so miles.
The journey to Calais.
There's not a lot we can really say about the journey to Calais as that's exactly what it was, no dramas, no passports forgotten or owt like that. Two stops for fuel and that was about it.
Made the ferry in good time although we were searched before getting on the ferry. They confiscated my old 5 litre petrol can as you're not allowed to take filled fuel cans onto the boat.
It was full of petrol that'd come out of my Dyane when I rebuilt her so the petrol was probably about 8 years old. I hope someone nicked it and put it in their Eurobox-8 year old petrol and modern engine management.................
Met a few other teams on the boat (Smashy and Nicey, Andy and Paul, Mark and Richard and Daz and Co to name but a few) had a beer and, before we knew it, we were in France and the adventure was really starting to unfold!
The Thursday evening saw us meeting at the Cite Europe in Calais for registration and beers and catch-up with teams old and new-it was fantastic to meet the "Newbies" who were already getting well into the swing of things.
Beers were drunk, stories exchanged, more beers (Paul and Kim!)before heading of for some shuteye bofore the off in the morning.
Made the ferry in good time although we were searched before getting on the ferry. They confiscated my old 5 litre petrol can as you're not allowed to take filled fuel cans onto the boat.
It was full of petrol that'd come out of my Dyane when I rebuilt her so the petrol was probably about 8 years old. I hope someone nicked it and put it in their Eurobox-8 year old petrol and modern engine management.................
Met a few other teams on the boat (Smashy and Nicey, Andy and Paul, Mark and Richard and Daz and Co to name but a few) had a beer and, before we knew it, we were in France and the adventure was really starting to unfold!
The Thursday evening saw us meeting at the Cite Europe in Calais for registration and beers and catch-up with teams old and new-it was fantastic to meet the "Newbies" who were already getting well into the swing of things.
Beers were drunk, stories exchanged, more beers (Paul and Kim!)before heading of for some shuteye bofore the off in the morning.
Sunday 2 September 2007
12 days to lift off............................
Where has all the time gone? I guess a fair amount of time has been swallowed up by us changing our minds right, left and center about what car we were taking. And then a bit more time was taken up by me having to build our car.
Anyway, I can confirm that it was time well spent. Mrs Spanners and I took Claude to the 2CVGB National meeting last weekend at Storrington in West Sussex, it was about 350 miles round trip, covered at an average of 60 mph with fuel economy of about 44 mpg. This bodes well for the trip.
Anyway, I can confirm that it was time well spent. Mrs Spanners and I took Claude to the 2CVGB National meeting last weekend at Storrington in West Sussex, it was about 350 miles round trip, covered at an average of 60 mph with fuel economy of about 44 mpg. This bodes well for the trip.
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