Peking to Paris 2007
 Day 33 Update The Rally has now reached Koblenz in Germany – we “only” have the 370 mile drive tomorrow to Reims and the final short hop to Paris for the finish but there are still dramas unfolding each day. No-one is being complacent; no-one wants to miss out on the finish line in Place du Vendome on Saturday. I suspect I might struggle to update this blog further until I get home. Day 31 Rest day in Gdansk We woke to heavy rain and a biting gusty wind today in Gdansk; not good when you want to do the routine maintenance on the car. Nigel solved this problem by driving the Land Rover up to the hotel’s reception area (much to the surprise of the hotel’s security guard) and proceeded to start working on the car under cover of the hotel’s awning. Soon a few other drivers followed suit and the front of the hotel resembled the pits at a motor race. Several people commented that perhaps Nigel could have gone one step further and driven indoors as the doors were wide enough! Sadly the routine work on the car also identified a broken main leaf on the front off-side spring set. That explained an odd noise we heard the day before. A “temporary” repair has been made by clamping the spring next to the break and attaching a chain to the front axle to stop it moving backwards under braking. This should last until London, let alone Paris. By the afternoon the weather broke and a small group of us went into Gdansk old town for a late lunch and a walk around. The old town was largely rebuilt after WWII and still looks like the buildings are 3-400 years old. The main streets are lined by flat-fronted buildings typically four or five storeys high. Originally these would have been a mix of residential and commercial buildings, but many are now retail, bars or offices. Nothing unusual there. Day 32 Gdansk to Potsdam Potsdam was the capital of the State of Brandenburg, and is a very important city in German history – and has a lot of Dutch inspire architecture. Our drive there involves a 375 mile drive on a combination of cross-country roads and German’s famed autobahns. The weather was not conducive to a long drive – cold and windy. Later in the morning we had the odd rain shower too to make it more dreary. After 6,000 + miles of driving it is getting difficult to find anything new to say about the scenery - avenues lined with trees and forest roads no longer register on the eye. What remain striking are the new, modern, houses appearing everywhere. Old buildings being abandoned or demolished, new “Western European” houses are the latest trend. A humorous moment for us in Poland was when we looked for petrol before reaching the border – we followed a sign showing fuel in 500 metres – it led to a Tesco store! All this way from home. As we reached the border we joined German-build motorways (autobahns), though they were not that smooth (reminding us of Russia’s poor roads) and forced most Rally cars to slow down. Hopefully they get better further West. I was also distracted by a coach that passed us (we don’t cruise at high speed, especially in the rain) – it had a message on the side which read “Life is a journey and to travel is to live”. How apt. Thankfully, the weather broke by late afternoon and (despite initial delays outside Berlin with roadworks on the autobahn) we arrived at the Dorint Hotel in good time to meet some of our colleagues from KPMG Germany’s Berlin office. They had offered to entertain us in the evening and also brought the local TV station’s cameraman. He asked a few questions (though not on air) and made plans to film the Rally’s departure in the morning. Dinner (courtesy of KPMG) was at the Castle Hotel Cecilienhof in Potsdam. Formerly the home of Crown Price Wilhelm during the first World War and location of the famous Potsdam Cobnference, now an exclusive hotel and restaurant; a great place to eat. One thing is for sure – my expectations of losing weight on this Rally have been proved wrong. Whilst we were relaxing from the day’s drive, others had to work through the night sorting out yet more problems with their cars – one Bentley had lost use of both its main and reserve fuel tanks and needed to plumb in an emergency supply from a pair of Jerry-cans; one of the Beetles bust its clutch. Day 33 Potsdam to Koblenz At 360 miles today is slightly shorter than yesterday in distance but involves more twisty roads and long climbs as we head South-west and drive across a more hilly part of Germany, through some National Parks. A lack of Time Controls en route make this less than competitive but it is still fun catching other cars in traffic, etc (though there was surprisingly little traffic or roadworks today). And the locals are still as interested as ever in our event – photos, car horns and waves line the way. You can guess the scenery (trees, hills, trees, more trees), but the oddity today is the sheer number of windfarms – acres of land on the top of hills covered in large white electricity windmills. With all these propellers out there Germany should surely move if the wind blew hard enough. At a petrol station another (German) customer expresses his admiration of our adventure – and gives me a gift of a “knotted” spoon as a good luck charm (not sure I’ve ever heard of this tradition – if it exists). Despite more rain showers (lighter than yesterday) we got to Koblenz without incident, though again there is news of other car’s problems. My Australian “drinking buddy”, Matt, who navigates a Straight Eight Buick, had their water pump fail and is now changing it in the hotel’s car park. A Chevrolet has a leaking head gasket. Everyone is hearing new noises (rattles, hums and bumps) in their cars as we get nearer Paris. Will, we all get there? Tomorrow, we head to Reims. Great.
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Diary Photos
| 27th Jun 2007 | |
| Heading for the Polish border | |
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