Ferry, what ferry?

Before we set off from Werner, Roger said he checked his planned journey and the sat nav snooper asked if he wanted to avoid the ferry. As we all laughed at him as we knew the journey was in the middle of the country, he shrugged and walked off.

 Set off in small groups but planning to meet up at zeilona gora campsite. The planned route was to travel through Germany down the border to avoid potential toll in Poland. We set off and had a lovely journey through villages and down to Frankfurt.

 We crossed the border into Poland it was clear the no mans land of the crossing must must have been really intimidating at the time. Loads of low whitewashed buildings obviously could hold hundreds of army troups to protect the border.  It was quite unnerving to drive through and very still.
As soon as we got through into Poland our little group stopped at the first service station for fuel.

Our sat nav then showed only a little arrow in the middle. We had not even checked that it covered Poland! From here Chuck and us were driving on paper maps only but Gordon and John had routes planned. So we had a real convoy.

Off to zeilona gora for the campsite and when we arrived we were met by Jim and Elaine. The campsite had closed two years earlier and nothing had been updated.

Should we wild camp here or find some where else.  During lunch we contacted Les Kendrick who agreed for us to turn up a day early for the rally.
Roger also had joined us by this time and our little convoy of five vans continued. John took the lead with his sat nav with Roger at the rear. This meant that us and Chuck could really be in convoy and play follow the leader.

New Polish roads confused all electronics and when John stopped worried by the sign for a large ferry and checked whether we were on the right road. The maps showed correct so on we went.

We arrived at a tiny ford. It consisted of the main road laying under the river. A small pontoon was in place with two blokes hauling cars over with two ropes on a pulley. There was  motorhome already there from Denmark. Once the men say the size of the vans and insisted there was a strict 6 ton limit. We all had to attempt a three point turn and go back. We were only about 5k from our destination but it could have been a continent away.

As Roger had already calculated the non ferry route, we made him lead. Off we set again and our five vans became six as the Denmark van joined up.

Considering we were so close to Slawa at the ferry it took another 90 minutes to drive round the lake via all the tiny villages.
It was a welcome relief to arrive at the Slawa camp site and as we all moved into the MCC area, a northern counties welcome committee waved union jacks and cheered as we arrived and the ever welcoming Les and Joyce showed us to our plot.

it seemed lots of vans had attempted the closed overnight stop and nearly went on the ferry. So at least we didnt feel so daft at our travel trials.