The journey to Poland begins..

Well finally we have wi-fi to upload the first installment of the road trip.  Five northern counties vans met up at North Shields at brewers fair for lunch on Friday 2nd August.  We were all prepared for a nice relaxing time as it was Roger's birthday.  The others had ordered lunch and were seated before Roger came rushing in panicking about missing the ferry.
Apparently as he went to lock up the house, the alarm decided at that moment to play up.  One very expensive emergency call out later, Roger had rushed out of the house still clutching his house phone.  Now we don't know whether he thought he would be able to receive his home phone calls if he brought it with him or whether it was just an oversight, but he took some jokes about it.  Lunch and a beer for his birthday seemed to have the required calming effect.

The ferry crossing was ideal and apparently there was entertainment on the ship.  We missed most of it as we kept ourselves amused with people watching.  As it was a Friday ferry, there were loads of stag and hen parties all bound for Amsterdam.  One party befriended our group and became quite attached to 'Uncle Gordon'. The groom Matty donned lipstick, a basque, tutu and fishnet stockings.  The lads had convinced him that we were part of his stag party and surely he must remember Uncle Gordon.  Poor Matty was well out of it by tea time, although the best man was 'looking after him'. Personally I think it was revenge for his own stag do.

We were one of the first vans off the ferry but had to wait a while for the others to emerge and fuel up. A convoy of the five vans headed off through Amsterdam and despite rumours, not one stopped off at a 'cafe'.   We headed for a service station for a cuppa and a bite to eat.  Suitably re-fuelled, we set off again and barely made it back on the motorway with John travelling in front of us.  All of a sudden the was an almighty bang and bits of tyre headed for our windscreen.  After a piece of swifty manouvering we missed it and Roger drove over it behind us.  Three vans stopped and checked the tyre. Luckily John has double wheels and the outside one had completely shredded on the hot roads.

We pulled into a parking area just in front and John limped along the hard shoulder.  John Roger and myself  changed  the tyre.  Well I say we three changed the tyre but John got dirty under then van aligning the jack and lifting up the van, I undid the wheel nuts and changed the tyre for the spare and Roger supervised and appeared to be praying to allah that some one could fix it!   Unfortunately, the tyre had also damaged the side of the van when it went and tore off the wheel  arch and some of the back facing. The wiring then had to be secured safely before we could all set off again.  We had to calm Laine down as by then she was ready to head back home, but it was all sorted and back on the road again within 40 minutes.

We found our first overnight stop which was all agreed on.  When we arrived slightly hot and bothered, we were greeted by two more Northern Counties vans with Eric and Jo, and Jim and Elaine.  We had our own little mini rally with seven northern counties vans and 14 visitors from europe in Germany! It was a usual Saturday night socialising for  us all with plenty of wine.

Sunday morning the church bells awaoke us and after a substantial breakfast groups of our little tour set off again for the trip to Werner for the next planned stop over. We followed Gordon who decided on the scenic route through Hamblin which made a change from motorway travel.   It was just  another long day travelling as we arrived in the afternoon to try and find our way into a site which the local council had appeared to have blocked all access with the use of bollards and one way streets.  Everybody struggled with the local roadworks and after several dead ends and U-turns (no mean feat in some vans in a residential steeet) at one point Gordon took the lead and ignored the one way system roadworks and went ahead. To which we all sheepishly followed, much to the fist shaking of local road users.  But we pleaded as ingorant English drivers who did not understand the road signs and arrived at the overnight stop.

Werner was a lovely little town and we were right next to the marina.  They even held an open air theatre production of the Rocky Horror show on across the water.  We wandered around the town and had a
delicious ice cream before agreeing that we didn't want to stay a full day in the town and would carry on as planned to the next stop.