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Post by atlex on Feb 28, 2017 13:20:02 GMT
This turned up.. guess where my mum grew up. www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39116532Latest news.. I'm starting the journey back to the UK on Friday. Gonna do the hook of holland -> harwich trip (first time ever!) Excited. Convincing the waifu that she needs to pack her stuff a day early because, you know, preparation. |
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Post by Meerkat on Mar 1, 2017 12:33:43 GMT
Lots of roads in South Africa don't look much better, especially in the rural areas. In fairness to the councils, Africa is a difficult place to maintain roads with all the heat and flash flooding which is common.
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Post by atlex on Mar 4, 2017 17:09:47 GMT
fook. so, original plan was to go via the baltic, back to the uk via gdansk, rostock and a few days in amsterdam admiring the art... no chance.... got to the ukraine/polish border yesterday at noon and queued for 7 hours. 6 hours of which that should have been spent driving. canoe the trip north. upon entry to poland at the border I had to drive over a "trap" which mashes the bottom end, causing non-amusing vibration noises at idle  imagine two holes in the road for your wheels but a raised section in the middle to mash your exhaust/diff, that's what it was like. basically a speed bump you can't avoid due to the gates... drove two hours in poland to get to krakov. noise is bad, but it's obviously just vibration contact. I thought it had just fallen off a hanger or something. nevermind. next morning after an *epic* castle hotel overnight stay, we go to find a place to sort the exhaust vibration. after a few attempts we find one... it's 15 minutes away and we get there but I notice as we get closer to this garage, the battery light comes on... drive in, up on ramps, the trap bent part of the reinforcement brace up to the exhaust pipe. a few goes with a hammer and prybar sort it out. I'm thinking.. 10 quid fix! but that battery light... checked the voltage between the terminals with the engine running. it's 11.6 volts and dropping. should be 13+. alternator's gone.... no amount of petrol would increase my range. lucky I made it as far as I did... and there isn't one to be had anywhere in krakow until monday 8am. FFS. anyway, krakow is lovely despite *far too many british and spanish tourists*. a polish mate of mine from the city says yes and the rest of the people in the main square are gypsies lol. it's true. horses and guitars means gypsies. oh well charva just keep your distance. krakow has *awesome* icecream though. the food is excellent and very reasonable, and the hospitality is top notch. I strongly recommend a visit! also more lively than warsaw.. plan is to enjoy sunday in krakow too then once the car is fixed race to amsterdam so we get at least a few hours tourism in before the ferry. need to chill. |
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Post by Meerkat on Mar 6, 2017 16:52:53 GMT
Ouch! I would be fuming if I was made to do that in my car.
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Post by Woofwoof on Mar 7, 2017 10:38:40 GMT
Good read.
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