Tent trauma

The Tent. So far the tent has been a source not of sanctuary but of torment. Those who follow the Facebook page (and I have no idea why you wouldn’t cos all the brilliant people do) know of my joy at discovering that my expensive Northface Tent is less than water tight.

So I thought  I would do a quick blog on that adventure alone.

the Tent Nappy

As you all know, as soon as we encountered anything heavier than a slight mist the rain began to pour in through the roof and everything that had to stay drive had to be moved back into the car. The first night saw the design and testing of the Tent Nappy.

However, further field test proved that while it was successful in a small area the rain was able to get in around the sides of the Tent Nappy so in a bit of paniced desiging and improvision we have the Tent Toupee, courtesy of the folks at Newquay.

The Tent Toupee

There are design faults, and there are many I’m sure you could point out, but the main one is that while defending from the rain the Tent Toupee is powerless against that partner in crime of thunderstorms-wind. And just like its namesake in a slight breeze it will stand up and then float away.

The Tent-a-grad

Next we have the Tent-a-grad (the Tent Castle) inspired by the castle towering over Lake Bled in Slovenia and supplied up the Dutch. However, it lacks a certain style elelment don’t you think? To be honest it shares more with a drying wood pile than either a castle or a tent.

And that folks is how the situation stands. Northface have not bothered to reply to my email and therefore i have no choice but to never risk buying their stuff again.

Thankfully we've had some blue skies since then, but there's still the journey back....

Don’t forget there are loads of Galleries over at the Facebook page, just click like.
Have a good week folks
Cheers Matt

Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia

One of the wonderful things about traveling is the unpredictability of the whole affair. I remember returning from Papua New Guinea saying that ‘I did nothing I planned and planned nothing I did’ a bit pretentious I’ll grant you but you get the idea. It's the serendipity of each trip.

Car park camping

So I found myself putting up my tent in the car park of a famous mountain restaurant, known for decades for its meat dishes, high in the mountains of Serbia about 100 miles from the border with Macedonia. Not strange enough for you? Okay as I’m doing it I’m chatting to a pair of Macedonian bikers who pulled up next to me for a break. Their English is flawless and they are on their way to a music festival for the weekend somewhere in Serbia. As we chat they buy me a beer and share their burger. I kid you not, it may have looked pretty pasty and uninspiring but it was by far the best tasting burger I have ever had, by a very long way.

I had to make a dash across the three countries a) because of time and b) because that’s what Mum, Dad and Jimmy did. So in a manner of days I put the pedal to the metal Austin style and crossed Croatia, Serbia and finally Macedonia.

Croatia in five lines.

I know all the cool cats dig jazz but Miles Davies had been getting right up my nose from the moment I got lost in Zagreb. Had it been an old cassette Miles and his trumpet would have spent the last of his days in a bush on the Croatian highway. That was the first time I got lost; the second time saw me heading west towards the coast rather than east to the Serb border. And I got to pay a toll for the pleasure.

Serbia in Five lines

Crossing the border just after dawn Austin and I entered Serbia. It was to be the briefest of meetings. We had only a little time and most of that was spent driving. The countryside of sunflowers, corn cobs and cloudless skies changed little from those in Croatia, in fact with the exception of a few extra donkey carts it would have been difficult to tell you had crossed the boreder until the fields gave way to mountains nearer Macedonia.

Icons and knives

Macedonia in fives lines.

Sadly Macedonia, a fascinating little country with a wealth of historiacal and cultural riches, got the shortest straw of all so far this trip. Like the others when Mum, Dad and came this way didn't exist except as a small region of the greater Yugoslavia. The drive through the high passes along roads that needed a little TLC was a lot like a real life Mario Cart, except there were no extra lives.

Hidden Churches in mountian valleys

There is so much to writre here about these great little countries but not enough time to do it justice. Hopeful I'll be able to give them a little more time in the final book.

Don’t forget there are loads of Galleries over at the Facebook page, just click like.

Have a good week folks
And again soz if there are any typos.
Cheers Matt

Wet and wonderful-Slovenia

Mauel tapped on Austin's window. I was sitting in the back reading in an effort to stay dry. Underneath the tent a puddle had formed nearly the size of Lake Bled itself. The thunderstorms predicted hadn’t really kicked in but the rain had been merciless for days. My friendly Dutch neighbour wanted to know if he could interest me in some coffee and brandy to get warm. He certainly could.

Lake Bled

Mum and Dad had come here to climb the Triglav Peak in the national park and stopped only briefly at Bled before heading down the road a little to Lake Bohinji which was within closer striking difference. I stopped at Bled.

Mum and Dad at Lake Bohinji, 1967

The journey over from Austria had turned out to be far more stressful than the comparatively short distance would suggest. There had been a single day of sunshine and the heat made the valleys an inferno. By the time Austin and I had crossed the border and arrived at the back of the queue (for the tunnel through the Alps) Austin was the hottest he’d ever been and having driven up and down all those hills who can blame him. It was now that he chose to overheat. Not in a fantastic lift-the-bonnet-masses-of-steam sort of way but in a silent stalling way. I was left with two choices as we inched along a car length at a time. Either let him stall and hope that he would restart or tap the foot break, dip the clutch, give a quick rev and then use the handbrake to do the final slowly. It was a very hot and stressful 55 minutes.

The Staff at Camping Bled were great and really friendly and the other campers quickly adopted me when the humour of my tent predicaments stopped being funny. In nearly two weeks I had had only one night's fully dry night’s sleep and that had been the first one. Mauel’s neighbour Leo gave me a tarpaulin and I entered into a world of refugee chic. And thank the heavens he did, because it just poured down. In the end, surrounded by new friends, I hung around at Bled much longer than I planned just waiting for that first sunny day to dry everything out.

As a man who would name his three favourite bands as 1.Radiohead, 2.Talking Heads and 3.Radiohead again, Cliff Richards' Summer Holiday was always going to be a challenge. Yet it was with Sir Cliff that I sped through the moutnains and swept down in to Bohinji looking for the spot where Jimmy's photo was taken.

The ride was apparently 20kms and then a few more around the lake. After searching through the wooded shores looking for the beach (single men stepping out of the bushes with a camera are rarely welcomed on beaches) I stopped a girl working at one of the campsites and showed her the image. She just shrugged and said that they had been so much rain that most of the beaches were underwater at the moment. Great! So I searched on a while longer startling sunbathers and weathering their frowns and glares until I thought I had found the spot. I waded out into the glacial waters and instantly lost all feeling in my feet and slipped over. I then proceeded to repeat this graceful act at three other sites before finally calling it a day before I lost all feeling below the navel.

Here's one that got quiet a lot of frowns.

On to Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia

Don’t forget there are loads of Galleries over at the Facebook page, just click like.

Have a good week folks

Cheers Matt

Austria Part two

Zell is a pretty town. And very much into its extreme sports. As I sat at the campsite a paragliding stunt contest (now I sound like a proper dad with that expression) was being held over the lake. It was a warm and relatively clear day, although slightly cloudy. Here I realised that there is a silver lining to all this rain. The cold and the storms had so far protected me from one of the most feared aspects of the European summer- the Euro-trunks, yes that’s right the dreaded speedos. And as I write this, a man is bent over searching for something in the boot of his car and …well let’s just leave it there. We have all suffered this awful experience and so let’s never talk about it again.

It was here whilst mum, dad and Jimmy were on their climbing holiday that dad was attacked by a swan and knocked off his lilo. Tough!

The journey through the Thurn Pass was beautiful and stunning. Austin tackled the loops and bends up through the pass with grace and aplomb. And we stopped for a stately photo at the top. We had a quick posing session and then made our way down. This is where things started to get a little serious. Did I say 'serious, I meant dangerous. Thankfully there were few other travellers on the road, at least behind me, but as we pulled out of the second view spot I noticed a smell of burning. Now several times I have smelt similar worrying odours but a little fortitude and patience have meant that everything had worked out fine. But as we made our way down through the alps on fifty year old breaks the smell began to increase. I had already dropped to third gear, taking it slow and only using the foot brake on the corners when I needed both hands for the wheel and couldn’t use the handbrake to aid our slowing. The smell of burning followed us both down the hill through each of the bends and corners like a comet's tail. Eventually a little rattled we pulled into a supermarket car park to cool and gather our nerves whilst the smell of fresh roasting chickens tormented my stomach.

Not nearly as cool.

After all that I was still to be distress further by the Euro-trunk!!


Our attempts to get though the Grossglockner Pass is a story for another day, and a fortifying beer.
I have been videoing bits and pieces and was going to make a video but they take too long to upload so I thought I might put in a few of the wobbly and unedited clips for your viewing pleasure. Have a laugh at this-

Don’t forget there are loads of Galleries over at the Facebook page, just click like.
Have a good week folks


Cheers Matt

The sun only shines on Tuesdays-Austria

As I sit here, in the playroom of the campsite, the rain is still going. The weather forecast for the next few days looks absolutely dire. Mum and Dad came here to go climbing with Jimmy, but if I had any desires to repeat their adventures the lightning and rain have put an end to it. Reading back through their diaries this was their first main port of call and they spent about a week here in Kufstein, and across the Alps in Zell-am-Zee, pretending to climb but really just lying about in the sunshine and going for a stroll here and there. They did do some climbs but there was a lot of chilling being done in the sun.

Dad somewhere in the Austrain Alps

The drive down from Offenbach was fairly pleasant but the estimations of the time it would take were right out. It was a Tuesday, the one week anniversary and seven days since I had seen the sun. The day was golden and reached the high thirties. Lovely to drive in, but a little too hot for Austin, but neither of us thought it would be a ten hour day. The longest we had done to this point was six hours and that had exhausted me.

 

The stop off in Germany had given me a moment to see the doctor. I thought I was being a wimp, but in the end common sense prevailed and I went. Long story short-got told off for not having my tonsils out as a child (apparently in adults they simply act as a sponge for bacteria and infection, great!) and was given a set of antibiotic. Somehow I had managed to sprain my foot as well and I was sent into town to buy some new walking boots.

Awaking the next morning in the sunshine was brilliant. Warm at last! I sorted out the mess I had made in Austin and did my laundry, before heading out into the Alps. The foot was feeling better but we have a long way to go so I took it carefully. 

Climbing up through the perfume of pines in the cool shade was lovely. I startled a family of jays who took off noisily and the forest resonated with their alarm calls. As I made my way towards the waterfalls above (I forget their name at the moment) thunder began to roll about the valley. By the time I reached the top lightning was getting a little too close for comfort so it was a dash back down.

I made it back just in time but then the heavens opened. And joy of joys, my tent was leaking in several places. Pools of recently invading rainwater had begun to form on the floor. Luckily the rain had only just started so I was able to rescue the sleeping bag and dry clothes. As the lightning flashed on and off and the thunder risked collapsing the tent altogether, I weighted up the possibility of getting into Austin dry.
 

It was looking likely I might well have to sleep in him until I created the Tent Nappy.  Although there was no guarantee that it would work, but once it's checked I'm off to the Dragons Den...

I give you the Tent Nappy.

The forecast for the rest of the week, for here and Zell-am-Zee, is thunderstorms and heavy rain. So depending on the danger level of taking Austin through the Alps in the thunderstorms vs. staying here wet, bored and fed up, tomorrow I might be here, in Zell-am-Zee or over the border in Slovenia. We’ll see....

Don't forget there are loads of photos, old and new at the facebook page The Escape Committee by Matthew Button

Have a good week folks, Cheers Matt  

Step three- Germany

We were approaching Liege (Luik) happy to be up and heading towards Germany on a quiet Saturday morning. Belgium had been nice but it was time to head on down the road, maybe tomorrow we would settle down, but for the moment we’ll just keep moving on. (The keen eyed reader amongst you will have noticed the Littlest Hobo reference there). I’d found Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davies a little too frenetic for six o’clock in the morning so we’d switched to Count Basie, which seemed much more appropriate and even Austin, as we tootled through the Belgium greys and greens, began tapping his windscreen wipers along. The mist turned to drizzle which became rain and just as Austin was wiping his appreciation of the Counts smoothing tones, about half way through ‘sent for you yesterday’ the wipers gave up the ghost. So we had to struggle on towards the border hoping the rain didn’t get any worse, because, for the moment at least I could see where I was going-Germany.

'Mat-Nav'

For about an hour after I passed Liege (Luik) the rain stayed the same and I kept my passport handy. Shows what a Euro-guru I am because by the time I reached Aachen I was pretty sure I was in Germany but hadn’t stopped to cross a border. Apparently there aren’t any in this region of new Europe. So there we were happily pootling along the Autobahn, blissfully unaware that I was on the motorway, and therefore didn’t get a moment to worry about doing it. A few people had suggested I take the back roads and avoid the racetrack that is modern Germany’s road system. Yet most of the drivers were pretty respectful of old Austin and the idiot behind the wheel, so we just kept creeping along in the rain until we stopped over at a campsite near Koln (Cologne).

At Koln

Sadly on this trip, Germany, like Belgium will only get the briefest stop. The plan was to cross quickly and head for Austria just as my parents had. I must be honest, as I put up the still wet tent under yet more brooding grey skies I was quiet keen to get further south as soon as possible as get some sun, because since leaving the west country it has got colder wetter and more miserable each day. I’ve had my coat on everyday so far.

I had planned to push on to Erlangen where mum and dad stayed in 1967 but instead stopped a little short in Offenbach just outside Frankfurt to catch up with an old videographer friend Klaudia and her family. We both studied photography together in Tokyo, far too long ago to mention here. Also it would be nice for two other reasons; firstly I may be developing a chest infection so I’ll need to see a doctor and secondly I’ll try and get Austin looked at. Fingers crossed for both of us.

So we battled on now heading south looking for a rhythm and some sun.

Also the spam and mash routine is now finished (I can ask the doctor to check if I have scurvy, too). By the time mum and dad made it this far they had just about built up the courage to try food shopping, it was that good old fashioned point of saying ‘drie’ a little too loudly.

A big thanks to klaudia and her family for feeding me up, taking me to the doctors and setting me back on the road.

Don't forget there are loads of photos, old and new at the facebook page The Escape Committee by Matthew Button





Have a good week folks, Cheers Matt

Waffles from Belgium

The sound of horse hooves bounce about the Market square in the old town of  Bruges. The bitter taste of Belgium’s finest black coffee is about to be washed away by some fine Belgium beer. Both Austin and I both needed a rest and with much guilt I left him at the park and came into Bruges for a day of culture. So as I write this I’m sat in the Market looking up at the belfry of the Hallen and sipping Steen Brugge blonde (that’s a beer to you and me).

The Markt in Bruges

The last few days have taken more out of me than I thought it would. I really hadn’t taken into account the physical challenge of driving Austin for hours on end. He is a heavy beast and every turn is hard, hard work. When mum and dad did it with Jimmy they shared the driving, map reading and sign spotting. I’m finding it really difficult to do all of it on my own. After six hours of driving (excluding extended periods of lost-ness) I'm shattered and its takes all the energy I can muster to put up the tent, cook some food and check Austin. I hadn’t given this a moments’ thought before I left. Not sure if I’ll get fit from it or go bonkers with the fatigue. Hopefully the former.

Yesterday the ferry crossing went well but as I pulled off the boat I turned left instead of right, although I’m still not sure how you turn right. I then proceeded to drive as far north as I needed to be south before finally asking someone. Three hours later and a not-so-quick detour around central Ostend (with an impromptu tour of the waterfront and on-going road works) I finally made it to the campsite.

The owners were nice-ish, but the place was packed with visitors and I was tucked in behind some static caravans and next to the ball park. There can be fewer noisier places in the world, maybe an airport runway or a war zone than a holiday park full of kids let off the leash. I hope for my sake that they knock it on the head before 10:30pm (like last night) because I’m off to Germany tomorrow.

Before I sign off here’s a group of students (Jo, Angie, Keiran and Harry) who pitched up next to me. They have been racing across the continent doing crazy challenges (enacting Shakespeare scenes in Italy or swimming in a Borat man-kini, don’t ask) while trying to reach Bratislava. I enjoyed an evening of the very funny good natured bickering before I said good night and good bye. If anyone would like to know more about their charity, or their trip, have a look at their facebook page.

The Brassic Sparks - Bratislava Or Bust 2011 (Keiran and Angie) or here

The view from the tent. Not vey romantic

1967 The romantic version

On to Germany…..

Don't forget there are loads of photos, old and new at the facebook page The Escape Committee by Matthew Button
Have a good week folks, Cheers Matt