Day One – Wednesday 7th July 2010

Hiace loaded up, Dandy doing his usual fretting about what he might have forgotten or not done, we bid farewell to a warm and sunny Edinburgh, final destination Pirovac, Croatia in seven days time. We were due to meet the kids at Zadar airport on the 14th July where they would join us for two weeks holiday. I must admit to having a little anxiety as we travelled south. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, I just had a little unease about what lay ahead and some doubts about the fact that we were travelling 1,800 miles across Europe in a 16 year old campervan that had only been tested by us for a week in the Outer Hebrides at Easter.

The beautiful sunset behind us as we followed the A1, then the A1 (M) seemed to be a good omen. We had made up a bed in the back of the van and did two hour shifts, driving and resting, between us. All was going well until during one of my driving shifts, Dandy, who was supposed to be resting, but was actually yakking to one of his mates on his mobile, enquired ‘Carole, why is the sun on the wrong side of the van?’ He then hung up quickly with a parting comment to his friend, Donnie, that I must have taken the wrong road. All was well though, the sun was clearly in the wrong place and I was on the right road. I suggested he text Donnie in case he thought I was some kind of half-wit – Donnie texted back that he didn’t doubt my navigational skills – only my sanity! Mmmmmm............................

We had a 6.00am ferry to catch and we were making very good time until a little after midnight when Dandy decided that the green light on the dash, which indicated that the driving lights were on, was annoying him. He hauled the switch out and disconnected it. A couple of miles further down the motorway and we were driving with no side lights and no rear lights. We pulled onto the hard shoulder and off that onto a wide grass verge. Dandy spent some time investigating the fault and seemed to be getting nowhere, during the ensuing hour two police patrols pulled over to offer their assistance and advice which we thought was very helpful – maybe they thought we’d camped up for the night! Dandy finally located the blown fuse and we continued on our journey. If only we had known that this was to be the first of further strandings by the roadside to come.

Day Two – Thursday 8th July 2010

Despite the midnight debacle we made good time and reached the ferry post at Dover way ahead of schedule. As a result we got put onto the earlier 4.00am sailing, but not before we were directed into a security warehouse area as a result of a random security selection where a buxom, late middle aged women, elbows on the window, had a lovely chat with Dandy about her recent holiday in Aberdeenshire. I was getting a little agitated as it was creeping closer to the sailing time. She then enquired if we were carrying any weapons such as knifes, I didn’t dare mention my 15 inch Sabatier knife that I had in the cutlery drawer for fear of confiscation. She finally waved us through and we drove onto the ferry. It wasn’t busy but every available lying down space was occupied. We grabbed a spot and settled down for the two hour crossing to Dunkerque. We were sitting next to a blind lady travelling with her daughter, unfortunately every time the poor woman shifted position she let out an enormous noisy fart to which she seemed to be oblivious, maybe she was deaf too. Dandy thought it would be amusing to emulate the farting sounds much to the amusement of passers by. We enjoyed a couple of bacon sandwiches (no rolls, much to the annoyance of Dandy) and a tea before we rolled off the ferry into France and the start of our adventures.

We had roughly pre planned our stops and were hoping to make it to the Alsace region on the first night, but we both recognised that this might be optimistic considering neither of us had slept properly since Tuesday night. Dandy was determined to reach Luxembourg as he had discovered that this was the home of cheap diesel, so no matter what we had to make a fuel stop there. Andrew (Dandy’s brother) and Laura were also heading through France at the same time and we had made loose arrangements to try and meet up with them if we could. We stopped at a service station and got into a conversation with a Belgian truck driver who asked where we were headed, when we told him Croatia he asked, with some amazement ‘Why you not just get on a plane?’ I would reflect on these words in days to come. Off we horsed through Belgium, the land of chips, mussels and shit, in the blazing heat to our second breakdown of the holiday. As we were heading up a very long climb on a motorway section Dandy asked if I could see smoke coming from the back of the van, I couldn’t really tell. Next thing the oil pressure light comes on, Dandy kills the engine and eases onto the hard shoulder but it was a fast and busy motorway and we couldn’t risk staying there for our own safety. There was a coned off area a couple of hundred yards ahead and against Dandy’s better judgment he started the engine again and nursed the van to a place of safety beyond the cones (I’m going to f**k the engine, was his cry) . We jumped out and couldn’t believe our eyes – the entire contents of the sump (7 litres) had emptied all along the driver’s side of the van and the oncoming traffic! The back of the van was also covered in filthy, dripping, black diesel oil. It looked bad, I knew it was bad but I was too scared to ask what had happened as I wasn’t prepared for the answer. I couldn’t read Dandy either and eventually he said ‘this is serious’. I felt that this may be an understatement.

Andrew had texted us just before the catastrophic event to say where they were and could we meet up? We both knew that we had no choice but involve a third party to help us. Dandy was reluctant to call the breakdown service as he felt that that would signify the end of our holiday and he had a good idea as to what had happened by now. Unfortunately he could do very little as the engine was so hot, as was the day, and we had no shade. We decided to call Andrew and Laura as they were about 70 miles away from us to see if they could come to our aid. Both their mobiles were on voicemail so we texted them, eventually I got through to Laura and explained our predicament. They immediately offered to come to our assistance but their destination was a pre booked and paid hotel in Switzerland that night and this was going to take them well off their route and schedule so we said thanks but no, just press on and we’ll try and sort something out. We hung up and by now Dandy was stripping the van down and losing vast quantities of fluids from sweat. The mobile rang and it was Andrew, apparently they had had a conversation and they couldn’t leave us. We were really grateful, Dandy asked them to bring 5 litres of diesel oil and a really small O ring clip as by now his fears had been confirmed and the cause of the spill had been a high pressure oil pipe coming adrift. They arrived two hours later, by this time Dandy had lost half his body weight in sweat; I made myself busy mopping his face and feeding him water. We were so glad to see them but exchanged very little in the way of conversation as we were so worried. I asked them to head off but no, they wanted to stay and make sure we were ok. Finally, nearly five hours after we had broken down we pulled back on to the Autoroute gingerly with Andrew and Laura following. We decided enough was enough and Dandy was physically in no fit state to travel further so we asked Thomas (our SatNav) for a local campsite. Camping du le Lac sounded fine so we headed there. It was one of these strange continental sites with permanent pitches full of gnomes and plastic forest animals, not our thing, but it would do. We set up camp beside the river and made friends with our nearest neighbours. Across the way two topless middle aged men were well pissed and playing bad 80’s songs at full volume from their caravan, one was a dead ringer for Rod Stewart. We shared a portion of chips and mayonnaise from the campsite restaurant before turning in for a well needed sleep........... 38 hours since the last one..................







Poor, oily Hiace, disabled at the side of the Autoroute

Day Three - Friday 9th July 2010

Had a good sleep, Rod and his mate hadn’t bothered us at all and were tucking into their first Stella Artois at 9.30am, maybe we were just so tired that we’d have slept through anything. After our fruit and yoghurt breakfast we got packed up and headed for Luxembourg. I’ve forgotten to mention that the 5 litres of diesel oil that Andrew sourced for us cost 60 Euros! We also had the to buy another 4 litre can as the sump held 7l, this set us back another 25 Euros, Dandy was apoplectic! Bearing this in mind we had to get to Luxembourg to get our cheap diesel. So after some minor bickering and questioning of Thomas’ sanity we finally pulled into a fuel station in Luxembourg where we saved around £12 on a tankful, Dandy was happy again. We set a route for Barr where Dandy had stayed before and off we went. Dandy wanted us to have dinner in a hilltop monastery that he had visited previously at St Odine.



At St Odine

We reached there early evening and had a wonderful meal in an amazing setting, I was feeling quite content. The campsite wasn’t far away and we got there as darkness was falling. Things had gone well this day I thought, but Dandy had been having doubts about the other end of the oil pipe holding but decided to press on and attempt to replace it in the cool of the following morning.





Day Four – Saturday 10th July 2010

Couldn’t find my watch in the morning and I remembered taking it off the previous night to have my shower, I assumed I’d left it in the toilet block and, guess what, it wasn’t there when I went to look for it, I took this to be a bad omen and we really didn’t need any of them. Having lost half a day we were up and away by midday to try to claw back some lost time. A little after one pm the ominous sign of a car behind putting on its windscreen wipers on a clear, hot sunny day signified the oil pipe failing again. This time Dandy managed to coast into a good lay-by with lots of shade. The obvious damage wasn’t so bad as the side and back of the van were pretty much unscathed but Dandy’s fears had materialised – the other side of the pipe had failed – he was pretty peed off he’d not done the dirty deed that morning! I was dispatched to go and parlez with the truck drivers in the lay-by in the vain hope that I could buy some oil from them while Dandy set about dismantling the van again. Once more he had to wait until the engine had cooled down but there was quite a breeze that day so it didn’t take so long this time. I set off in the direction of a Czech truck waving my mostly empty oil can and established quite quickly that he couldn’t help us. I then headed for two Polish trucks and somehow managed to create enough concern to persuade one of the drivers to follow me back to the broken Hiace, Dandy thought the hint of cleavage might have helped the proceedings...... After some deliberation as to the quality of their oil a sniff test of the contents revealed that the amber nectar would be up to the job, a deal was struck for 20 Euros and the drivers headed off for a snooze. Dandy, meanwhile, continued with his second repair job in his quest for an oil tight engine. The whole incident was wrapped up in about 3 hours, a vast improvement on the previous one. A quick toot toot to the helpful Polish guys and we were off.

After a rapid descent down into Austria the oil level light came on, this not being so serious as the oil pressure light. We pulled into a school yard in a small town to check this out and a quick check under the van revealed a puddle of oil and a trail of oil all the way into the yard. Dandy seemed to be on the verge of tears; I didn’t know what to think and once more, was scared to ask. Dandy tried to check out under the van only to be nearly eaten alive by oversized, ferocious, biting ants. We had to move and thought that we would try to find a guesthouse for the night as we were both in despair by now. The first one that we tried was closed and the second wanted 90 Euros for a basic non air conditioned room.