Woke up to great weather and blue skies with very little cloud, after speaking to the site owner it seemed that the Glockner road would be good with visibility until around 3pm. Dandy took the decision that we would go for it even though it was a pretty reckless thing to do. The scenery on the climb up the pass was once more absolutely stunning. How many more picture postcard scenes can a person take in one holiday? Dandy drove and we took it quite gently even though Dandy ranted at all other drivers who got in his way or didn’t drive to his standards in order to not have to use the brakes too much.
We got to near the top of the pass, parked up near the glacier and took loads of photos. I kept disappearing to track down Ibex and get sandwiches for lunch etc. Dandy had to keep texting me to track me down. We decided to take the funicular car down to the glacier as we thought it would be quite an experience to walk upon it. Unfortunately the funicular was built in 1960 when the glacier was hundreds of feet higher than it is today and we had to descend the rest by foot. It was well worth it and quite spectacular with huge cracks in the very blue ice that you could have stuffed annoying Dutch folk and their kids quite easily.
The bad bit was the really steep climb back up to the funicular in the very thin air. There was a queue when we got there and I joined it while Dandy went off to take some more photos. A car had arrived, loaded up 30 people and left before Dandy returned and I had sat down on a handy bench at the side of the queue to catch my breath. I could see him frantically scanning the queuing people for me and then looking at the disappearing car which was ascending the cliff side. Other people had noticed too and we were having a good laugh at his expense especially as I had his return ticket. He finally spotted me, much to his relief that he wouldn’t have to climb the rest of the way up.
Grossglockner Glacier
Dynamo at the Glockner
The final high was the very highest point of the pass which had very tight hairpins on an old cobbled road. Dandy went for that too and did wonder at his own sanity but the van coped with its very clever gearing and ratios. We were 8,000 feet up – utter madness with a sick van!
Found a campsite that was part of a working farm that night, it was fine, spoiled only by a mild disagreement between us as I hadn’t done my duty by putting the ice packs in the freezer. My hairdryer blew up that night in the toilet block and Dandy interpreted this as me not making an effort for him since we’d had words! As if!
We had to be careful not to offend our neighbours on campsites from now on as we might need to ask them for help with the van. By getting a jump start from someone each day preserved the batteries and while on the move we were careful not to turn off the engine if at all possible.
On the Thursday morning we got a jump start from a helpful Dutchman. On the Autobahn we experienced terrible rain and drove with no lights and using wipers only occasionally. My job was to keep checking the voltage in case it dropped below a critical level where the engine shut off switch would kill the engine. It was very stressful and we barked at each other a lot that day.
Found ourselves in a really daft campsite in Germany that night. The rain was still hammering down and when I got out of the van my feet and ankles disappeared in about 5 inches of wet mud. It was so depressing. For lack of any real choice we ate at the site restaurant – schwein schnitzel and a glutinous sauce and once more the language barrier led to us ordering three very large salads between us as well. We took what we couldn’t eat away with us in a Tupperware box and finally jettisoned it four days later in Dunkerque.
It was still hammering down when we retired to bed and we reckoned that they probably ate their children in this part of the world.
Day Thirty and Thirty One – Friday 6th and Saturday 7th August 2010
We were up very early, it had rained all night long and the ground was sodden. We got a jump start from our German neighbour who was quick to point out to Dandy that he would not normally vacation in this area but had to be there for a family wedding.
We were heading for the Rhineland area and we had two options - to stay with an acquaintance of Alan’s in his guest house in Rupertshoffen where we had been two years previously, the other option was another daftie campsite near the town of Bogel where we had also stayed previously. Andree, the hotelier, was not in and his home looked pretty closed up, a neighbour said he was on holiday in England. We headed off to Bogel, and got a pitch well away from the long stay natives, especially the mountain troll (see 2008 blog) and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. We were looking forward to our steak meal in a favourite restaurant that evening.
The troll accosted me when I was on my way back from the toilets to warn me about her two year old child who would appear at some point and run around beside us and snort, she demonstrated this by making the noise of a pig with a lot on its mind. She warned me sinisterly ‘not to be scared’, then she went through the whole story a second time. Strange, I thought, she couldn’t be a day under 60 so I couldn’t figure out why her ovaries were still active and it also occurred to me that we were incomers that she wanted to warn away.
Fifteen minutes later Dandy and I were running round the field making strange noises hotly pursued by a very angry wasp much to the amusement of the troll and other assorted dafties. The strange child never appeared.
Dandy carried out a routine oil check and this revealed more problems – the engine breather pipe had been nipped and become blocked. I had to dismantle the bed to allow Dandy access to the area. I thought – what has gone wrong now, can we take much more bad luck? I went for a shower and on my return relations between us were fractious. We headed off for the 1km walk to the restaurant. As were walked through the cornfields on this lovely summer evening tension between us really escalated. Dandy expressed his disappointment that I had not dealt with the ice blocks again and I flipped – ‘all to try to preserve about 1 Euro worth of food’ I said! The knives were out and we had a heated argument. This was getting us nowhere, then I sniffed the air a couple of times and declared ‘there’s a stink of shite here’. That broke the standoff, Dandy burst out laughing and we kissed and made up realising that we were taking the stress of the fragile, broken down van out on each other and being silly and spiteful.
We enjoyed a great steak in pepper sauce washed down by a couple of beers and sauntered back to the site again. We stopped at the campsite bar for a nightcap. I went to the ladies and when I walked into the bar I was so conscious of everyone staring at me that I walk smack into the cigarette machine. If you’ve ever watched the first Star Wars movie it was like the bar scene from that film! Bizarre. We drank up quickly and escaped to the safety of the van.
We begged a jump start from the owner of the site and headed off again next morning. We took a route along the Rhine rather than risking the river ferry and having to turn off the engine unnecessarily. It was a lovely day and we enjoyed the scenery and the interesting traffic on the river – coal boats, cruise boats etc. We stopped off for a coffee and cake at an outdoor riverside café. Behind me sat a large, overweight, very ugly man. Dandy spotted that he was surreptitiously filming the young blonde waitress. We found this very sleazy as we figured out what he would use the footage for later on. Dandy felt it was his civic duty to tell the waitress about his behaviour when he paid the bill and she was quite shocked. Then he wanted to have words with fatman, he was going to demand that he ‘delete or bluetooth the files’ to him! Fatman paid up and legged it.
Pervy fatman to my left
We were heading for friends of ours – Edith and Didier who live on Tongeren, Belgium. Tongeren is the oldest town in Belgium. Still checking the voltage and fretting over the alternator all the way, we arrived at their house at 5.30pm. We hooked up the batteries with their power and enjoyed a beer together in the garden. We ate in a fantastic restaurant at the cathedral that evening. We enjoyed great food and Didier regaled us with tales of his recent deployment to Afghanistan and how he would sort out the Belgian political system. It was a great night and we enjoyed their company once more.
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