After a very enjoyable time in Newbury with my daughter and her family, I headed down to Hindhead to spend my last night on British soil with my son and his family. My car was loaded to the top of the front seat headrests with suitcases and boxes containing all the things I was taking to Romania. On the front passenger seat I had a cool box with some food for the journey and in the passenger footwell was my laptop bag and an A4 plastic sleeve with passport, vehicle documents and Channel Tunnel Shuttle train booking confirmation. Daisy, my newest grandchild, was pleased to see me again and I had a delightful time looking after her on my last morning when daddy had gone off to work and mummy was having a shower. All too soon it was time to say goodbye and set off for Folkestone.
I had planned to go to a shop in Folkestone town to buy two new Makita rechargeable batteries for Cole, my builder and new friend, as they are cheaper in the UK. The journey was not pleasant as it was raining quite hard all the way but to add to the unpleasantness, almost within sight of Folkestone, the car started spluttering and was running out of fuel. Fortunately I was very near a junction slip road and managed to make it almost to the top of the ramp. The low fuel warning light had come on but previous experience led me to think I had around 100kms (60 miles) of fuel left which should have got me to my destination. I put in 5 litres from a spare fuel can and tried to restart the car, forgetting that a diesel engine has to be primed again after running out of fuel. My efforts to start the car eventually flattened the battery so I got my tow rope out and stood on the slip road waving it at the cars and vans coming up the ramp. Not much traffic was coming off at that junction and after a few vehicles just drove round me, a Belgian couple in a 4x4 stopped and towed me the short distance to the service area where I put more fuel in, found the hand priming pump and then asked the filling station staff if they could give me a push start. "No mate, the forecourt's not long enough" was their excuse but fortunately a lady who was paying for petrol overheard and offered the use of a booster battery jump start. However, it didn't have enough power in it to start a diesel car so she then brought her car round to mine and produced some jump leads. Moments later my car was running again and I thanked her profusely for her kindness.
By this time it was too late to carry on into Folkestone, collect the Makita batteries and get back to the Channel Tunnel before the check-in for my train closed. Sorry Cole, no batteries this time!
Arriving in France at 6pm CET, the drive to Belgium was in heavy rain. This produced lots of spray from the trucks and I was often plunging almost blind into what seemed like a wall of water but at least traffic as a whole was fairly light. On my first night I was unable to find a reasonably priced hotel in Belgium despite a couple of short forays into towns just off the motorway so by 10pm I gave up and parked up in a large layby and wrapped myself up in a sleeping bag for a slightly cramped night in the car! Much to my surprise I did manage to stay warm and slept, in spite of the rain drumming on the roof and windscreen, until around 6:30am. Resuming my journey, I stopped at a service area after 30 minutes or so and breakfasted on coffee and croissants. Refreshed and ready to continue my journey, I put in enough fuel to get to Luxemburg where I could fill up to the brim on the cheapest diesel in Europe at 91p per litre. Although there was still plenty blanketing the fields, the roads were clear of snow - the problem now was heavy rain which persisted for the next few hours.
On into Germany and following my satnav to head for Passau and the Austrian border I felt things were going well. Even the rain had stopped. Then near Heilbronn all traffic was directed off the A6 autobahn due to an accident. I spent over an hour going round in circles trying to find my way out of Heilbronn and back towards the autobahn, hoping to rejoin a couple of junctions further on. My satnav couldn't help me as it kept trying to put me back on the A6 at the same junction where the police had directed us off! Finally I reset the satnav to take me to a small town a bit further east and close to an A6 junction. At last I was back on track after seeing rather more of Heilbronn and surrounding German countryside than I had anticipated although one minor road did take me past a spectacular ruined fortress on top of a steep sided hill covered in vineyards.
By late afternoon I was in Austria, having stopped briefly to buy a vignette at Passau, and heading for Wels where I hoped to find accommodation and the next fill of reasonably priced diesel. Driving slowly past two or three filling stations I realised the price of diesel had gone up by around 13 Eurocents since December. Did Austria have a VAT and/or fuel duty increase since I filled up in the same town three weeks earlier? Nevertheless, diesel was still cheaper in Austria than in Germany or Hungary so I filled the tank and refilled my 5 litre spare can.
The search for accommodation took me south out of Wels for a short distance until I saw a "Pension" sign pointing along a right turn off the main road. Not far away I found Pension Oberpfennigmayrgut (photo #2) run by a family who gave me a warm welcome. They had no restaurant but I had food in the car - a large lump of Cheddar cheese, a baguette, some sunflower spread and half a packet of Jaffa cakes! This was sufficient for my needs and was washed down with a can of Romanian beer, one of four which should have been delivered to a friend in Grove but never got there as I ran out of time on the final trip to my old home village. Sorry Dave!
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