Day 5: Munich - Calais - Chester

Distance travelled 920 miles
Start: Munich
End: Chester

Final day of the trip, but the longest drive still to do, Munich to Chester in a day. Totally possible.

Set off at 9:30am after a slightly longer start to the day, Oktoberfest was great last night, something we'd definitely go back to, but not so great for an early start & driving 900+ miles.

After making sure I was sober enough to drive, we fired up the Volvo and back onto the streets of Munich, while Dad continued to nurse his hangover.

Easy drive out of the city, and we were back to the spectator sport of the autobahn. Basically, the sport is driving at a normal 75-80mph, and watching the German nutters come past at warp speed, making sure you give appropriate oohs and ahhs as they do so. This is enjoyable enough, however when there's several all in an outside lane race, this improves the spectator element. When a truck pulls out in front of said race, going 80mph slower than the chain of €100,000 German saloons, that's real entertainment, verging on potential bloodsport.

All went well until a mountain pass section of the autobahn. An accident ahead had resulted in 7km of stationary traffic and the road being closed, which was going to make us miss the tunnel crossing later on.

Quick Google maps search gave us a detour, which reintroduced us to the delights of German country lanes... I didn't expect our tour of the autobahns to include squeezing past parked cars outside a communist factory block and the wall of some poor villagers house.

The detour did its job however and we rejoined in the clear. Thank you Google.

From this point, mrs sat nav was given the boot. Her random detours and missing swathes of major European roads built in the last 20 years has been amusing until now. All of a sudden, with a train to catch, she became a liability. Tom
Tom, meet your faster, more intelligent, more articulate and generally more attractive sister named Google. Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out.

Our new best friend got our route planned, with an arrival time of 19:57. Problem, our check in cut off for the tunnel is 19:50. Time to claw back some minutes using the autobahn's party trick of no speed limits.

Only stopping once to fill the car, I drove solidly for 10.5 hours, 650 miles. We arrived at Calais and checked in at the tunnel at 19:49, literally seconds to spare.

As seems to be the recurring theme with the tunnel, our train had been filled before we were boarded, so we had to wait for the next one. Already forgotten why we'd just rushed across 2 countries?

The Volvo performed well. The steering is definitely looser than when we left, exhaust is noisier and there's a very obvious vibration through the whole car any speed over 70... however these are minor issues. Unfortunately, the car decided she didn't really want to leave Europe and had a hissy fit when trying to start her to drive away from French border protection. Turned key, nothing, no electrics. Much panicked faffing and trying different things, we got her started and stopped angering the French officers.

UK drive was a typical one - wet, cold, dark, rainy and busy. Home at approximately 1:15am for the whole event to finally be over.

A great event overall - met some great people, some I hope to stay in touch with in the future. We've both said we'd do another, and have already got ideas for a different design or two. Anyone thinking of doing it, I highly recommend it. Just pick your car carefully!

As for the fate of the trusty volvo? She's too good to scrap, but does need a couple of bits doing. She may get sold, may be kept for another rally in time to come. But she won't hit the knackers yard just yet!