Polar Challenge Blog

Today was an epic and we covered around 480 miles. By about 7am this morning the tent was like an oven, as it was so warm so Geoff and I got up and decided that we’d go out and find a chemist so that I could get some hay fever pills. We were told there was a chemist in the local village in ??? and so we took a drive across. It turned out this was just a little fishing village and the chemist looked like a health and beauty shop. Thankfully we waited until 9am for the local supermarket to open and managed to get some extra strong 1 a day Benaday pills – except one did nothing so I took 2. Despite no chemist they had a hairdresser and Geoff pondered about having his hair cut. Looking at his hair, I pointed out he’d actually need a garden centre and someone with a hedge trimmer.

Back at camp we all decided to leave at 9:30am to make up some time, Geoff drove again today leading the pack whilst I map read. Since C3PO tried to kill us yesterday by saying “Turn Left” head on into oncoming traffic we fear he may be losing his marbles. As a protocol droid he may be well suited but as a navigator, he is not to be trusted. C3PO tried to send us up to the top of Denmark to catch a ferry into Sweden though thankfully Jeff has now lent us his map book so we decided to take a different route over a toll bridge. On our way to the bridge we hit our first traffic jam since leaving the UK. It’s amazing , we have driven through five countries and do not hit any kind of traffic jam until we get to Denmark.

Once over the bridge, we arrived in Sweden and so we pulled over at the first opportunity to give our legs a stretch. Geoff also took a picture of his pigs! In the glove box are two stuffed pigs , one decked out in kinky leather that Pete and Dee gave him and another one that apparently lives there. So far there is a picture of them in each country.

As we then started off again, Richard’s Bond Bug wouldn’t start. It seems as though his battery was flat so after a quick bump start he was soon driving again.

Drving through Sweden gale force winds struck with a vengence and the car was being blown about badly, probably having a large roof box didn’t help as it was acting as a large sail. After about 200 miles we stopped for a break and swopped over so I took over the driving. The winds were still attacking and I had to constantly steer the car to right though every time a lorry overtook us the wind would be cut off and then battered back into you as it had gone passed.

About 7pm we were around 140 miles from Oslo which was where we wanted to be so we decided to drive through the night. Jeff phoned the camp and they said we could check in before midnight so we decided to press ahead. As we reached Norway, the roads became a lot worse, you would get a few miles of motorway and then miles of side roads with severe chicanes. This slowed us down no end and then in a confusion of road works we lost Jeff and Ivan. We pulled over and luckily via walkie talkies we got them back to us but now according to the Sat Nav we would arrive 4 minutes before midnight. The last 80 or so miles was a mad race, five 3-wheelers charging along through mountains and over bridges. It was actually great fun and thank heavens at that point the strong winds had subsided.

We made the camp for 11:58pm, just 2 minutes to spare before they closed. We all booked in and set up camp. 480 miles in one day. That was some going.

Elvis

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 10:21 am and is filed under The Journey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.