Baltic Sea Circle Day 2
The overnight ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland was busy. We queued up ready to board, still amazing that we were there after the trial of the day. 24h earlier we were stranded on the side of the road.
As we moved to get onto the ship, we flicked on the headlights: the gauges immediately died. Not again!? We got onto the ship and parked up, got our bags and headed to the cabin; the troubleshooting would have to be done in Holland. We were exhausted after all the mechanics from the day. We were asleep in minutes.
The following morning the ships wake up call at 5:30 got us awake and breakfast followed after we were dressed. We made a quick plan over breakfast: once off the ship we’d find a place to park up and fix the dashboard gauges, it was likely a problem with a fuse or relay again. As we made our way down to the car decks I said a quick prayer to the car gods, no more breakdowns please. After warning the car behind us that we had no brake lights due to the wiring of the gauges on the 944, we fired up the engine and rolled off the ship. Passport control took 15 mins to creep through, and while we were in the queue we threw a thumbs up to a Porsche 911 GT3, who rolled down his window and shouted “Nice car!!” at us. Gemma has spotted a restaurant around the corner from the dock and we pulled in there to diagnose our gauge issues. I examined the fuses and G2 relay again, found that one of the headlight fuses was a bit loose and gave the contacts a clean. We swapped the G2 and G14 relays and bang the gauges were back on. We stuck on our headlight reflectors and hit the road, programming Hamburg into the satnav. Although the rally rules say no satnav, we hadn’t officially started yet!
After a few minutes getting accustomed to driving on the right and navigating Dutch roundabouts we hit the highway and started to cruise. The Porsche seemed happy now, purring away as she ate up the miles. Before we knew it we were approaching the German border and decided to pull over in Germany for a rest, a shop for some food and some petrol.
We found a Lidl and parked up. The parking signs said something about a dial that we needed to display. Gemma’s Google search that we needed to buy one and petrol stations were a good source. We drove around to the petrol station 100m away and topped up with fuel. We were down to half a tank. I tried to explain to the cashier that we needed a parking dial and somehow she figured out what I meant, my German needs improving! We could now shop for some food, which we spent about an hour doing, in a bit of a daze. We hadn’t got much sleep and the day was heating up.
We ate some sandwiches and fruit and then fired the Porsche up for the next leg. We had arranged to pick up our rally roadbook in Hamburg, and the office would be open until 6pm. We joined the Autobahn and made our way towards Bremen. We were able to comfortably cruise at 65-70 mph, but the noise in the cabin was extreme. The engine might have been purring at 3000 rpm but the exhaust does make a rumble and it shakes everything. Plus the gear lever had developed a rattle, which we could solve by Gemma placing her hand firmly on it. The temperature crept up, and as the car doesn’t have AC we were very hot and sweaty. The fans were on full, but it was deafening g to open the windows or sunroof at 70 mph. Driving on the Autoban was also a new experience for me. Constantly checking mirrors and assessing the speeds of other cars. If you failed to check often, you were sure to have a Porsche, Audi or BMW on your tail. Although the 944 did have 160 hp when new, and a top speed of 135mph I think quite a few of those horses have departed. Every overtake needed planning to ensure there was enough space and time.
After many, many hours of hot noisy driving we arrived in Hamburg and navigated the city to find the office of the SAC. We parked up on the street and I ran the last 300m to the building, it was just 5pm. I was greeted by a young man who showed me in and gave me our roadbook, some wristbands, stickers and a bit of pine wood. We also got a blue paper clip to trade with. 5 minutes later I was back in the car and we made a quick plan. We’d need to find a place to camp and a 2 minute search online showed a campsite about 30 mins north. We pulled away with a rumble.
It was nearly 6 when we found the campsite, and I spoke to the owner who didn’t speak much English. Through hand signals and guesswork we agreed that there was space and we needed a place for our car. We pitched our tent, made some pasta and tomato/mushroom sauce for dinner which was very tasty. After washing up we crawled into the roof tent and got comfy in our down sleeping bags. We welcomed sleep gladly.
WILD SPIRIT 