Graham Hughes
The Blizzard
Now came the time to get the van back to the town Speicher in the far west of Germany, a journey of 1,350km. After a jolly nice breakfast in our little Rzeszów hotel, we knocked the snow off the van and hit the road!
The plan was for Adam to drive the first 6 hours across Poland, and I’d drive the subsequent 7.5 hours across Germany. We left Rzeszów at 9am, so assumed that we’d be back around midnight. That was our first mistake!
We stopped for far too many coffees along the way, got diverted all over the shop on account of all the snow (there’s a reason Santa uses a magical flying sleigh), and we didn’t arrive at the German border at Jędrzychowice until around 5.30pm. We filled up the tank (fuel is cheaper in Poland), and I took over the wheel while Adam got on with some work. At this point, our ETA in Speicher was around 1am.
I’d like to say that the drive along the fast, efficient German autobahn was, y’know, fast and efficient, but while Poland had its fair share of snow on the road, Germany was having itself a full-blown snowpocalypse.
That Saturday night, the south of Germany had one of its worst snow storms on record. What a time to be alive! And driving! Across Germany!
One of the major issues we had was that we kept running out of window washer fluid, and the ice on the wipers meant they didn’t always make a good contact with the windscreen. Consequently, every time we passed a lorry, we’d get mucky snow slush slapped all over the front of the van, with no quick and easy way to wipe it off. Eventually, the conditions got so bad that the water jets froze and the pipe from the reservoir burst. As a result of having to stop every few miles to clear the windscreen, any hope we had of getting to Speicher at a reasonable time.
But at least we had the amazing variety of food in the all-night garages to keep us going. 😬
Anyway, long story short, after a fair few hair-raising moments, diversions, snow ploughs and bad jokes (almost all mine), we arrived at Adam’s gaff around 3am. Time to get my head down for a few hours… I had a flight home to catch in the morning.
THE NEXT DAY...
UP AND AT ‘EM! Adam was good enough to run me back to Luxembourg airport, and a hop, skip and a jump later and I was back in sunny (ha!) Durham. I was absolutely knackered, but in a good way! We had done it. We raised the funds, sourced the Lego, wrapped it up all nicely, drove it to Lviv and handed it over to our friends at Назар Малигон, and got back home, safe and sound. Job’s a good’un.
Previous
Next
Help us keep on helping!
You can donate to UK4UKR directly via PayPal, Visa/Visa Debit/Visa Electron, Mastercard, American Express, Discover and Maestro using our Eärendil’s Star account, or you can donate via our GoFundMe page.
Thank You
© 2022 UK4UKR.com | Website by Graham Hughes
PayPal donations processed through Eärendil’s Star Ltd.
“A light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out”