Sorry this blog is a bit late but I normally write this the day after in the morning when my creative juices are at their best and whilst Ray is driving. But today which will be tomorrow’s blog is where we start to hit the tricky roads and we have to negotiate some major cities. This needs both driver and co-driver to have their wits about them but more of this tomorrow.
Well it seems to be a trend of people lying in and missing their early morning wake up calls, this time its Bob and Steve (Truck Doctor) who sleep in, but it’s not for long and they don’t delay our early start. They did have an excuse though they had a hard day yesterday and did more miles than anyone else as well as Peter didn’t knock hard enough on their door to wake them.
The plan today is to put all our troubles behind us and cross the whole of Austria and get past Budapest in Hungary.
The views in Austria are glorious, see below for some of the photographs that the convoy drivers have been taking at regular spots when we stop for our brew stops and meal breaks. click on image to enlarge
At the last stop the convoy leaders shared out some of the sweets that they had been given. These are for giving to the children that we meet and to keep convoy drivers alert with a sugar rush. I managed to get a bag of toffees and a bag of lemon lollipops. This led to a rather unsavoury incident when the bag of lollipops was wrestled from me by Jim (one half of the Proclaimers) and I was then threatened at knifepoint by Duncan (the other half of The Proclaimers) all because their penknife was bigger than mine and the bag of lemon lollipops that I had was made considerably lighter. When I told The Proclaimers that I would be reporting this on the Blog they stated that they would get in first and deny everything and the larger penknife was once again produced.
Today marked the start of the limerick competition and today’s topic was my exploits over the first two days, there were some very good entries and I will be displaying the winning ones tomorrow. The Irish drivers were very precise on what made up a limerick and the dispute was over some disqualifications, one was not of the standard five lines and so could not be classed as a limerick as it should be a poem and another was said not to rhyme. The jury is still out on the technical aspect of the limerick, but convoy leaders decision will be final (one of the disputed entries was theirs, there is a good chance of an overruling of the Irish complaint)
On a good note for today we have just received our letters of invitation from the Moldovan Government, these letters ensure our safe and hopefully speedy passage across the border with the vital aid that we are carrying. This is great news for the convoy as it puts a lot of people’s minds at rest about our border crossing. The border crossings can sometimes be difficult if the right paperwork is not presented (this is the same for any country including the UK), this paperwork ensures that the officials on the border recognise who we are and in our case are signed by the minister for education. Many thanks go out to the CWUHA support back in the UK and the Moldovan government for securing this vital paperwork.
At the end of the day we achieve what we set out to do; we crossed Austria and passed Budapest in Hungary. We have ended the day at one of the convoy’s favourite hotels affectionately nicknamed The Owl (or to give it it’s proper name The Bagolyvar Hotel (we call it the owl because it has a statue of an owl on its roof). We check into our room only to find that myself and Ray have to share a double bed. Then we find the other room with another four beds in, yes our accommodation is two rooms, five beds and our own bathroom. Not all the convoy drivers are as fortunate as some of them have to share the bathroom (the worst is six to one bathroom, some tried to get into our rooms for the night). To check out the hardship that we all suffer on the convoy see the images below and check out the website. www.bagolyvar.net/
Over and out and see ya later
Paul (one half of the big boppers)
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