Journey to Sweden for the Women's World Gliding Championships

Today is the day that we travel to Sweden.  Last night I was scrabbling around sticking the glider aircraft registration on both sides of the fin of the trailer because Steve spotted that it was in the rules, and we didn’t have it properly labelled…What with that, trying to finish off some work, finishing the remaining packing and vacuuming round the house, I didn’t get to bed until 23:15 and I’d promised myself I was going to go to bed at 20:00.

With a fair bit of nudging, I managed to wake up Michael (an 18 year old teenager) sufficiently at 01:40 to be able to get him in the car, which was already pre-packed and with the glider in its trailer attached to the tow bar, and set off for Dover by 02:00…rather early after not much sleep.

We arrived at the ferry port on schedule for the 05:00 sailing to Calais.  It was intriguing to see people pointing and staring at the glider trailer; to us it is normal, but I guess that it is strange to others.  I have to say it was a very pleasant sailing with the sun rise and relatively smooth channel.

We set off from Calais in France at 07:30 on a mammoth 1200 mile journey.  Steve started the drive and I swapped with him in turn, although I have to admit that he did most of the driving.  We drove through France onto Belgium and hit heavy traffic on the Antwerp ring road.  By 10:30 we were in The Netherlands and by 12:15 we were in Germany.  Rain had now started and quickly became persistent and at times heavy.  Throughout Germany there were a lot of roadworks and were constantly having to slow down, switch lanes and occasionally came to a stop.    At the massive Hamburg port we slowed right down again as there were queues for the Elb tunnel.  We drove on and our first proper stop (rather than just for fuel) was at 20:00 where we stopped at a service station and ate some schnitzel and sausages and chips – what else would you eat in Germany?  All in all, Germany was not the best of places to stop and eat following the very recent serious illnesses caused by E-Coli.  However, needs must and once we’d finished, we continued on our way once more. 

At 21:05 we entered Denmark and we continued until neither of us could drive anymore, so at 22:00 we pulled over into a parking area and the three of us slept in the car.