The worst trip I ever had

Dave wasn’t really…

A big drinker, just a steady three maybe four pints a night man. I got talking to him one evening and we realised we both had a mutual friend in the haulage industry. That friend was Steve an owner driver for many years doing the continent.

I was 23/24 and doing agency work because that suited me at the time. I had no problems driving, roping sheeting and knowing my way around lorries. I was confident but still a little green. Living near Pompey, sooner or later I knew my driving career would take me ‘over the water’. I’d doubled manned to Germany and did a trip around Holland once but I was hardly a seasoned veteran. Dave said that he’d keep me in mind if he needed short notice driver cover. I just thought it was the usual pub banter and forgot about it until about a month later, Dave asked me to do a run to Portugal in his lorry because his driver was on holiday. I felt obliged really, being sort of mates I said I’d help him out. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. We agreed to meet in the pub car park and I’d go down to Pompey docks from there in the unit.

My first sight of the unit should have been enough to make me think again. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and looking back, I should have turned around in the pub car park and gone home to my safe reliable agency gig. A dull orange/rust DAF2800 sat forlorney in the corner of the car park. The cab just leaning a little at the front on the nearside. A Brittax mirror (the only one) on the passenger side replacing the DAF fitment had a tartan rag tied to it but that had long since shredded into little red tassels. A cracked headlight, a missing centre wiper and mudguards that may well have been ploughed over by a tractor in a field once finished the whole thing. Dave pointed out the twin tanks and explained the one way valve system. I suppose looking back it was about 900 litres capacity. He said there were a few bits in the cab that the regular man said I could use. His gas cooker, water containers and any tinned food that was there. I lobbed my bag and sleeping bag up, checked I had my passport, got all the load details from Dave and started her up. I know this sounds silly now but, the hissing of air from the clutch pedal as I tried to get reverse was so loud, I thought my red line had split. I got out to check but the line was ok. Just a little clutch leak, it’ll be fine I told myself. Pompey docks was 20 minutes. Just enough time to get comfy, put my ■■■■ lighter and things as I wanted them. The steering felt a bit vague and it all squeaked a bit but, I didn’t think was an issue. I got into Pompey docks, found the agent, got the paperwork and located my trailer in the massed ranks of export trailers on the dockside. It was an old Bennet trailer, a bright green tilt with red lettering. It was full right up with steel for a building in Faro. There were four straps over the load and a fair bit of dunnage in between. I’d seen better secured loads and wished I’d got some chains but I’d also seen worse. I coupled up put my number plate on got into the queue for the Caen boat. I showered and joined my fellow ‘Euro truckers’ in the smoke filled drivers restaurant. Got talking to a driver who said he was going down to Bordeaux and could follow him if I wanted to. I got my duty free and headed for bed just as the worst storm that year on the English Channel, blew in from nowhere. By the time I’d got into my bunk, the ship was rolling around like a pea in a tin. I didn’t like the pitching and the dreadful crashing noises as we continued. I didn’t sleep at all.

As I drove off the linkspan, there was a British registered Volvo F10 with a fridge waiting for me, I pulled up behind and then we both set off together. It soon became apparent just what a bag of ■■■■ I was driving. It would only pull away in first, I tried second low but that just made the whole thing shake. Once I did get going, the steering see-sawed. Not a small see-saw action but a large, constantly in need of correction see-saw. You could have offered me £500 to hold it in a straight line for 25 yards and your money would have been safe. Then the slight knocking, that was so much louder now I had a load on became quite worrying. I stopped to look under the cab but had no idea what I was looking for anyway. I suppose it made me feel better doing something rather than nothing. The other driver in his shiny efficient F10 had stopped and waited. When I got there, I explained that I was a bit slower than I had anticipated. He laughed and then disapeared into the clear blue sunny French day, never to be seen again (I don’t blame him really).

There was a European road map on the bunk so, I had to work out how to get to Portugal by myself, I also had to work out where I actually was. Needless to say, I got the last bit wrong and ended up down some tiny little French lanes with lovely scenic villages that were almost impossible to get through. I ended up stopping south of Nantes for the first night, bearing in mind that most UK motors would have got to Castets in the first shift. I was way behind already. The other thing I noticed was the fuel guage going down quicker than I had anticipated. I checked the extra tank and realised that it wasn’t going down. Seems the one way valve was more of a ‘no way’ valve. Supper was a tin of Tyne Brand minced beef with onions.

The following morning it didn’t matter that the only toilet free was the classic ‘hole in one’, I needed the loo fast! Tyne Brand minced beef with onions and me had violently disagreed with each other. A cracking start to the day I thought. I was confident I had a route planned out, the truck would actually do the job it had been given, despite the see-saw steering, constant knocking and squeaking. All I had to do was drive steady for the next few days or so.

What could possibly go wrong?

Edit; The destination was Sines which is quite some way above Faro. I spose 30 years or so has dulled my memory. So, Sines is the destination.

to be continued

I love stuff like this. Keep up the good work with part two soon bud.

classic…lots of us must be able to look back at trips like this and thought…why did i go?..why didnt i park the thing,call in and say not a chance and walk away?..trips that start like this,just always get worse as the miles pass till the point of no return and then its too late. isnt hindsight a wonderful thing.
bring on part 2 please…this stuff is always a good read as you can usually relate to similar grief having happened to yourself in the past.

This thread has a lot of potential. Love these.

This is great stuff, bet we’ve nearly all taken jobs under that fatal title ‘seemed a good idea at the time’ and within minutes thought ‘why am i doing this’ and still we carry on
Looking forward to chapter 2

So far so good he says in anticipation .

Coffee croissants and Marlboro…

My petit dejuner was delicious. I checked things over, looked at the crossover pipe between the two tanks and assumed that sooner or later the fuel would flow over to the feed tank. I put the key in the hole, turned it and a very loud click noise came from under the cab. I tried again to the sound of another noticeably quieter click. Yup, flat battery. My school boy French didn’t extend to ‘do you have any jump leads please?’ So I wandered around several lorries parked where I was with a piece of paper that had a badly drawn picture of a truck battery with a big cross through it. A very kind French driver roared with laughter and agreed to help me out. So, another hour later than I wanted to be, I was off south again.

I got into a steady pace enjoying the wide open countryside, smooth roads and bright sunny day. Despite still having to rock the wheel all day and put up with the squeaking suspension, knocking noise and various dashboard lights glowing, I felt fairly confident about getting into Spain by nightfall and making up some lost time. I wasn’t bothered about being the slowest truck on anything steeper than a mole-hill. As long as I kept going I’d get there and back in this tub of nuts and bolts. The first sign of trouble was just south of Angouleme on the N10. It was the evening rush and I had a massive fan club behind me on the single sections. That dreadful miss of the engine that means one thing and one thing only, fuel starvation! The guage showed I was just over half a tank but as my speed decreased and the light flashing and horn blowing behind me became more and more intense I had to get off the road. I spluttered into a lay- by where the ■■■■■■■ thing died. I’ll admit I was now starting to get depressed with the way things were going and considered setting fire to it there and then. But I decided to tilt the cab and see what I could do. I’m not a spanner monkey other than spark plugs and oil filter change on my Cortina, but I did know how to bleed a diesel. I found the pump, cracked a valve and started pumping. Hey presto, within about a minute fuel started running out. I put it all back together, dropped the cab and prayed it would start. Much to my suprise and relief it did. With a little fist punch, I started hoofing it south down the N10 again. I hadn’t eaten all day, smoked far too many ciggies and was feeling somewhat naffed off. To be honest, I did wonder if I’d ever see England at all.

It ground to a halt again about 30kms north of Bordeaux. I just managed to get off the road near a small routiers, despite me trying to pump the fuel up, it just wouldn’t play ball and the lorry just sat there, tilted slightly over looking like an old man with arthritis. I hated the site of the whole ■■■■■■■ thing. I rang Dave in England but I suppose he was in the pub and not having mobile phones then, I realised I was going to be stuck where I was for a while. The wisest thing I did before I left England, was take a good amount of cash with me. I’d changed £50 into francs on the boat. At least I could eat my first decent meal since I got off the boat a day and half ago. I wolfed down the starter, main course, embarrassed myself with the cheese board and then set about the mousse chocolate`like a man possessed. Climbed into the bunk tired, ■■■■■■ off but well fed.

I was getting really good with the ‘hole in one’ system. Yeh, I needed to run out of the lorry in the morning and just made it to the loos. The food was lovely, the wine had been flavoursome and plentiful but, oh my lord, it played absolute hell with my lower gut. I phoned Dave and explained the situation regarding the lorry. He talked me through bleeding it but I said I’d already done that. I also mentioned that it would probably have a flat battery anyway. He didn’t sound very happy. That made two us to be fair. After coffee, croissants and Marlboro smokes, Dave rang back and said he’d come down in the van and get things going. I was stranded there for at least a day and half.

You try sitting right beside the N10 for a day and a half. I can assure you it’s boring, really really really boring. I went for a walk but there was nothing to see or do where I was. Just the small routiers that shut after lunch and did supper and breakfast. I had nothing to read, no tablet, no laptop, no one to talk to and little idea of what was going to happen next. Dave arrived the following night and mentioned he was having a dreadful time with the food out here. I knew what he meant. He replaced a small filter that I knew nothing about and said it would run fine now. He had no idea what a bag of crap this thing was! I sat in the seat whilst he got the van as close as he could to jump start it using only a 12volt. I hoped he’d disappear in a big blue flash but, my luck didn’t run that far. ‘Le Runt’ as I’d now named it, started up. We’d agreed with the cafe owner (for small fee of course) to leave the van where it was and carry on double manned to get some time back.

Just one small problem with that. Dave didn’t actually have a class 1 licence.

Brilliant. No big corporations back in them days, everything was small outfits and usually “a wing and a prayer haulage”, but by God it was unbelievably good fun and character building. Thanks for sharing mate.

no licence,no problem,sounds ominous and promising for the next bit.im assuming the gendarme and 200 marbro for a bung will come into play shortly,.

Gripping stuff this

Part three being looked for eagerly.

You’d think that…

Everyone on the planet would have heard of Miguels mountain. Ok, it’s hardly a wonder of the world like the Lighthouse at Aleaxandria but, it’s big, very steep, has nasty switchback corners on it and the occasional shrine. I’d never heard of it. It starts at the end of what I (over the years) called ‘the racetrack’. The section of road that runs from the border at Irun to the foot of Miguels. When you’ve been driving for years in powerful Swedish turbocharged monster 450s and 500s and the like over it, you can forget how crazy it is. It’s twisty with junctions on and off, has bus stops on it, petrol stations, factory entrances, concrete walls the height of the cab, long dark damp tunnels and it’s also very dangerous. To be fair, I was quite pleased just to have made it around Bordeaux, through the forest and down the last steep hill into Spain without incident, as well as Dave’s incredibly loud snoring as he slumped in the passenger seat. Passport and paperwork ready I approached the border, wondering what questions might be asked and whether they’d want to see inside the trailer, only to find that it was open and the few people that were there were asleep. I bimbled through and pushed on and followed the signs towards Burgos. The best time to learn the racetrack is at night and luckily for me that’s when I first did it. As well as the high speeds achievable, the rookie has to navigate it and that entails staring at the overhead signs, trying to get into the correct marked lane, wondering why despite doing everything correctly, you’re running parallel to the main carriageway you need to be on, with a crash barrier separating you away from it. I found it stressful just knowing if I was going the right way or not. Every time a sign confirmed that I was on the road to Burgos, I punched the air and treated myself to another Marlboro. Dave snored on.

Dave woke up as I slammed it into second low. How much longer did this ■■■■■■■ mountain go on for? I had a massive tailback snaking behind me, I could see the queue as I climbed the mountain and looked to my left or right as we climbed on upwards. On the few overtaking sections truck after truck roared past blowing horns and flashing lights at me. I was even passed by a loaded Pegaso, something that has never happened since. It’s a mountain that you have to treat with respect. One look at the missing wall sections with the lorry wreckage still there is a good way to tell you to slow down. I made a mental note about where the one run off was for when I came back that way. Kind of pointless really but, it made me feel better. Your first time on Miguels is always memorable. I did a ten and fell off my perch west of Valladolid. At last progress!

Coffee, Spanish sugary croissants and Marlboros for desayuno. First day that I hadn’t had to sprint to the bogs, that cheered me up no end. Not really knowing how far we’d get, I just set off for the border at Villa Formoso. The road was mostly single track then and I had a tailback with me almost as soon as I pulled out. Despite doing the 80kms speed limit, I was always slowing everyone up. It became apparent why so many Spanish trucks have large crosses in the windscreen. It’s only by the grace of god that most of them got around us on some of the wildest overtaking I’ve seen anywhere. Hills, blind bends, busy junctions, oncoming traffic were all fair game for an attempt at getting around Europe’s slowest lorry. I just carried on see-sawing away at the wheel and looking at the fuel gauge. I mentioned it to Dave who said the fuel would run over eventually. Of course it didn’t and by the time we got the border, it became obvious we’d have to do something with the few tools that Dave had bought with him and get the fuel over. I couldn’t have picked a more dust blown truck park at the border. By the time Dave appeared from under the lorry he looked like a miller who’d been dropped face first, into twenty tons of wholemeal flour. I knew before he even opened his mouth that the valve wasn’t working and we’d have to move the fuel over some other way. First idea was to just unplug the pipe, fill up a container and pour it into the feed tank. We moved quite a few litres over but were losing so much into the dust that we figured we would try something else. The best solution we came up with was a particular sized water bottle we found in a bin, some string around the neck and then push it into the tank with a stick and fill it that way. It was better but still involved diesel going over the two of us and the truck itself. In short, you couldn’t have devised a better way to ■■■■ two people off in such a short space of time. After what seemed like hours we had just under half a tank in the main feed, good enough to get going again. The cab smelled like a fuel refinery and the atmosphere was miserable.

It started to rain. Gently at first but, as we got further into Portugal it really opened up. It battered the windscreen and the two working wipers whilst doing a good job, made a screeching noise that drove me up the wall. It also found its way in through the roof hatch and started to make a small puddle. The demisters were hopeless on any setting so I ended up wiping the screen with a cloth (one of my pet hates).

So, see-saw steering, squeaky suspension, knocking noise, glowing dashboard lights, diesel smelling cab and screeching wipers. Welcome to Portugal.

yourhavingalarf:
rolling around like a pea in a tin.

The correct term is :- Like a turd in a ■■■■ pot hope this helps

Thirty years is a long time…

I started driving Europe regularly for a fridge firm about seven or eight years after this trip took place and the roads in Portugal changed a great deal in that time. The only proper motoraway was the IP1 between Lisbon and Porto. Just about everything else was single track. I do remember a dirt track section between Mangualde and Coimbra before it was finally finished. It’s a mountainous country and the roads reflect that with some switchback sections and long steep gradients. I have to say that the DAF exhaust brake was spot on, pick the right cog, push the button on the floor down hard and the whole thing will coast down the steepest of hills, just as well with the trailer I had behind me. Things got a little hot on one of the descents and we got under the trailer and pulled the brakes up. There was plenty of life in them but they needed pulling up. Once we got closer to Grandola and the road flattened out and ran through a forest aside from the heat, we were pottering along alright. I even overtook a ‘Porker’ which made the pair of us cheer like footy fans on a Saturday. Dave wanted to stop and buy a melon from one of the roadside vendors that spent the entire day sitting in the shade with a small cart full of melons for sale. I’m not keen on melon so I didn’t have one. Dave proceeded to stuff the basketball sized melon down in one go leaving pips and juice all over the place. We eventually got to the building site late in the evening. Supper was Tyne Brand chicken curry washed down with the worlds best lager and Portugals best kept secret Super Bok.

In the morning Dave sprinted off to the bogs and came back looking awful. Roadside melon wasn’t the best for a mans gut. That was followed by the best news ever! There was a message from the agent that we were to leave the trailer there and run solo to Porto, collect a loaded groupage trailer and head back to England. YAY I’m going home, something I thought might never happen. I dont think I’ve ever dropped a loaded trailer so quickly in my entire career as I did that morning. Pin, plate, ratchet handbrake, legs and curly pipes in under a minute I reckon. (I’m not getting into semantics about the order I did that) As the dust billowed out of the back of the unit, Dave got a signature, lobbed the paperwork at the security guy and off we went.

Northwards up to Porto solo was a doddle. Once round Grandola we decided that Dave, who’d been whinning for miles about driving should have a go. If there were any problems it was his outfit and it would be up to him if anything went wrong I concluded. He wasn’t too bad but not good enough to be left alone for any great amount of time. The see-saw steering didn’t help and he said he’d get it fixed when we got back to Blighty. That didn’t matter to me, I was never going to even look at this bag of crap again if I ever got home. We overnighted in a service area south of Porto and parked on a slope hoping the fuel might run over during the night. Of course it didn’t so round two of pass the smelly fuel bottle started. You have no idea just how depressing doing this was. It was boring, repetative, smelly and no matter what you did, you ended up with diesel on your shoes and gloves. It also stained the tarmac where we were parked on and in the morning there was a small but noticeable divot by the side of us. I wonder if it’s still there now? The Francs that I had changed into Escudos was enough to keep me fed and swilling down my new found friend ‘Boky’. At last, Dave took his first shower. I didn’t recognise him at the bar when he came out clean shaven and wet haired. As he sat down beside me, I thought who the ■■■■ is the bloke and why is he sitting next to me?

I found the shippers after two wrong turns suggested by Dave who was map reading. The first one down a narrow street that had I had a trailer on I wouldn’t have ventured down at all. The second down a cobbled street with nice little tables and chairs in the shade. Tourists from all over the world were treated to the fine sight of ‘Le Runt’ in all it’s glory. I’m sure it must have left quite an impression because they all kept talking and pointing as we appeared no more than 10 minutes later and went in the opposite direction to the one we had come in. The shippers were shut which meant we’d have to wait until Monday morning before we could get the trailer and head north but, I could see the trailer. We parked up outside on a piece of waste ground and sat there once again doing nothing. The only upside would be a 24 hour card giving me the chance to get home inside the week.

The way I saw it, all we had to do was keep the whole thing together until the UK was in sight and the bad dreams, constant twitching, constant scratching of mozzie bites, energy draining heat and outbursts of unexplained laughter that I was now suffering from, would finally end.

what a great read. thanks for posting.

p.s. I think this would be better in the old time lorries etc forum as it get’s a lot more visitor’s.

Wonderful stuff, keep it coming

All we had to do was sit it out until Monday…

How hard could that be?

The alarm origionally went off at about 11 in the evening of the Saturday that we got there. I’ll tell you now that it didn’t stop until Monday morning at 6 when the first keyholder arrived and opened the gates. It was a very loud alarm that went on for 20 minutes then reset itself and started again 2 minutes after that. It drove the two of us round the bend. It didn’t bother anyone else because there was no one else there. Hindsight is again a wonderful thing and what we should have done was park somewhere else but, being as green as I was, I didn’t want to show any movement on my 24 hour card. So we sat there for just over a day and half with an alarm wailing away for all it was worth about 50 yards from where we were parked. Looking back, I wouldn’t have parked there anyway, I’d have been on the beach somewhere or maybe a comfy hotel who knows? At the very least a supermarket, any where but where I was.

Sunday morning kicked off with a big argument between us. I blamed Dave’s bag of crap lorry and he blamed my non-existant fitter skills, he walked off and I hoped he’d never come back. Sadly for me, he did. I didn’t bother going anywhere far from the lorry, I figured that because it was Sunday nothing would be open. Walking around industrial estates was just as boring as sitting by the side of the N10 I decided. It was hot, very hot I had only bought a pair of jeans with me, a few T shirts and some socks and skiddies. The best I could do was sit in the shade and stare blankly into the distance thinking about my local pubs beer garden. We had mixed curry that evening a tin of chicken curry and a tin of beef curry washed down with warm Boky. There was a Heinz strawberry steamed pudding that we boiled for 15 minutes but the gas ran out so we ate it half cooked. I drank some more warm flat Boky and went to bed with a pillow over my head trying to drown out the alarm which was still blaring away.

At 6 on Monday morning there was a knock on the door. I pulled back the curtains and there was Steve in his DAF 3600 grinning like a Cheshire cat. It was good to see someone who could speak English other than Dave. Steve said he’d had a great weekend at a bar and restuarant just around the corner from where we were by about half a click. He also remarked that he could just hear a siren that had been wailing away all weekend too. I’m sure my nervous twitch was becoming more evident to people because Steve looked at me oddly after that. I showered and by 8 the office lot were pottering about and filling coffee makers. The trailer would be ready after lunch so I went and had a good look around it. It was another Bennet trailer in reasonable condition with good tyres. I had a look at the brakes and felt happy with the whole thing. I found a length of pipe that went from one side of the lorry to the other. Dave drew the short straw and got a mouthful of diesel but we drew most of the fuel over to the feed tank. Dave also looked around under the lorry and found a wire out. After lunch soon turned to late afternoon which then turned to six or seven tonight. Eventually, we left at 8 pm local time. Dave went in Steve’s motor and they took the lead and I followed behind. There’d be no dodgy map reading from now, I had a seasoned pro in front and I was going home. The seasoned pro did about an hour and then pulled into a small bar midway between Porto and the border, declaring he needed a coffee to keep going. I followed him into the bar and had coffee with milk he had black coffee with a shot of the local hooch in it. We stopped at four more cafes that night as we made our way into and across Spain. I noticed that in three of those bars, the policia locale were also having coffee with the local tipple added. Back then things were very very different. We carried on through the night, I didn’t feel tired despite being up all day probably because we were headed home. I just wanted a good nights sleep without someone else snoring under me, a burglar alarm going off all day and dragon-fly sized mosquitoes trying to pull me out of the cab. Despite being heavier the load was laid across the floor and I could give it the beans on the corners unlike the steel coming down where I had to adopt the driving miss Daisy style. I kept up with Steve on the flat and only lost ground on the mountain because of the power difference. We stopped for fuel on the racetrack and I asked Steve were we would get to, England he said.

I have never before nor since abused the drivers hours rules as much as I did on that trip back to England. If it got me home, it was gonna happen , I just hoped none of us would get stopped, luckily we didn’t. I could have moved the truck away from the alarm that drove us both mental after all. Dave picked up the van from the routiers, took his stuff out of the lorry and the three vehicle convoy headed north. I wasn’t map reading just following Dave in his van who in turn was following Steve in front. We did stop for about two hours somewhere in the middle of nowhere and had a nap but then set off again. Dave driving straight on into someones garden on a sharp left turn was the only thing that happened after that. I stopped, wound down my window and laughed really loudly at him as he hit reverse and shot back out onto the road again. We arrived at Caen in the late evening and got the morning boat home. Dave and I were best friends again, we laughed loudly at each others jokes and slapped each other on the back at the bar whilst Steve just rolled his eyes and kept downing single malts with an ease I’ve not seen since.

Later that day,I rolled down the linkspan in Pompey and almost wet myself with happiness. I found a slot dropped the trailer, passed immigration, customs in the unit without a hitch and drove back to the pub car park. Dave argued about money but in the end paid me what we agreed and not long after that sold the truck and moved away. I never knew what became of Steve.

I never drove for a one man band again after that. The 15+ years or so I did in Europe after this trip took place were with big companies in up to date, high spec trucks with good trailers etc.

It was the worst trip I ever did but, in some ways it taught me a lot about myself and that’s perhaps a good thing.

Very entertaining read,thanks for posting.

Brilliant, thanks for taking the time writing it all down and for sharing it with us.

Brilliant story, I enjoyed it very much, made me laugh .
You have a talent for writing, you could earn additional revenue from these types of stories, there is a market for it.
I used to run with an owner driver on Portugal round trips, he was always broken down.
Being a mechanic, he would fix the truck on the roadside, from repairing a clutch, engines, unit or trailer brake refit, the cab was a mobile workshop.
No mobile phone,sat nav, text,tracker, or cab phone when I was an owner driver.
Communications with freight forwarding agents and the UK, was find a cafe with a fax to wait a day or two for the reload back to the UK .
The alcohol the police and all types of drivers put in coffee, is called Pegaes, very strong.
If you had diarrhoea, take a triple expresso coffee with Pegaes, to clean out the pipes.
Or Brandy is put in coffee.
A Tango is a mix of beer and a sweet , rich, red fruit syrup called Groshela.
Thanks for posting your story.
Not one hi viz in sight back then, sadly in the UK , it must be law to drive with a hiviz, like a robot, conforming to all the health and safety bull shine, yes sir, yes sir to their boss, as all drivers now look ridiculous with a hiviz driving, thick Muppets.

Excellent post. Good reading, and although I`ve not had a trip quite that bad it does ring more than one or two bells.