2017....Where did we all go?

With Euro work apparently picking up a bit, how far did anyone get this year? Anywhere interesting and off the beaten track? Down into North Africa, across to Russia or further east? Usually the Rock and roll chaps seem to win this! :laughing:
Happy New Year all, have a good one. :wink:

Usual places, top end of Sweden, Madrid, couple of trips right to the bottom of Italy, lots and lots of France. Lot of transiting Denmark. Normally Germany is just Munich area, but a new drop off point found us right by the Polish border.

More of the same this year, there’s supposed to be a delivery to Sicily at some point, which we’ve never done before.

albion:
…there’s supposed to be a delivery to Sicily at some point, which we’ve never done before.

Nice, never got down that far. Need a driver?? :laughing: :wink:

I think there’s a queue already! :wink:

Sunny isle of wight :blush: :laughing: :laughing:

Austria,Penzance,John o groats .

Jerez would be the furthest i got in a truck.

Work took me around the world again, but they only let me drive a fork truck abroad.

I think the furthest I got was Carouge, in the SE corner of Geneva.

I’m mainly a UK driver now, doing holiday/sick and extra load cover on the European side of things.
It’s kinda nice having the same weekends as most of my friends around here, on the other hand UK work means a trip down to just inside the M25 most weeks :frowning:

Slight change of job this year meant more driving less racing, went to Poland (Wroclaw) for the first time, nice to tick off another country though. Although the trip to Poland meant I wasn’t able to take another job to Malta to support a classic car event.

Several trips to a circuit near Seville as well as other trips to Spain and one to Portimao, where I had to go straight from there to Germany to get the trailer I was pulling tested on a Saturday morning.

Several trips to Italy, including one double man from Spa on Sunday, so they could start setting up at Monza on Monday, 4 days work, all expenses paid including meals and hotels, for a grand total of 6 hours driving, day 1 Eurostar to Brussels, day 2 and 3 get to Spa double man to Monza, day 4 fly home.

A week driving round the Bordeaux area, so Maclaren owners could show off their cars touring a load of vineyards, we tried to keep in the background as a support crew magically picking up cars as required, but they asked us to join them for a meal on the last day, which was the type of meal you’d expect from people who can afford Maclaren’s, sadly I couldn’t try the wine, but have a strange feeling that wouldn’t be what you get in your average supermarket.

And several other trips to France, Belgium and Germany for various car related events and many other trips I had to turn down because they clashed with the jobs I’d already committed to. So not a bad year really, considering it started with me losing my job, because the company I was working for didn’t get a new contract for the parts truck.

Just did this on the other N E S W thread

N Salen Sweden
E Wroclaw Poland
S Athens
W Penzance

Had no other further Norths, other than Hamburg, no Denmarks this yr. May do an Oslo & Stockholm in early Jan 18.

East had a few others lots of Germanys, Berlin 3 times, Stuttgart twice Munich twice, Prague once, Vienna once. Holland a few times mainly recently as well as a couple of Essen, Cologne, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Brussels Zuirch.

Souths a couple of St Tropez & Monaco, slim Italy’s this year only 3 & 1 of them related to the Athens via Ancona runs, others were Bologna & Como, in France Toulouse & Nr Carcassonne was a new one & oddly not a single Paris this yr & just one Dordogne.

West well no Spain or Portugal or Ireland so Cornwall in blighty was my furthest or Fishguard is similar.

A trio of Scotland runs were a nice one, one to Ft William, one to Inverness, one just Glasgow, no far North ones this yr unfortunately, Thurso Dunnet & Wick last yr.

Mulga district Turkey Heinz baked beans to cash and carry.
Reload Bourgas Bulgaria truck engines to Vienna Austria.
Reload Salzburg to Lisbon Portugal textiles.
Empty to Madrid for paper to Oslo Norway.

toby1234abc:
Empty to Madrid for paper to Oslo Norway.

Well this is just silly.

milodon:

toby1234abc:
Empty to Madrid for paper to Oslo Norway.

Well this is just silly.

But quite believable, in the past I’ve loaded Christmas trees in the Belgian Ardennes for Sweden, bizarre!

Not at all actually, most of the christmas trees sold around here aren’t locally grown either, despite half of our country being covered in forest. Most landowners prefer to wait until the forest has matured, so importing small fir from thousands of kms away is reasonable.

The paper from Madrid to Norway was the icing on the cake though, I’ve done tens and tens of loads of paper from Sweden to Spain and Portugal and on every trip saw many finns with the same destination. I’ve even seen paper from China of all places end up at a printers warehouse in Bcn, why on earth would anyone take paper the other way? If the wrong type of paper was shipped by accident, it would be cheaper to have it destroyed, if sending it elsewhere nearby is not an option.

Same goes for unloading in Turkey and running empty to Bourgas. I’ve twice driven the 2000kms empty from Tbilisi to the west coast of Turkey, once from Thessaloniki, because that’s where the good paying cargo to western Europe is to be found. The turks actually try and keep that market for the local hauliers - an estonian truck entering Turkey empty with a road permit cannot legally load there, only transit. Had a stressful day at Kapikule over that once, after having done just that.

Back to the topic, north was Finnsnes in Norway and south was a never again roadtrip to Krakow with the family.

Curious,what was the load to Finnsnes,i used to clear customs there.

Nothing truck related, was there on a roofing job at the Vegvesen station. Was a regular visitor in Troms with a lorry as well a few years back, impregnert trävirke from sawmills around Skellefteå and Malå to Byggern, Coop Bygg etc stores.

Got offered a trip to Italy a few days back for €150 a day but unfortunately the wife made me turn it down :cry:

Ok,i’ve got a mate from ängersån who does a lot of Buildings in North Norge.He also has a couple of lads from Estonia working for him

A daily (sometimes 5 units per day) run for my company is wood pulp from Monsteras on the East coast of Sweden down into various paper mills in Austria. At least twice a month we will then reload at the paper mill and take preformed flat-packed cardboard back to Helsingborg, roughly 250km from Monsteras. Always baffled me as to the economics of it all.

Not long before I retired, I tipped and reloaded in Wigan on a Monday morning. I tipped that in Germany, reloaded Eindhoven for Liverpool, reloaded again for Germany, reloaded Eindhoven again and tipped that in Liverpool. Every load was the same product!! Absolutely crazy!! I could have saved a lot of miles just going straight from Wigan to Liverpool

As I only started at my current firm the end of July I missed the earlier F1 events so only did the GP’s in Hungary, Belgium and Italy. Did a music festival in Bilbao which was good for me as I got to watch The Prodigy among others for free.

I don’t know yet if we are going to all the European F1 or missing some to be at other festivals/events, all depends on the customers instructions :sunglasses: