latest diary

[mad_monk]

do you remember a few weeks ago a guildford heat basketball player was hurt in a crash , was in the news , well this was the vehicle

now it might just be me but small people dont play basketball , how did that player fit into a micra

day 1
its wet , its windy , its just plain horrible . my first job of the day is to have a safety inspection , that done its back to the yard to get the truck downloaded , finally i can get going , on the way i hear that dover has been closed , this is gonna be a long day . true enough as i get down to the train and join the queue virtually on the m20 , its a long slip road down to the barriers, im in for the long haul

an age later im through the barriers to find the snack wagon shut , its one of them days , got me tax and i go through for the lanes ready to join the next queue

in the words of that british airways advert " where is everybody "
straight on a train , off at calais and see a rainbow if only i can find the end of it and claim the booty wishfull thinking

heading through belgium i get a few texts from a mate ive not seen for ages turns out he is only half hour in front of me , we meet up just past brussels and run down to liege for the night

a few beers with dinner and watching destination doha on dvd we catch up on old times .
day 2
a quick sprint across to the german border and an even quicker stop for tax we head onward

couple of hours later and its past frankfurt airport again


after stopping for lunch its back on the 3 south east , i say goodbye to my mate at nurnberg as he is tipping munich and im staying on the 3 . i park up for the night at passau ,
day 3
first job after a cuppa is to go to the petrol station and get a go box , this costs the grand sum of 5 euros

now youve got a couple of options . you can go pay as you go , a bit like a phone you put credit on it or you can have it billed direct to the company .
once sorted its back to the truck to fit it


i set off down for the austrian border


Once in Austria its the A8 to Wels then onto the A25 for Linz then the A1 for Vienna

then i take the A21 for the south of Vienna

I find a services on the A21 and park up for a break and phone my contact to arrange a meeting, its all very hush hush and cloak and dagger as im told to meet a white Merc car at a certain set of traffic lights in Vienna and to follow it.
We arrive at the recovery agents

Ive got to load a stolen recovered BMW X5 , the story goes this car belonged to a famous footballer before it was nicked, it was found along with seven other high valued cars during a raid by interpol somewhere in Serbia and transported to Austria where it goes on me bound for the U.K

Now i head back to where i came from, back on the A1 i pass this building, anyone got any ideas of what it is

going back to the go box everytime you go under a gantry it reads the box and it beeps

further along the A1 i see this sign, i guess it means narrow hard shoulder in heavy traffic keep over

i get back into Germany and park up near Passau again to a nice sunset.


day 4
i stay on the a3 as far as nurnberg then split onto the a6

i hit a lot of heavy traffic getting close to my 4 and a half hours so i dive in a little lay by for a break , coming back out again i see this warning

i stay on the 6 with a little bit on the 61 before getting back on the 6 for saarbrucken and france , then its the a4 for paris

i stay tonight at aire verdun
day 5
its the 4 all the way to paris this morning passing some attempts to brighten up the motorway


once i get to paris its onto my favourite road the peripherique

i come off at porte villette for pantin



i arrive at the recovery firm to load a roller


i work my way out eventually getting onto the a16 on route to a village called flixecourt in department 80 where im going to load a bmw it is at this garage where i have run ino a big problem. looking throught the car doing my paperwork i look in the book and find a large hunting knife, 1 box of live shot gun cartridges and 3 boxes of live rifle bullets. my question is what would you do? after lots of phone calls and different people telling me to do different things i asked the garage to call the police where they confiscated everything so i could load the car.


wanting to make up time i made my way back onto the a16 and head for calais where i stop at transmark for some tax, back on the road i get as far as ostende for the night.

day 6

i set off after a 9 and im soon passing gent and antwerp and i get stuck behind a bulgarian doing 60km all the way to holand im glad when i see this sign

i start passing him and all of a sudden he can do 90km also i turn off onto the a27 for gorinchem i find the recovery firm and load a citreon berlingo


back on the 27 I head back to the border and park up at hazeldonk for the weekend





i met up with another old mate when he stopped for fuel and coffee

day 8

i crack on early straight down to callais and was on a boat by half 8. of at dover and the end of another trip.

[euromat]

nice read mad monk, cheers

i got fined from my austria go box later on last year, when going through back into germany it beeped 4 or 5 times, no room at the small border to stop so i though i would sort it when i stopped en route to vienna, parked at german autohof, had a sleep, went in had it tested to be told its ok got it checked 4 times to be told its fine, into vienna and out again, the next tour back into austria from italy, stopped for diesel, grabbed a sandwich, came out to a waiting van, who told me as i dod not report the box going wrong within 6 hours (i think) or a couple hundred km’s, i was liable to a fine, i explained what happened, luckily kindle was with me then and when it went wrong, tough basically, pay the fine, here is a phone number to call and contest it! bloke i know got one too for the truck from the previous driver!! lucky you can pay on your fuel card!!

[brit_pete]

a nice read ,as for that building could it be;;
the spanish rideing schhool from austria??

[tachograph]

Another good read MM, always enjoy your diary’s

[dafmad]

Good diary MM, great photos too.

I especially like this one below, it made me laugh anyway.

Was that the name of the co you picked it up from ?

[hairygorilla]

great diary and pics with ref to the basketball player fitting in the micra
were the front seats still in he probably took them out and sat in the back hope it had a sunroof or is a micra like a tardis my mrs has a hand -bag nicknamed tardis everything apart from the kitchen sink is in there

[ossie]

Not been to your Paris collection at Automobile Club Secours for a while. Have they still got that silly automatic gate. I could never get inside after holding up traffic without it trying to squash my truck!

[mad_monk]

you cant win euromat , a mate of mine a long time ago stopped to get eurotax and found the machine broken . between there and the next machine he got heavily fined for no tax . took the copper to the broken machine , not his problem you must pay .
hi dafmad i hadnt even noticed that pic that wasnt the name of the recovery firm , i cant remember what it was now .
i collected that micra after they wrote it off but i got to thinking about size and that , it made me laugh imagining it . as far as i know they got out ok .
hi ossie , that stupid automatic gate saw me coming and shut . i pressed everything for 5 mins , traffic is building up and lets face it drivers in paris arent the happiest of bunnies at the best of times . le gendarme arrives at the scene and gives the gate a stern talking to , then gives me the same treatment for causing chaos , its only a problem i say because the cars havent mastered the art of giving way and thats what is doing it . finally one of auto secours trucks comes in and the gendarme keeps the gate open for me

[gb1]

euromat:
nice read mad monk, cheers

i got fined from my austria go box later on last year, when going through back into germany it beeped 4 or 5 times, no room at the small border to stop so i though i would sort it when i stopped en route to vienna, parked at german autohof, had a sleep, went in had it tested to be told its ok got it checked 4 times to be told its fine, into vienna and out again, the next tour back into austria from italy, stopped for diesel, grabbed a sandwich, came out to a waiting van, who told me as i dod not report the box going wrong within 6 hours (i think) or a couple hundred km’s, i was liable to a fine, i explained what happened, luckily kindle was with me then and when it went wrong, tough basically, pay the fine, here is a phone number to call and contest it! bloke i know got one too for the truck from the previous driver!! lucky you can pay on your fuel card!!

On a similar theme, be careful with the Czech version. If you have the pay-as-you-go , its possible to ‘upgrade’ it to an ‘on account’ type. This involves taking the box to a service agent - usually on a border or service station - where the box is electronically upgraded. What you need to be aware of is that the process resets the box to the lowest rating, so its necessary to reset the box to the relevent configuration for your vehicle.

[chewy]

I am famous at last I have made it in to one of The Monk’s diary’s.

[big_jules]

Chewy:

I am famous at last I have made it in to one of The Monk’s diary’s.

Shame he hasnt made it on one of yours