im gonna fast forward to the afternoon of day 2, a thursday on this trip .
day 2
coming round the a10 with the junction of the 9 i hit a huge queue which after crawling along for ages makes me decide to call it a day at michendorf services for the night .
day 3
i head off towards the a13
instead of frankfurt oder im aiming for the cottbus border this time
its quite a big crossing this one so its into the parking and a customs building for the winiety , at this border you buy it at the customs counter but only in polish so the first job is to change up some euros , i need 75 zlotys which will buy me a 7 day winiety . there are some kantors in the same building as well as a supermarket and a bar , a quick tip for you is you need a one zloty coin to get into the toilets here . once done its a 5 min drive to a shell for fuel
here a made a bad mistake , boiling the kettle and making a brew for the drive to come . i had forgotten the concrete section road for the next 30 or 40 km , each section of road being a different height to the ones around it
one sip for me , the rest for the carpet
i get to the centre of a town called legnica looking for a secure parking place where the car is .
i find it after some directions from the locals ,
im here to load a bentley continental which is owned by a lord and lady something or other , they were over here when some decided to try and nick it
the story goes that the only way they could get into it was to cut a hole in the door
that done it gets confusing as to whether they nicked it or not but they started taking the interior apart looking for the tracker , the tracker found them first in the shape of the police .
that done and dusted i cut across country heading for the a2 at poznan, part of that stretch involved sneaking across this errrr weight limited narrow bridge
parking in a rest area on the 2 for the night . i had an emergency treatment at a dentist the day before i left on this trip and now ive got a stinking cold and feeling very sorry for myself , the bentley is causing a lot of attention and i just wanna be left alone . a couple of transporters from kazakhstan pull in and the drivers are looking lovingly at the car so i relent and drop the deck and let them have a look . we got errrr chatting as much as you can when none of you can speak the others language . to thank me they invite me to dinner , camion style and seeing me looking and sounding rough they have just the thing , in a 5 litre plastic bottle . now i went through a stage of trying wierd stuff where ever i went and TBH usually regretted it home made plum stuff in romania to alcholic milk in spain . there is one in hungary in a green bottle which tastes like cough mixture and is foul .
this stuff is blow your socks off kit and i have no idea what it is but it errr took the pain away thats for sure a couple of russian drivers join the party and one speaks english , after talking about warsaw they give me a new way to that avoids the place , just ignore the 3.7m bridge , WTF , what do you mean ignore it i say , yeah yeah we all go under it they say . hmmm
day 4
i get up feeling remarkably good after the night before . now this is the route i was told. go to very end of the 2 and ignore the sign for trucks to come off before for the N2. ok that done take the 14 north ignoring the dreaded sign . im not sure about this but im following a belarus truck so if he goes for it i will be behind him .
so what does he do , pull into a services , in the words from that film … that sneaky (zb) russian . ok i will wait and see what happens when i get there .
i slow down and promply get overtaken by a russian going for gold so what the hell
sure enough everyone goes under it .
the rest of the way involves the 14 , 2 , 50 and 62 which brigs me out onto the 8 at wyszkow north of warsaw , not a bad route in all fairness, a bit bumpy in places and dodging the locals
i call it a weekend at the shell services before bialystok
day 6
i set off to bialystok then continue on the 8 north towards LT
i go through a load of roadworks , any ideas what this truck is
i get to a town called suwalki , about 20 or so km from the lithuanian border and find the police headquarters
a couple hours doing papers and i get my hands on the stolen x5
now its back the way i came getting to a place called serock on the 62 for the night .
day 7
i head for THE bridge again and the motorway . i came up to a roundabout with a zebra crossing and couldnt believe my eyes when 2 stray dogs came walking up the path waited then crossed on the zebra crossing . this is taking the green cross code a bit far when you start teaching animals
back on the a2 i head west
and off at the end for the last stretch to germany
here is a sign you will see o lot in poland
and this sign means accident black spot
into germany at frankfurt oder i get to the shell and call it a day
day 8
im doing well untill somewhere on the 9 it all comes to a grinding halt
in front of me
and behind me
we all crawl along past the fliegl trailer place
now can anyone tell me what a kippertest is cause im coming up with all sorts of crazy images in my mind
and this truck well what can i say !!! if thats what he is carrying then he is right to have the board down cause that IS hazardous
after getting past the problem ( a lorry fire ) i get somewhere on the 6for tonight
day 9
i get me skates on and get into france at mullhouse and nip down to basel airport
i find the recovery firm in hesingue and get a cab into the airport to the police station , sort the papers and then a cab back and load a stolen audi a8 no keys and locked , nice
im off again and punch it on to a parking area on the a6 200 km south of paris
day 10
i leave at 4 and make slow progress onto my favourite road the pariferique
onto the a 13 for 50 km and see my 1ST accident ( rog and euromat)
i get to mantes la ville and do the same police caper again this time returning to load a merc
back to paris and the a14 and 86 this time for the a1 i pass the stade de france
getting to lille i join the 25 for a few km to a place called bois grenier where i locate the garage in a ZI and load a damaged car for a change
i bin it at the total on the 25 for the night
day 11
its 4am again and i shoot down to calais stopping at pidous for some more medecine and then the automatic shell in the zi
then the boat back and job done
my question for this diary is what does this sign mean in germany
and last but not least something to test you all on , its a what truck this time
1
2
3
4
The orange arrow signs are for diverted traffic on the listed roads headed for, in this case, Munich. So, if you were on that road before, and get shunted off, just follow the arrows. They’re in place permanently, all they have to do is start the diversion, and let you get on with it.
I was wondering the other day where you’d disappeared to, and then I find two more diaries. Good as ever although not be a Euro driver the guess the truck is out of my league.
Let’s have another round of wrecked cars from the yard.
how do you get on, with regards too security of the cars you recover? you pick up some tasty motors, do you get much hassle, when your parked overnight, with people trying too get into them, on the back of your truck?
Another excellent and interesting diary mad monk, and I’m sorry I can’t name those ‘Eastern’ made trucks, but I saw all of them, or very similar, on my own European travels in the 80’s so they’re quite old.
However, I can help you with this:
mad monk:
now can anyone tell me what a kippertest is cause im coming up with all sorts of crazy images in my mind
“Kipper” is the German word for a tipper, and the word “test” in German has exactly the same meaning as in English.
IMHO, what threw you was that they wrote the advert on the side of a curtainsider. Wasn’t it pesky of those Germans trying to trick you like that.
mad monk:
my question for this diary is what does this sign mean in germany
The orange part is sign #467 of the German Road Traffic Act and has the meaning that the route shown is ‘recommended.’
So in this case, I reckon you’re on the A9 heading South and there’s some problem, possibly a major roadworks, on the A9 so there’s a recommended route via the A70, A73 and A3 to put you back on the A9 for Munich.
A little detective work tells me that you were probably South of the A4 / A9 interchange (Hermsdorfer Kreuz,) but somewhere North of Bayreuth.
How did I do? and was it enough to avoid a detention for not knowing the ‘Eastern’ trucks?
allikat:
The orange arrow signs are for diverted traffic on the listed roads headed for, in this case, Munich. So, if you were on that road before, and get shunted off, just follow the arrows. They’re in place permanently, all they have to do is start the diversion, and let you get on with it.
Hi allikat, I’m not sure quite how to say this says he keeping his head down, but I’m afraid that what you wrote isn’t quite right…
The orange signs might be temporary whilst some problem exists and I’ve tried to cover that in my answer to mad monk. What you wrote would have been spot-on, if you’d related it to the blue rectangular signs that you see at German motorway exits with a “U” on them.
The blue “U” sign is #460 in the German Road Traffic Act, and works in exactly the way you described including that they’re (usually) permanently in place.
The pointy orange sign has no compulsion to it, because it’s a*“Streckenempfehlung”* = recommended route, whereas the smaller blue sign with a “U” on it is a “Bedarfsumleitung,”.
Bedarf = required (or compulsory) and Umleitung = diversion.
Sorry to appear to be picky, but there is a fairly significant difference in meaning between those two signs.
hi euromat , i errrr dont know why i put part 2 probably cause its the second poland diary in a row but you havent missed any , is there no end to your talents harry , that model you errr made for me is stunning
dieseldave i reckon that in view of your explanations on the sign and trailer i will turn a blind eye this once to the truck section . TBH i dont know where i took that picture so errr how do you know
chilistrucker you would not believe the grief or attention i get on this job , from customs , police , the public . this bentley on this trip , everyone wants to look at it , i can be driving along getting overtaken by a car with someone hanging out the window taking a pic with a mobile phone . i get stopped all the time by police or others to just look at a certain car ive got on and wherever im parked people are constantly walking round the truck looking and wanting to know what happened , funny enough everyone becomes accident investigaters and start telling me what happened the worse the car the more attention
something like this from my last trip caused a lot of attention .
this one i loaded in spain had them almost foaming at the mouth , humans are a morbid lot . i carry a squeezy bottle of tomato sauce now so when ive had enough at a weekend and ive got one on thats causing attention i squirt a load of ketchup over it , that generally keeps people away
as for immigrants i do get them on but it takes 5 mins to check the cars and kick em out again , ive never had anyone try nicking bits off or out of them errr yet .
8 wheels i will see what i can do for a what car next time mate
allikat:
The orange arrow signs are for diverted traffic on the listed roads headed for, in this case, Munich. So, if you were on that road before, and get shunted off, just follow the arrows. They’re in place permanently, all they have to do is start the diversion, and let you get on with it.
Hi allikat, I’m not sure quite how to say this says he keeping his head down, but I’m afraid that what you wrote isn’t quite right…
The orange signs might be temporary whilst some problem exists and I’ve tried to cover that in my answer to mad monk. What you wrote would have been spot-on, if you’d related it to the blue rectangular signs that you see at German motorway exits with a “U” on them.
The blue “U” sign is #460 in the German Road Traffic Act, and works in exactly the way you described including that they’re (usually) permanently in place.
The pointy orange sign has no compulsion to it, because it’s a*“Streckenempfehlung”* = recommended route, whereas the smaller blue sign with a “U” on it is a “Bedarfsumleitung,”.
Bedarf = required (or compulsory) and Umleitung = diversion.
Sorry to appear to be picky, but there is a fairly significant difference in meaning between those two signs.
Ta for that, I knew I was reasonably close with my guesstimate, Thanks for correcting me. My fault for posting it whilst my head is busy exploding with the flu…
didnt make a lot of difference mate , they just wanted to know what was under it , it can be agro but then again you meet and chat with a lot of different people
I imagine the emerging eastern bloc is going to be a regular destination for you, collecting all these nicked cars. Im amazed at the amount of trailers I see loaded with quite fancy cars behind a load of pallets or loading in fridges. Im also concerned at the amount of motorcycles I see heading east.
Some of them must be bought to be sold on, but there seems to be a lot of it going on, the customs and police seem to turn a blind eye since there are no border checks
home made plum stuff in romania to alcholic milk in spain . there is one in hungary in a green bottle which tastes like cough mixture and is foul .
