Here it is:
It's an Iveco Daily something-or-the-other which came from Iveco-Benussi in Lučko here, it's 12 cubic meters, which is slightly bigger than I wanted but beggars can't be choosers and all that. Still, we managed to pretty much fill it. It cost about 450 quid to hire for 8 days and went back Friday morning with a list of faults:
l/h headlamp pointing at the moon
r/h headlamp pointing at the ground 2 meters in front of the van
rear r/h tyre slow puncture
steering pulls to the left
clunking from steering gear
creaking from front suspension
driver's seat designed by the Spanish Inquisition
Honestly, the driver's seat was so uncomfortable that after an hour my back and arse were on fire. My mate Max, who came with to share the driving, faired better as the twisted driving position just gave him cramp in his leg, so he ended up doing most of the driving. If I could have stood up and drove I would.
Max at the wheel:
I bought a Garmin sat nav before the trip as I figured it would take all the guess work out of it, plus t'wife had been nagging me for years to get one after we borrowed my bro's Tom Tom. I'd have preferred to get a Tom Tom as I knew it worked but they don't sell them here and it would've made things interesting if I had to send it back or anything.
With only 8 days we had quite a tight schedule, we picked it up the Thursday and loaded it with some stuff for my mate I came to Croatia with and set off early Friday. Friday night we spent in a motel in Germany after spending 3 hours stuck in a traffic jam outside Munich. Saturday we were straight onto the ferry at Dunkirk, over to Dover, and then I set the sat nav for my mate's house in Chiswick. Now I must confess that South and West London are a bit of a mystery to me, so I fugured that when the sat nav sent me up the M20, across the M25 and straight into SOuth London, it must know what it was doing. Umm, this is SE London, we're going to W4? Dear god, straight across London we went, with the sat nav bleeping every 5 inches to tell us about yet another bloody camera. I guess the sat nav decided that that was the quickest route but, really
Maybe on a motorcycle...I got to my bro's at about 10pm on the Saturday and we spent the Sunday and Monday loading it:
Me bro:
Me dad:
(Almost) fully loaded:
We left early on the Tuesday, back on the ferry -
A fellow passenger:
stayed the night in the same motel in Germany and things were going steadily until we got to the Alps, whereupon the sat nav threw another wobbly and decided to send us not thought the Alps but over them
What didn't help was were were running low on fuel and all the gas stations in these tiny little villages we were passing through only took cash, which I'd run out of. Eventually we managed to fill up at a service station here using the card, find a motorway and pretty much ignored the sat nav for the rest of the journey.Home!!
I've been trying to figure out what the fuel consumption was on the van but I think I must have lost a couple of receipts as no way was it 9l/100km, we figured on the way up empty it was about 10 and more like 15 on the way back full, especially up and down the Alps.
Before we left we were looking at this - http://www.fuel-prices-europe.info/index.php?sort=3 which didn't really help as European vultur.. sorry, gas stations seem to up the prices on motorways by 20 cents or so, which makes it pretty meaningless. We did take a small detour to Luxembourg both ways though. Filling it up where it was cheap, adding 20 litres or so where it was expensive just to get to the next country.
Well, it was an experience but I hope I never have to do it again!
Guess that van's about halfway between that and a car.
one has long hair and the other has his hands permanently glued in his pockets