Diary notes from John Desty

Tuesday 27^th
After clearing the warehouse, the driving crews left at 1300 and drove to the Croatian border where the Customs officer asked in perfect English "Do you have anything for us?" !! He clearly expected us to lubricate his sticky palms - needless to say, he was disappointed. We drove on to Nuem on the Adriatic coast where we stayed at the Hotel Orca as all crews were absolutely exhausted. The 7 ½ ton crews of Chas & Bev and Sue & John had a very refreshing pre dinner swim. Much hilarity over dinner when the very attentive waiter made it perfectly obvious he would like to get to know Dennis better !!

Wednesday 27^th
Breakfast outside overlooking the bay - perfect! Just about to leave when the receptionist rushed out to say that she had wrongly converted the local "dibdobs" into Euros and hugely overcharged us ! Another lovely day and the Adriatic looks so blue and tempting - but we must get home.
Sea Dog's front offside air dam suddenly broke loose on a long straight section of motorway necessitating a stop on the hard shoulder to remove it. Just got a last glimpse of the Adriatic before heading inland towards Zagreb. Made good progress and stayed overnight at Gralla.

Thursday 28^th
On the road at 0800. Lost count of the number of tunnels we have gone through - must be well over 100 with some over 10k long.
Hit very heavy rain and strong winds through North Austria and Southern Germany. Temperature dropping and legs that have been exposed to the sun since we entered Germany last week are slowly being covered up. Sea Dog & Robin Hood stopped overnight at Bad Camberg and said farewell to the big rigs who carried on to try to get an earlier ferry tomorrow.. The talk over dinner was slightly more serious than on previous evenings and we are already missing the jokes and banter from the "Bandana Men" (Dennis & Roddy).

Friday 30^th
A noisy night by the side of the motorway and away by 0800. A good run to Calais to get the 1655 ferry. John, Sue, Chas & Bev said their goodbye's before continuing up the M20 where Robin Hood & Sea Dog went their separate ways.
Thanks to all on the convoy, both Drivers and Flyers for all their hard work and enthusiasm in sometimes difficult conditions, which made this convoy one of the best yet.
Special thanks to Chas for his usual organisational skills - we must get him some help or there might be no more convoys!

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