Wednesday, 5th July.
We managed to sleep in the bed last night by slowly winding it down manually with a small Allen key and wearing an oven glove. But in the morning, trying to get it back up, even with me standing underneath pushing, it took quite a while. We wandered into Freiburg Im Breisgau for a look around and just as we got to the interesting bit the rain came down. We sheltered in a café for a while, before walking back to the campsite.
Goodness knows why, but Rodney had confidence in the day’s drive ahead. I didn’t. At 10:15am we left the campsite in Freiburg and set off to tackle the drive to Benfeld and on to Obernai. As soon as we drove out of the campsite gates, the alarm started and continued its beep every few minutes. At 10:53am the gears got stuck in second. We had nowhere to pull over but managed to find somewhere after what seemed like a long three minutes. At 11:00am the alarms went off again, endlessly, and this time we were stuck in third gear. After another three minutes we found a side road to pull over. Turn the engine off, turn the engine on, as instructed, but the alarm just came straight back on. At 11:05am we got stuck in fourth gear. At 11:10am we got going again. At 11:17am the gears got stuck again in second. At 11:19am we got stuck in fourth gear. When we tried to join the motorway at 11:30am, we got stuck in third gear and the alarm just wouldn’t go off. Stop, reset, alarm still on. It was so dangerous on the slip roads for us and to others; I really was scared. We made the decision not to visit the Burstner dealer in Benfeld, where we had hoped to sort out the bed problem, plus a few other problems. Instead, we headed straight to our friend Maxime in Obernai. With 103 difficult kilometres travelled, with almost continuous alarms and stuck gears, having no fun at all, we did make it to Maxime’s. At which point Rodney declared he would not drive any further in our malfunctioning motorhome…….. this was the end.
We stopped beside Maxime’s house set behind his hotel, rang the doorbell, apologised for being early, and I burst into tears. Maxime’s beautiful Le Parc Hotel was closed for renovations, but he led us over there, settled us in a room and told us to relax. Sadly, we didn’t; there was too much to do. We spent all afternoon using the hotel’s wi-fi to WhatsApp phone Ian in England to contact the RAC and try to get a sense of what to do next. A tow truck arrived at 2:15pm but the driver hadn’t been told where he was taking us. Yet again, the RAC hadn’t found a garage for the tow truck to go to. I quickly grabbed what we would need for an overnight in the hotel, while the driver and Rodney made more calls. At 2:30pm Ian told us the RAC wanted Rodney to go with the tow truck and van and they would send him back to the hotel in a taxi. Rodney agreed and off they went. At 3:30pm the RAC told Ian in England that a taxi would be arriving to collect Rodney from the garage in 6 minutes. An hour later Rodney rang me from the tow truck office. He was still waiting at the tow truck depot, not at a garage. I chased the RAC again and they wanted to know where Rodney was. I had no idea!!! I told them he was at the tow truck depot that they had sent him to, but they didn’t know where it was. I told them to check the records and find out where they had sent my husband. But they didn’t seem to know. Could I ring him? No !!! He did finally arrive back at the hotel around 5:00pm.
We asked the RAC if they would now be repatriating the van back to the UK and were told that they were looking for yet another garage to fix it. We told them that if nowhere in Italy could fix a Fiat, why did they think somewhere in France would be able to find that necessary part? They didn’t have an answer. We asked them for a rental car so that we could get back to the tow truck depot the next day to collect some clothes and belongings, as we had only grabbed an overnight basket. We also needed to get a Sim card to enable us to use our phone in France. It was impossible to relax that afternoon.
At 6:00 pm, sitting on Maxime and Lexi’s deck, we drank really nice English champagne. We ate too many tasty nibbles and then went out for a lovely dinner at a restaurant in a village nearby with Maxime and Lexi. We had a beautiful bed for the night. But neither of us slept well, our thoughts were still spinning with what would happen to us tomorrow.
Thursday 6th July.
Of course, there was no news regarding a rental car from the RAC. So after breakfast at Max and Lexi’s, they very kindly lent us their VW Golf to enable us to drive to the tow truck company. We spent an hour sorting and packing what we thought we needed to return to Australia and to get us through the next four weeks in England. We then drove to a large supermarket, bought a French SIM card, not an easy process because we’re not residents of France, and another two huge suitcases, because they’re not something one travels with in a motorhome when everything is in cupboards and there is certainly nowhere to store bags. At 2:15pm, Rodney phoned the RAC and was put on hold until 3:00 pm, then back on hold until 3:15pm. They couldn’t find a rental car. At 3:50pm they informed us they had found a rental car at Hertz in Strasburg Airport and would order a taxi to get us there. It arrived at 4:30pm, but they gave the driver the wrong address. While we were standing on the pavement waiting, the taxi driver rang RAC, who rang Ian in England, who rang us and gave us the taxi’s phone number. Just as I rang him, he came round the corner and found us.
He sped down the motorway to Strasbourg Airport and at 5:00pm we were informed by Hertz that there was no booking for a car. Rodney phoned the RAC and the woman on the other end laughed at him. Rodney lost it, at last. Let’s just say she got a bit of an earful from him. Ian then texted us to say that we needed to go to a different desk at Strasburg Airport. Sixt had the booking. I told the lady at the Hertz desk to hold on to the car that they did have available, just in case Sixt didn’t have one, but it turned out they had the booking and were very helpful. The chappie pointed us in the direction of the car, downstairs in the dark underground car park and….. we couldn’t start the car! There are no manuals in rental cars anymore and I couldn’t get an internet signal to look for an online manual. After much fiddling about, we finally left there and drove in the rush hour back to Obernai. We’re now in a Citroen manual car, sitting on the wrong side, with six gears. It was a tricky journey.
You come across people in life who can leave you in awe of them. Maxime is one of them. His vision, his creativity, his focus, his drive. He researches his ideas to minute detail and strives for the best. He has a purpose to his life and will leave something beautiful in Obernai for others to enjoy. All of this beside a good work / family / life balance. I can’t believe he entered our lives and continues to welcome and look after us so well with ample kindness and always with a big smile on his face.
That evening, he took us out to dinner again, and we filled up on tart flambé.
Friday 7th July
It was breakfast with the Wucher family again before a morning spent in our room catching up on emails, phone calls, bookings and stuff. Needing to get out of the room we plodded into Obernai and I cheered myself up with a much-needed pedicure followed by a sushi lunch together and a plod back to burn it off. After yet more phone calls, it was time to get our swimmers on and head out to the main outdoor pool. We settled ourselves in one of the cabanas, picked up our books to read, ignored the gardeners still working around the area and promptly fell fast asleep. Apparently, Maxime came out to check on us but we were both snoring, so he left us to enjoy some real relaxation. His twin boys had finished their last day of school term, so we told him to spend the evening with his family and not to worry about us. We ate up the last of the cheese and olives that we had rescued from the van and, after more phone calls, we watched James Bond – Live And Let Die …… in German …… sitting in a hotel in France. That was a bit of a different experience!!!
Saturday 8th July
After another breakfast with Maxime and family, we had a tour of the extensive changes Maxime was making to his hotel and he showed us all the plans for future incredible updates to the bedrooms and spa. Both of us were stunned and amazed at his vision and I dearly wish I could have created something as wonderful in my lifetime. We are going to have to visit again one day in the future when it is completed.
We strolled into Obernai in search of luggage labels and locks for our new giant suitcases; got the locks, but paper labels will have to do. We shared a sandwich and cake then had a row over what we could do after landing in Heathrow. The plan for our first night was going awry and having a row about it wasn’t helping. The stress of this ridiculous situation really is wearing us both down.
Back at Le Parc we started packing and spent the afternoon making endless phone calls trying to make plans and book another car for our first few days in England without a motorhome. We did manage to sit in the sun beside one of the pools for an hour, which felt like a holiday at last, even if it was only for an hour. At the end of the day, it was lovely to finally be able to treat Maxime, Lexi and the little twins, Felix and Jules, to dinner at Hotel Arnold in Itterswiller, where we sat out on the terrace and enjoyed the view and a delicious meal. At 10:10pm we said our farewells as we have to be up early in the morning to drive to the airport.
Sunday. 9th July
It would have been easier to fly to England from nearby Strasbourg Airport, but that’s only possible if you fly from Strasbourg via Corsica or Madrid to England, so despite Basel being in Switzerland, it is also classed as a French and German airport. RAC insisted we had to drop the rental car at a French airport, so we were lucky we didn’t have to drive to Paris but were allowed to take it to the airport at Basel early on Sunday morning with strict instructions to make sure we parked it on the French side.
We farewelled Maxime at 7:15am and drove back down south to Basel airport. We had no wi-fi en route; the French one having also stopped working now. But the French side of the airport was well signposted, and we managed to drop off the car at 9am, walk through three terminals into Terminal 4 which was in Switzerland. We had entered another country, but I still felt like we were going nowhere. The gate opened at 9:35am and after a rather slow check-in, with my French basket as hand luggage, we walked through security to the Skyview Lounge. I still wouldn’t allow myself to believe that were actually going to get out of Europe, again without our home on wheels.
At 11:10am we boarded the plane and looked for our business class seats. We hadn’t checked our boarding passes; we should have, because they had moved us to different seats…… separately! I anxiously asked the man in the seat next to me if he wouldn’t mind moving to the seat that Rodney was in, which was next to a single lady two rows back and he very kindly said yes. All loaded, doors shut, seat belts on, ready for take-off and then an announcement was made that we would be sitting on the tarmac for 40 minutes due to stormy weather delays at Heathrow. I was really glad the nice man had moved seats for us, but I still didn’t believe we were going to get out of Europe.
At 12:15pm we did finally get off the ground; exactly 40 minutes late. The city of Basel looked hot and sleepy below us and the fields around were turning yellow. A heat haze hung over the dark, wooded Vosges Mountains. It finally felt like a huge relief to be sitting on that plane leaving Europe, but annoying to be returning to the UK without a motorhome containing a lot of our belongings. At 12:30pm the scenery was swallowed up by clouds above and clouds below, which quickly became a mass of bumpy clouds all around us. A chicken salad was served which was virtually all chicken and no salad. Having gained an hour flying west, the hour and a half flight had us landing at exactly 12:30pm after circling the O2 Arena, the Thames Barrier and the Dartford Bridge, twice. The luggage took almost as long to arrive on the carousel as the flight had taken. Inside the airport we found no-one at any of the car rental desks, just a sign informing us to go to bus stop 26 or 27 and get on a bus which we duly did, and we finally left Heathrow airport in a GM Crossland manual rental car heading north. By 5:30pm we were sitting in the garden at Nick and Anne’s house in Baldock, along with our friends Julia and Kevin. It was so nice to be sitting and eating with old friends ……. no longer in Europe !!!
glad you made it back to england