…seemingly starts with another (marginally shorter) journey. A dash to the airport in Warsaw, a bargain bin flight to Riga in Latvia and a meeting with a nice man with a 30 year old Landcruiser that had been standing around and he needed to get rid of.
The cruiser bought and paid for left me with slightly less money than I needed to buy enough fuel for the 1000 mile drive home – no worries, God(s) protects the stupid, I left Latvia at around 18:30 and headed into the sunset.
Latvia is pretty flat, the crossing into Lithuania was similarly so, the snow started, closely followed by a stiff breeze and night descended.
Three hundred kilometres into the journey the car jolted to one side and I thought I must have hit something, couldn’t see anything, so off I went again, 20kms later the back wheels locked up solid and we slithered to a halt.
The Cruiser became a mobile chicane for the constant stream of artics on the single lane road, it was now blizzarding quite splendidly and I figured the situation was going to end badly..The safest option I had was persuading the Cruiser down the steep embankment and into a field. It’s always a challenge when you’ve got no tools and no recovery and you’re stuck in a field in a blizzard. Nothing could be done until dawn.
Remember the bargain flight? That’ll be the one with a tiny luggage allowance. So to recap: No sleeping bag, thin coat, blizzard, it was a ‘bracing’ night. Eventually dawn showed up, the snow blew away and the weather perked up to about 2 centigrade with a constant force 4 wind making ideal conditions for crawling around in the mud in order work out what was wrong and if possible could fix it with a rock.
Remember God(s) protecting the stupid? Well I was feeling a bit miffed with the ethereal world given the circumstances, but the adage worked out in my favour. It seems a bearing in the back axle had seized locking the back wheels but the mechanically barbaric way that the car was coaxed off the road had freed it, once cooled it was sort of operational (sounded like a bag of bolts in a washing machine though).. well onward and erm.. onward.
Warsaw is a long way from anywhere at under 50mph but the bearing didnt lock at that speed and just kept up a constant rumble of discontent with occasional violent shrieks; having been married for 20 years I’m used to that soundtrack and ignored it.
Picked up some kit in Warsaw and headed home to CZ, I’d missed my rendezvous with John and Mike who had put in a massive shift moving kit from the UK to ours and then driving back in a single hit – legends! Finally home for 11ish, a bit pooped and more than a bit hungry.
So now the ambulance conversation/adaption starts, this will be quick and dirty so dont expect the usual HOFS level of Gucci.
Big love!
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