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Old and new bashing trips by Cowley

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Techniquest

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Good sir, that was an interesting read and I would love to read more if you have any other tales. Same goes to Ash Bridge, writing an epic read takes practice, so just get telling the new generation how things used to be! We want to hear all about it!

That mystery tour would have been thoroughly interesting, especially the bits around Birmingham!
 
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Oerlikon

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Thank you kindly Techniquest!

I will be very happy to dredge my memory on an occasional basis

More in a while!
 

Cowley

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And that's how you tell a story. :D
Thanks Oerlikon.
Black diesels with silver stripes. They must have looked magnificent.
 

Cowley

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Day three and naughty day four

The last day of this rover was New Year's Day 1/1/91 (a Tuesday).

I say last day but actually I'd managed an extra day out of this by not circling one of the days and getting away with it - naughty I know, but there you are.
I didn't do much anyway compared to the first couple of days. In fact I didn't even turn up at St David's until lunchtime (I may have had a few with some friends the night before). :oops:
So the usual unit (unrecorded) to Exeter to see what was happening. Perhaps not much at that point so I opted to take 47832 down to Newton Abbot on the 09:18 Manchester to Plymouth (1V46) for my first trip along the sea wall of the year.
At Newton I think I bumped into a few people and we headed back up to Exeter on a Sprinter (possibly a 155?) to pick 33101 up again on the 14:22 Exeter to Waterloo. The 33 was taken to Axminster this time and after a brief wait 50027 'Lion' arrived for a noisy run back to Exeter in the dark (15:15 Waterloo - Exeter 1V15).
Not much was going on after this and perhaps feeling a bit fragile and thinking about having to get up early for work in the morning I jumped onto a 101/108 (or maybe even a Bubble Car) and called it a day.

4/1/91 Friday.

As said above I'd managed to squeeze another day out the three day rover by illicit means and after getting back home (and no doubt spending about an hour trying to scrub lorry engine and gearbox oil off me) I found myself on another bog cart rattling my way towards Exeter again. It's interesting to remember that sitting behind the driver you could watch the needle creeping it's way towards 70 on the speedo between Topsham and Polsloe Bridge as there were no Digby & Sowton or Newcourt stations to slow down for in those days.
In fact the sidings at Newcourt REME depot (where the big estate at Newcourt is now built) had only recently been disconnected and I can still remember it being used a few years before in the 80s. The units used to rattle over the points into the yard so you knew where you were in the dark... :)

At Exeter it was the usual choice of Waterloo or mainline and on this occasion I was pleasantly surprised to find 47576 Kings Lynn at the head of the 19:42 Exeter - Waterloo. The 47/7s had yet to make a proper impact on the Mule and it was a lottery as to what was working it during this time.
I took 47576 to Yeovil Junction this evening clearly chancing going beyond the Axminster limit of my ticket and I know that I got away with it because the only time I ever got caught straying beyond the boundaries on the wrong rover was a few days previously (I knew people that had travelled all over the country on Wessex Rovers because apparently they were easy to get away with as many railway staff weren't sure where Wessex actually was).
After a short wait 50001 'Dreadnought' thrummed in for a front coach run back to Exeter on the 18:15 ex Waterloo.
I headed home after this and that was the end of my er three day rover. A pretty good and varied week really.

The next day (Saturday 5/1/91) I took 33101 (again) out to Feniton for a unit back. I'd probably popped into town on the train shopping for metal records at HMV and seen that it was out on a Waterloo service, perhaps I only had enough cash spare to do a quick return to Feniton? Who knows.

I know this sounds a bit wistful but as 33101 chattered away into the night leaving me on that empty dark rural Devon platform watching as the flashing tail light disappeared into the distance I'd have had no way of knowing that I'd just had my last ever trip on the mainline behind a class 33.
Not a bad way for it all to end though I think. ;)


The locos for the week:

33002
33101
33116

47490
47576
47579

47801
47809
47813
47822
47832
47840
47846
47848

50001
50027
50033

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Always appreciated.
 
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Cowley

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Would've loved to have mainline 50 haulage back then

Yes they were quite some machines, although you didn't always think so when you were marooned in the middle of Dorset somewhere when one had broken down.
 

Cowley

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Good sir, that was an interesting read and I would love to read more if you have any other tales. Same goes to Ash Bridge, writing an epic read takes practice, so just get telling the new generation how things used to be! We want to hear all about it!

That mystery tour would have been thoroughly interesting, especially the bits around Birmingham!

I think it might be worth mentioning at this point that the young boy in need of a wee on Birmingham New Street station in Oerlikons story was in fact me... ;)
 

Techniquest

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Another fascinating read Cowley, I've had very little mainline 33 action myself but your last move is always a big one when you look back. I think mine was a part fare jobbie from Worcester to Cheltenham some years back, but fair game they stick in memory!

Tut tut to the unofficial use of your rover :lol:
 

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Again Cowley, another great nostalgic trip down memory lane. Some excellent traction ridden behind too. All those 47/8s, interrupted by an original 47/4, when 47490 rocked up, was a nice bonus too. 47576 was one of the many 47s, I never had for haulage. 50s and Crompton mileage were/are quite paltry to say the least, seen as the 1 33 and 5 50s on the mainline, were runs between Woking and Waterloo. I can quite honestly say, on reading this, I was jealous as sin.

As regarding cheating with the rover, I accidentally done it on my HoE and was wondering why the barriers, kept refusing my ticket. Back in the day, we'd try our best to avoid the grip, to maximise our trips, a day in Carlisle seen us get 2 trips up to Dumfries and one set of Carlisle-Lancaster return tickets last us all day, leading to much to'ing and fro'ing on the sparkys.
 
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fishquinn

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I like the sound of all of that :lol:. If you think using a Wessex rover all over the country is bad, listen to what someone used to do back then too: A festivals rover (Edinburgh-Glasgow during the Edinburgh festival) down in Cornwall when it wasn't even valid in Scotland :lol:. Your 'extending' the use of a freedom of Devon to Yeovil seems pretty tame compared to that ;)
 

Cowley

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Thanks for the comments chaps.

Tech - I can only apologise to BR for that one. No excuses. ;)

LSG - Thanks for that. I do miss those days, I regret not making it up to the North East and sampling the action around there, it's on my to do list to explore the area one day, it still looks like a very interesting area.
I love the new avatar picture.

FQ - it's interesting how different it is these days with tickets etc. You only have to spend half an hour reading tickets and disputes section to realise that can't get away with anything these days (even if it's the correct ticket sometimes).
 

Cowley

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I'm going down to Teignmouth for a curry with Oerlikon (The Father) tonight, he's been out on the railways (and even worked for BR before I was born) since the 1950s and has some amazing tales from back then including seeing the 31s (when they had Mirrlees engines), Baby Deltics and Cobos when they were new. I never get bored of hearing his stories from the past.
Mine's a Cobra, a Prawn Balti and a Sprinter home. Cheers. :lol:
 

Techniquest

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Yuck to prawns! Cobra is more acceptable, my top choice is a lamb korma, keema rice and proper size poppodoms (not these baby things you get in the shops), not forgetting a keema naan! Washed down with a nice cider or, if in an Indian restaurant, Kingfisher
 

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Great read that Cowley. I didn't actually get that many 33's myself which wasa shame.
 

Cowley

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Thanks chaps (I went for chicken tonight instead) I'm currently on the Wreckhead Dogbox Express from Teignmouth, quite amusing I must say. I'm standing in the vestibule chatting to the friendly guard and chuckling about some of the half cut passengers (me included).
Once we get up to speed on the Exminster straight I'll corner him and bore him with some train stories...
 

Techniquest

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You do realise Cowley we're relying on you to get your Dad posting his excellent stories ;)

Hope it was a good evening, I only ended up having one brew after all last night. Due to get some rather special stuff ordered later mind...
 

47403

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You do realise Cowley we're relying on you to get your Dad posting his excellent stories ;)

Hope it was a good evening, I only ended up having one brew after all last night. Due to get some rather special stuff ordered later mind...

Hear hear tech. Couldn't agree more. I love it when the forums youthful but seen as elder statesmen(Keith and 55013) share their bashing tales. Over to you Oerlikon
 

Cowley

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Blimey I forgot I'd posted that. I ended up defusing a potential fight between a load of noisy but friendly students and a bloke and his missus who lost the plot with them. There was much shouting and swearing and when I turned around to see what the guard was going to do he'd locked himself in the back cab! :lol:

Luckily the couple got off at St Thomas and continued shouting at the students through the window "Oim from Exter n I'm ard!!". The guard thankfully shut the doors and got us out of there sharpish. It was hilarious.

On a Dog Box there's nowhere to hide (unless you're the guard).
 

Cowley

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Exeter to Croatia and back by van 27/07/17 - 13/08/17

This isn't a railway report I'm afraid folks although I did see the odd train related thing while we were away. I know that there's some people on here that might be interested though which is why (as well as for my own record) I'm posting this.

We took the van down to Italy about five years ago for a bit of a tour when the kids were younger and I probably attempted to fit a bit too much into the two and a half weeks that we were away for, we stayed in the van and one tent for the entire holiday and with there being seven of us it was quite hard work at times.

This time we did things differently. We booked two places to stay through Airbnb, one for the first week in Pula which is on the Istrian peninsula and one for the second week in a place called Kraljevica which is near a bridge that takes you onto the island of Krk. We payed for these earlier in the year and also put money aside for fuel so that we'd only have our daily living expenses to pay while we were there.
The plan being to take turns driving and doing the drive over two days each way stopping off at places we knew where we could park up for free in the van and be able to stick our tent up so that we had our own sleeping space (being stuck in a van with five teenagers is not the most romantic of situations).

So off we went on a Thursday afternoon enduring a fairly god awful journey where we had to divert off the A303 via Salisbury due to an accident. It took over six hours to get up to the tunnel (the tunnel works out cheap for all of us plus our fairly large van at £300 return).
We were on our booked crossing soon enough which deposited us in France with the clock adjustment meaning it was half twelve at night.
We then drove for an hour or so, stopped for fuel and made the kids a sort of sleeping nest in the back which involved filling the gap between the facing seats with suitcases so that they could put their feet up.
Mrs C drove for a fair chunk of the night before I took over in the morning, and eventually we arrived at Fussen in Bavaria on the Monday afternoon.
Fussen is somewhere we had stayed before in the van, there's a huge lake (called a 'see' over there) and we stayed next to a connecting lake with a view of the Alps in the background. It's very near the border to Austria which was where we headed the next day.

The following day we drove from Fussen to Pula in Croatia via Austria and Slovenia. It was a long drive but through some stunning scenery. While driving through Slovenia we passed a procession of vans just like ours which was quite surreal. We also drove up the motorway with the back doors open after stopping at the services and couldn't work out why everyone kept beeping at us, somewhat embarrassing to be honest.

The apartment at Pula was nice and so were the owners although we all struggled to understand each other at times.
Pula is a very nice small city with a fantastic Roman amphitheater and we had an enjoyable week there, especially after we'd found a beautiful beach with rocks to jump off and a bar next door.
It was hot though, damn hot actually, over 35 degrees every day and we found it a bit of a struggle at times. A couple of the days we just stayed in until the evening when it had cooled down a bit.

In the first week we:

Explored the town and some of the coast.

Visited a place called Rovinj which had something of the Venice feel about it.

Got sunburnt but learnt from it.

Went out for a romantic dinner with Mrs C and no kids.

Saw (cheekily from the outside) Tom Jones performing in the amphitheater.

Went swimming a lot and the kids went snorkelling in the sea (which was clear and warm).

Befriended some kittens that seemed to be living wild near our apartment.

Having a midnight swim.

Drank many wines and beers.


Near the end of the week the guy that was meant to be supplying us with the second weeks apartment cancelled on us out of the blue. This was not good.
Mrs C got on the case and somehow managed to find a new place in a city called Rijeka not far from where we would've been staying anyway. So off we headed after a tidy up and cheery goodbye to the older couple that had been our hosts (they lived in the downstairs apartment of where we'd been staying).
It's worth mentioning that the area around Pula is although pretty, not particularly spectacular. Rijeka on the other hand was much more scenic and as we popped out of a five kilometre long tunnel above the city it was quite breathtaking actually.
I must mention at this point that the Croatian motorways are amazing. They're all pretty new, they are toll motorways but are not too expensive - I think a hundred miles in the van worked out at about £10. They've been built by Hot Wheels though I reckon. All swooping corners, soaring viaducts and tunnels through the mountains. Amazing.

The apartment was unbelievable, it had five bedrooms over two floors, a balcony with a magnificent view, shower room, huge lounge, enormous bath and YES! Air conditioning! Pretty valuable now that the temperature was just under 40 degrees.
All this for £71 per night, well done Mrs C, what an absolute result and actually way better (and slightly cheaper) than the one I'd originally booked.

So the second week involved:


Having a look around the city which had dockyards and ship repair yards, some very nice old buildings in the centre and the odd secluded (but fairly busy) beach.

Driving to Plitvice National Park and walking around the famous lakes and waterfalls - pretty incredible actually, I'd not seen anything quite like it before.

Not getting sunburnt (I told you we'd learnt).

Driving 150 miles south to Zadar to drop our 18 year old off at the airport as she was flying back earlier than us. We drove much of this along the coast which was stunning and found an amazing beach near Zadar that had a tidal lagoon behind it where people where covering themselves in mud, sitting in the sun while it dried and then washing it off in the sea. We joined in too and it was lovely.

Watched an enormous thunderstorm roll over the mountains opposite the apartment and pummel us for about an hour. Truly spectacular.

Drinking lots of beer and wine.

The Wednesday of the second week was our youngest 14th birthday and we'd wanted to visit the turtle rescue centre on Mali Losinj (recommended to us by 70014IronDuke) which involved a ferry trip and four hours of travelling, unfortunately it would have been just one trip too many in a very hot van for them, so instead we took them to a water park and dumped them off for the day while we headed for the nearest town which turned out to be an absolute delight. It was called Novagrad and the old town had walls and walkways surrounding it next to the sea and harbour. It was lovely and after lunch and a beer we had a swim and a walk around before collecting the kids. There were (unusually that week) waves in the sea. A few days later we were informed that there had been a small earthquake in the area (3.8 I think), I wonder if this was the cause?
Anyway we picked the kids up from the water park (only four of them now after the eldest had headed home the day before, two 14 year olds and two 16 year olds) and headed back to the town for another swim and dinner sitting outside a restaurant.
There were a group of singers busking in the street and my other half and my daughter went over to listen to them. They then came back and sat down just as the group burst into a rendition of Happy Birthday aimed at the birthday girl who sat next to me looking mortified, Mrs C unfortunately laughed too much while she was taking a gulp of her beer causing it to froth up and explode out of her mouth. I'm not sure what the surrounding diners made of us at this point.

On the last evening we drove onto Krk island and had an evening swim in a pretty village by the sea, we also stocked up on cheap wine to take home and got the apartment tidied up. The owners came round in the morning and they were really nice, they said that if we want to go back sometime that they'll do us an even cheaper deal too. We're hoping to go back next year if we can but perhaps in late September instead of August.

We left Croatia on the Friday morning and instead of going back the way we came, which had been quite hard going with traffic, we headed into Italy and up to Lake Garda as we knew somewhere near there that we could park up for the night for free.
It's called Lago di Ledro, it's about ten miles from the top of Lake Garda but much higher up so therefore much cooler too. It involves climbing in a tunnel through a mountain for about three miles and then zig zagging your way up a pass.

We hadn't been there for five years but it looked more beautiful than ever, we had a very nice dinner in the pub and spent some time looking at photos from previous visits, hard to believe how young the kids looked when we were there last, we of course haven't aged at all.

The next day we chatted to a few other van owners that we'd met from Germany and did the usual camper van note swapping of good places, packed up and headed north through the Brenner Pass. It was a long journey, we took turns at driving and while I was driving in Germany we were followed and pulled over by the police. I still don't know why though, they went off and sat in their van with our passports for a bit (I was starting to fret about the time by now as we still had hundreds of miles to go), after a while they came back and told us that everything was fine but also told me I shouldn't have been driving with no shoes on (oops), I said sorry and told him that it was because they were making my feet smell. I was old enough to be his dad. He said you have to wear shoes and I said that I would but when I got to France could I take them off and throw them out of the window? He said I could do what I want once I'd got to France.

On we drove and as it got dark I woke up and realised that the fuel situation was starting to become worrying. It's not so easy getting fuel at night on foreign motorways as it is here, the automated ones never seem to take my card and we were really up against the clock by now as we'd been diverted off the motorway due to roadworks for some distance. In the end after the same thing again at a services I turned off at a junction in the middle of nowhere and rang Green Flag for advice. The lady on the phone couldn't work out where we were (somewhere in Belgium) and eventually directed us to a garage in a village a couple of miles away. No chance I thought, if I can't find an open one on a motorway what chance have I got of one being open in a village? Squeaky bum time now though, do or die as it were. I took the road to the village and it was an absolute ghost town, nothing open and nobody around. In a corner next to a house though was a fuel pump with a card machine next to it (no actual garage though) I tentatively put my card in it and it worked! I could have cried.
Tank filled and now running very late there was nothing else for it but to hit the motorway (250 miles to the tunnel) and not spare the horses. Unfortunately I think I was flashed by a speed camera somewhere near Calais and upon checking it turns out that you now get a fine and points in this country even if you get caught over there. Disappointing to say the least.
We made the tunnel by the skin of our teeth, in fact we were the second to last vehicles on the train, we literally drove on, the doors were shut and we left. Pretty hairy.

Some railway notes:

Not many actually. We didn't get a chance to go on any but I took a couple of photos of the very graffitied trains at Pula and also admired the quay branch that ran along the sea front to the docks. I met a couple of Swiss enthusiasts at Pula and had a chat to them, they were taking photos of a train which unusually didn't have any graffiti on it. They had a stepladder with them.
In Rijeka I had a look around the station and it was very interesting, lots of sidings and again lots of graffiti. There was a loco hauled train being prepared and also a shunter that looked a bit like a class 17 pottering about.
Outside the station was an old plinthed steam locomotive.
From the station a line ran along the waterfront to a massive container depot and we saw a train being hauled probably by that same shunter through the streets among all the buses and cars, I overtook it and Mrs C managed to grab a passing photo of it.
We saw other stuff and of course had a bit of LeShuttle loco haulage (I did record the numbers somewhere).

I'll post this and then sort a few photos out. Sorry about the lack of trains and thanks for reading folks.
 
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Cowley

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Photos.

1 Lake near Fussen.
2 Amphitheater at Pula.
3 Rovinj (surely that Washing's dry by now).
4 Beautiful sea Pula.
5 Ungraffitied train.
6 Graffitied train.
7 Plinthed tank engine, Rijeka.
8 Locos at Rijeka station.
9 Plitvice Lakes, indescribable really.
10 Lake in Italy near Garda.
 

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Blindtraveler

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Nowhere near enough to a Pacer :(
Well I for one found that facinating.
Shame about the points etc, I guess its a case of wating for the brown envelope of doom?

I hope that with them all in their teens the youngsters are helpful with stuff along the way?

It sounds great fun!
 

Cowley

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Well I for one found that facinating.
Shame about the points etc, I guess its a case of wating for the brown envelope of doom?

I hope that with them all in their teens the youngsters are helpful with stuff along the way?

It sounds great fun!

Thanks BT. Yes I am waiting for the inevitable brown envelope. I read somewhere that if you are from France and get caught speeding in this country you can get away with it though. That can't be true can it?
With the teenagers I find myself forgetting to ask them to do things sometimes, to be fair they did help a lot although some are perhaps more keen than others at times.
I forgot to mention that the van covered 3800 fault free miles during this trip. Not bad considering it's 14 years old and has done 231000 miles now.
 

noddy1878

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Sounded like you had a great time overall! Your fuel situation reminded me of a time I was in the Scottish highlands and I went for 20 odd miles with zero miles left according to the computer! It was cold, wet and getting dark! I've never been so happy to pay about 30p more a litre than I usually pay!

Great read!
 

Ash Bridge

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Great report and pictures there Mr Cowley, could have sworn I'd already read about a lot of your adventures and antics when reading that...oh! wait a minute :D;) the graffiti on that Croatian rolling stock looks just as bad as what you would see in Bulgaria, although the trains appear to be rather different to what you would see over there, tbh. the graffiti on some of the DBC & Freightliner stock that pass by our house these days is nearly as bad if I'm honest.
 

Oerlikon

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Well, it sounds like a great holiday Mr Cowley and thank you for sharing your experiences. Not always easy to satisfy the needs of grown-ups and teenagers at the same time. Shame about the mad dash at the end. I well remember miles and miles of closed motorways having calculated exactly the fuel and time needed to get to the ferry terminal!

When I last went to that part of the world with the lads, it was called Jugoslavia. There was one single carriageway motorway near Ljubljana which seemed to be entirely full of overloaded oxen carts bringing in the harvest. Bursting out of a tunnel in the good old Ford Corsair you had to be pretty sharp on the brakes to avoid crashing into something that looked like a giant haystack. Much of the country was pretty remote; the people were really welcoming but not exactly used to visitors. What looked like cigarette machines when you had a crucial need for a fag in fact dispensed aniseed-flavoured meatballs

But there is a railway point. We went to Postojna Cave, an unbelievably spectacular underground labyrinth on a huge scale. So huge, in fact, that there was an extensive and impressive underground railway to take visitors round. Each train consisted of about six open carriages hauled by a diesel locomotive carrying around 150 people per train. It went over viaducts and across rivers. But what I remembered most was that, for reasons which can only be guessed at, each train was only allowed to carry one nationality. And when the trains passed each other in the caves, the English train would sing "Down By The Station" at the other train and shout "Choo Choo"; the German train would go past in total silence with arms folded and the Italian train would be happy arm waving and shouting totally oblivious to the spectacular surroundings! There are pictures on the Postojna Cave website although the trains seem to have been considerably smartened up since my visit!
 
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Cowley

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Thanks chaps much appreciated.

Noddy - I think I'd have sold one of the children for fuel that night. We all held our breath and when the pump made that clunk sound and we knew it was working the relief was unbelievable.

Mr Bridge - You may have heard some of that twice now, sorry about that. :lol:
There was a lot of graffiti around I must say, especially in the more urban areas. The younger generation all seemed pretty smart and not predisposed to hanging around on street corners looking tough though so I can only assume that it's like the 'Hells Grannies' sketch on Monty Python and all the old people come out at night with their spray cans and motorbikes.
Or perhaps I just saw the nice bits?

Oerlikon - It must have been amazing to see how it was back then, it's very smart and modern these days of course although when we drove up to Plitvice it was possible to see the odd bombed out house from the war in the 1990s.
Apparently there's still the odd uncleared mine field in some areas too.

There were adverts for those caves/mines showing lots of happy people underground in a little train everywhere in the area, there was one right next to us in the services just before we raced off with the doors open, it looks like a highly polished operation now (unlike us at that moment), I'd like to go and seeit next time. I'd definitely try and go in late September next year though - warm sea but less tourists etc.
 

AnthonyRail

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Can you not ask to do a speed awareness course over there and then it's a excuse to go back and bash the trains.
 

Cowley

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Can you not ask to do a speed awareness course over there and then it's a excuse to go back and bash the trains.

Hahaha. I'm aware of how to speed. ;)
Pardon monsieur, je suis vitesse. Probably wrong but it's a start.
Kicking myself to be honest, had a completely clean license for decades too. :oops:
 

Techniquest

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I most certainly enjoyed that read good sir! While I may not know where some of those places are, I followed it keenly. The graffitied trains were indeed covered, unpleasant isn't the word!

Gorgeous scenery in those photos, I know how that heat feels as I stepped off my plane at Linate at 1730 on Friday into 34 degrees Celsius. Was still around 26 I think at midnight, it was 25 at 0400 anyway, not ideal for a 3.25 mile walk!

Your van has done exceptionally well it must be said, although I would not have wanted to drive that far. Flying that would be fine of course :lol:

One thing is for sure, you've got me wanting to head to that part of the world!
 

Cowley

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I most certainly enjoyed that read good sir! While I may not know where some of those places are, I followed it keenly. The graffitied trains were indeed covered, unpleasant isn't the word!

Gorgeous scenery in those photos, I know how that heat feels as I stepped off my plane at Linate at 1730 on Friday into 34 degrees Celsius. Was still around 26 I think at midnight, it was 25 at 0400 anyway, not ideal for a 3.25 mile walk!

Your van has done exceptionally well it must be said, although I would not have wanted to drive that far. Flying that would be fine of course :lol:

One thing is for sure, you've got me wanting to head to that part of the world!

Thanks Tech. Yes we're really not equipped for that kind of heat are we? I wondered how they get anything done, maybe that's why it's too much effort to wash the graffiti off :lol:.
I had started to get used to it by the time we left though and when we go back I'm definitely going to get some train mileage in.
 
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