November 2005

Dear all,
After a 26 hrs drive, taking terms in sleeping, driving and sleep-driving... We did not only catch up after a late start yesterday and a longer route, also we were almost sure of a no.1 finish in Gibraltar (I know it isn't that kind of competition..... But still !) Nevertheless we (i.e. Dennis!) managed to ..ck-up the gear-box, blocked-up completely, no oil.... After spending hours waiting for people to find us a replacement gear-box (vw's seem to be rare in spain) we ended up with no option but to force the old box into movement and fill it up with gear-oil again. As the old bus was kangeroo-skipping away at first, sounding very unhappy, we let her spinn her wheels with the rear-end jacked up high in the air.... This seems to have done the job for now as we are very comfortably rolling down the last bit of spanish motor-way... After a very frustrating afternoon!
Anyway, problem solved for the time-being although we seriously need to consider changing the oil-seal between gear-box and clutch-housing as we believe that this is causing a dry gear-box, wet clutch and messing up our day! Will be continued ....

Tapas....

Ouders,schoonouders en een ieder die heeft bijgedragen aan de 'overlevingspaketten' nogmaals dank. De overvloedige voorraad weerhoud ons er echter niet van om zo even de Ramblas op te rijden voor heerlijke tapas gerechten.... Nog 90km!
(heidi, lekkere peren!!)

Just a short note to thank the sponsors that have not been mentioned yet on our site;

BenoitAssurances/ Generali:
Insurance of vehicle. Merci beaucoup!
(Maartje bedankt!)

CherifRenovation:
4 spare tires. Merci beaucoup!

A bientot!

Dear family and friends,

As we are cruising down the A9 motorway, not too far from Perpignan, I am writing you our 2nd message on Dennis's PDA.
After a worrying clutch-malfunction yesterday, we have tried to solve this by giving the pedal just a little bit more play... Wishfull thinking! It really seems we will be changing the clutch somewhere 'en-route'. For the moment we're still rolling...
As a result of this late-night-venture (...and I must admit, I did need to finish some work) we have left Bligny sur Ouche at almost 11.00am. It's almost 7hrs later now, getting dark and ..ssing with rain. We have received messages of other teams driving through snowstorms near Burgos in the north of Spain...
We will be following the coast-road to Barcelona, might take 5 for a round of Tapas and then continue our estafette-run to Gibraltar and hopefully enjoy some better weather on the coast!
This tiny screen is making me dizzy, more news tomorrow, I'm off. (Ps:PopkhvjMM!)