 |  |
After many months of preparation and planning including various fun raising days the time had come to depart on out adventure, which was CZECHWRECKS 2009.
The morning of Thursday 27th August dawned dark & grey but we were all packed and ready to go.
The crossing on the Wightlink ferry was very calm and soon we arrived in Portsmouth were it was a short jourey to Chichester for breakfast and to meet up with two other teams.
We reached Dover just in time for our 15.30 crossing to Calais.
Once in Calais we got rather lost trying to find our hotel and first check in point, driving round for a good hour.
Friday 28th August dawned bright and sunny we lined up with approx 70 - 80 other teams in a wide variety of cars, some with very eye catching paintwork and logos
After receiving our first daily challenge of spotting various items on route the mass start began at 9am.
The final destination for the day was Interlaken in Switzerland, which was some 520 miles away.
The check in meeting point was a bar called Hooters about 10 minutes walk away from our hotel, we handed in our daily challenge which had not gone well and not many points had been achieved.
The next morning was a car park just off the main street where all the cars gathered much to the amusement of the locals.
Once we had our challenge we set off to our next location, Bormio in Italy.
The scenery soon started to change and the hills became higher until we reached a small town called Davos, which required us to negotiate the Fluela Pass, the pass started easy but quickly began to get higher and higher until we were soon in the clouds at the very top, a quick stop for a photo opportunity the straight back in the car due to being too cold dressed in summer clothes.
Soon we where on the decent into Bormio where we easily found our hotel, once checked in we made our way into the town square to hand over our challenge.
Next morning we all met up in a car park for a water pistol fight, this water pistol fight was different to others because everyone was dressed up as The Stig from Top Gear. After a photo shoot 200 or so Stig’s grabed their water pistols and ran after each other, once this was over we all got in our cars for a police escort through the very narrow town streets and square with locals lining them cheering and waving.
Today’s finish point was Salzburg in Austria, once today’s challenge was picked up we headed out of Bormio and to the Stevio Pass ( which was featured on Top Gear ) the climb started to wind its way upwards with the bends starting to get tighter and tighter and our old cars getting slower and slower.
Once up the top we stopped to let the cars cool down before the long hard decent.
Upon reaching the base of the decent we arrived at a very small Italian village with a few hundred more miles to go.
We arrived at our hotel in Salzburg which was skyscraper with our rooms being on the 10/11th floor and the restaurant being at the very top on 15th floor
The final day started with all the teams gathering alongside the river in Salzburg using the bus lane as the final challenge was given out - ( to spot as many Trabant cars as possible )
All the cars left at once soon becoming dispersed in the Austrian Traffic with our team getting lost for about 20 minutes.
Some good Austrian motorways got us to the Czech border point which was deserted and quiet just like a ghost town, the road surfaces soon changed and pot holes started to appear with lots of single carriageway roads which felt like we had stepped back about 20 years.
After dodging the mad Czech drivers we finally made it into Prague. When we finally found our hotel we headed into the cobbled streets to find the final finishing point at the George & Dragon pub in Wenceslas Square.
The final results were announced with the £1000 prize going to the winner, which unfortunately wasn’t us!! But we did come a credible 21st over all in our first ever attempt.
Although the rally had finished in Prague we still had to get home to the Isle of Wight so the decision was made to stop off for two nights in Germany including 4laps of the Famous Nurburgring!
Afterwards we returned to the Island after travelling 2528miles.
We raised £3654.77 for the Isle of Wight Hospice and had a great time doing so, we would like to say a Huge thank you to all our sponsors and general public who made generous donations to our collection.
Dan & Dave Spurgin, Paul Rice and Big Ted
For Photos please click on this link http://s583.photobucket.com/albums/ss278/Daniow/Czechwrecks%202009/
