Long post with pictures!
As some of you have gathered, I’m the relatively new “nutter” to the world of Haflingers. I’ve owned “Lurch” for about 18 months now, the first 6 months spent sorting out the front hubs and brakes in the snow and rain and cold.
Having spent vast sums of money and time, Lurch passed the MOT and I have described some of the things that have happened since.
The latest piece of crazy-ness - if you listen to the die-hards, is to drive Lurch to Rallies rather than put him on a trailer or in a van. I am not against people doing either, I just don’t have either a suitable trailer, suitable vehicle to tow said trailer or a van I could put Lurch in! I really can’t justify buying either / or just to get to rallies with Lurch, so I have to drive there.
The latest being the 2014 Dutch Treffen. This was held near Eindhoven over the weekend of the 26th / 27th April. Some planning ahead allowed me to get the Friday (25th) and the Monday (28th) booked as holiday. Insurance informed, RAC breakdown cover, Ferry booked, campsite booked all being done with time to spare. Lurch’s MOT was due end of March so I took the opportunity to get the MOT done early so that if there was a failure, I had time to fix things before the Rally. As it turned out, no real problems (not even the lights), an advisory on a steering track rod end - that was changed without any drama.
The weekend before was devoted to a service of Lurch involving an oil change, greasing all the grease nipples - there are lots of those… checking tyres, sorting camping gear etc.
Finished work on the Thursday evening, My friend Stephen and I spent a couple of hours loading things up and tying it all down under a tarp and we were ready to go by 8:30pm. Driving to Dover at night might seem like a daft thing to do in a Haflinger, but thanks to my upgraded lights, it is possible to drive Lurch at the same speed as you do during the day. We had to stop to put in petrol as we had started with half a tank due to a “shake down drive” to work and back after the service. We arrived at the ferry just in time to board the next earlier ferry than I had booked, so we parked in the line of cars waiting to be loaded, our turn came and …. nothing! Couldn’t turn the engine over on the Dynastart. Quick! Get out and push! As the engine and everything was still warm, Lurch burst into life and we were able to board. Two and a half hours of driving with lights on had obviously been draining more energy from the battery than the Dynastart could replace. Same issue at the end of Ferry journey, only this time we had to enlist a couple of crew hands to give us a push. We drove until we were just inside Belgium before we discovered a suitable place to park for the rest of the night. It had to have some specific attributes you see, We needed somewhere with a slope so we could roll Lurch down to bump start him, but it had to be a shallow enough slope that we stood a chance of being able to push him back up it again if the first attempt did not work…
Have you ever slept in the cab of a Haflinger? No, I thought not. I can tell you it is not very comfortable! The problem was we were too tired to even think of putting the tent up (More of that later).So we had flood lights illuminating the petrol station forecourt, music blaring out of the speakers they have to entertain their customers, rain - did I mention Lurch leaks like every other Haflinger out there! Couldn’t wait until it was light enough to drive without lights, which came soon enough and we were off again. Satellite Navigation system set to destination via non highway routes and we soon fell out with the woman in the box! She wanted us to go one way, we wanted to go another - she lost, for a while, then we needed her again. Our route notes and her instructions didn’t meet up again until we were near the campsite. On through Belgium into Holland without any issues. Antwerp proved to be a challenging place to get through. We found a tunnel we have never been through before, this went down at about a 40 degree angle and must have been a kilometre long before it flattened out and came back up again. Just as well we were going down as coming the other way would have been at 25mph with rush hour traffic behind us!
Out of Antwerp and back on little roads at 40 mph allows you time to look at the countryside you are traveling through. Helped lots by the fact it is all flat in that part of the world.
Hours later and we arrive at the campsite. I enquired if the campsite owner had a battery charger we could use to recharge Lurch’s battery and he came up trumps by not only having a battery charger we could use but also hooking it up to the site electricity, so I didn’t even have to pay for electricity - more about this later.
It’s still daylight on the Friday so we set about putting up the tent. Now, I bought this tent last year at a car boot sale and was told the only thing wrong with it was that there were no tent pegs. These were purchased and shoved in the bag, but other than to see that there were some poles, some bits of tent nylon, we knew nothing about this tent. We laid things out and it appeared everything was there, there were no rips or missing guy ropes, in fact the only thing missing was a small flysheet that should go over the breather holes in the top of the main dome. So now we only had to worry about it being not waterproof. That we could deal with by throwing the big tarpaulin over the top.
Having finished putting up the tent, another Haflinger arrives. Although we hadn’t noticed, there was one at the campsite before us. Then as we were having drinks, more Haflingers turned up, soon there were six Haflinger and 1 Pinzgauer. It towed one of the Haflinger in on a trailer all the way from Germany.Two others were towed on trailers, two inside vans and Lurch who had to work for his living by driving there.
The Saturday dawned a bit cold and misty but brightened up into a sunny day. Twenty Haflingers gathered at the restaurant ready for the off, but one suffered serious electrical / carburation problems which couldn’t be fixed in time so the owner left it under the watchful eye of the restaurant and got a lift in another Haf.
A mixture of single lane tarred roads, “farm tracks” and forest routes, obviously their equivalent to our green lanes made up the days driving. There was a stop in wooded area with steep banks and rough terrain for people to drive about in for a while before a picnic style lunch provided by the organisers (amazing what you can get on the back of a Haflinger).
Then off to an attraction which turned out to be a flour grinding windmill that had been bought and moved from Germany. Restored by the owner over six years working evenings and weekends to such a standard that the owner now has a business restoring windmills.
More single lane tarred roads, tracks etc saw us back to the restaurant. Time enough to return to the campsite to freshen up before sitting down to fixed menu meal in the restaurant - Ribs, beef steak, chicken in huge quantities with green stuff, chips and dips etc - enough for them to ask if we wanted “doggy bags” afterwards.
Here I attempted to fix the “dead” Haflinger, but even after resetting the timing three times, and checking the carb, it still would not do anything more than start and run at idle speed on a full throttle. The light was going so we called it a day.
Bed! Not before some beers at the campsite of course.
Next day, Sunday dawned and we had to be up and at the restaurant meeting point in order to leave at 9:30 prompt as the next attraction would not wait for us…. what on earth had they planned? More single lanes tarred roads, tracks etc, brought us to a walled town, ‘S-Hertogenbosch. Some shuttling back and forth in Haflinger “taxi’s” (4 seaters), got everybody from the parking point to a set of steps that lead down to the water and some boats. Language groups split into different boats so the tour guide did not have to keep changing language. We soon discovered we were on a tour of the only town with a moat which allows you to navigate under the town buildings. It appears the town outgrew its original town wall and moat and just built out over the wall and moat. You can guess what happened to the moat in the middle ages with houses built over it! Yes, it became a sewer! Eventually it was cleaned up and the brick arches under the buildings restored and now you get a tour showing you all the blocked off sewer pipes pointing in at you! Actually, it was very interesting and well worth the tour.
Another picnic lunch and more driving saw us back at the starting point. For some, the weekend had been a shock as we had driven roughly 130 odd miles over the two days. People started leaving at this point, but a fair number were staying for the evening meal and then leaving for home on the Monday morning This evening meal for a smaller group of people was at another restaurant, again a fixed menu meal but very good for all that.
Back to camp site and those who had chosen hotels over camping returned to them. A few more drinks over a tilley lamp - not allowed a campfire in the camp site.and people packing Haf’s on trailers ready to leave early in the morning. A couple of the Haflingers which were staying at the campsite had developed battery charging issues, so Saturday night saw Lurch tied to the same electricity post as another Polycab whilst they both ate camp site electricity over night. The other disdained from joining them and relied on tow starts!
You can definitely hear a Haflinger startup and leave at six in the morning when you are in a tent...and they were trying to be quiet by taking the Haf and the van out of the campsite to load up!
We could afford to have a lie in as we didn’t need to leave before 10am, so having woken up again at a more civilised hour, we helped tow start the other Haf with charging / starting problems so it could be loaded into the van it came in.Then it was off for the ferry port of Dunkirk.
Another struggle through Antwerp, The woman in the box wanting us to go one way, signs pointing another, we eventually get out and carry on regardless.
Other than taking the whole day with rest stops every once in a while we made the six pm ferry and as we were waiting to board we are greeted by one of the Hafingers which had stayed in a hotel - customs man must have had a double take at having never seen one of these to suddenly having two in the space of a couple of minutes.
You will I am sure, have noticed that there is not much in all of this about the actual journey, well, other than having a good long time to look at the passing countryside, Lurch drove the distance, some 650 miles +/- a few without any further dramas. Started properly, ran well enough at 40 mph for us to get a return on all the fuel we had to put in of nearly 30mpg. Didn’t have to top up the engine oil and only had to top up the front differential once with about 5ml oil. The unknown tent worked well. It had enough room for us to have been able to put Lurch in front or backwards, depending on which end required work, had enough room for us to sleep without being sardines.
Seats were surprisingly comfortable, benefitting from an extra layer of foam cushion being put on top of the original in anticipation of “numb bum”.
I have some pictures somewhere to go with this - now where are they? So I have added a few pictures just to liven the long post up.
John
Haflinger 703AP LWB 1973 - (Once owned by Lady Sutherland & Sons.) Now called "Lurch" !
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), space blanket, list of contacts ( in case the worst happens ) recovery firm contact, these are the essentials, you can add items specific to your personal tastes, you never know when you may break down, get stuck in a traffic jam etc ( I was once stuck on the M1 for 4 hours because of an accident up ahead ). so the motto is ' Be Prepared '
