We awoke quite late after our late night drinking session and had a cup of coffee down by the lake. Then it was time to pack up and head off. It was around 2.5hrs to Dieppe but we wanted to stop off and do a wine shop on the way. €130 euros later we have over 40 bottles of wine and some serious cheese.
We then head the last section of the drive. It was pleasantly uneventful and I’m currently sitting on the docks watching them load the lorries. We’re due to leave in an hour. All Ruby has to do now is get us into the boat. In actual fact, since the rock incident she has been quite well behaved. I think she is living in fear of of what will happen if she lets me down again.
So this is it! It has probably been the most stressful holiday I’ve ever been on, but on the whole I’ve still had a fantastic time. We have stocked up on wine for the foreseeable future, seen some fantastic sights and truly road tested the van.
To round it all off, here is a fun list everything that went wrong.
1. Fuel pump failed – fun because it made us miss our ferry and left us stranded on the docks.
2. Air filter broke – a more minor inconveniences this one, cable ties are doing well and fortunately nothing got sucked into the engine in its absence.
3. Door lock fell off. Fun because you can’t lock it with the key anymore, it can only be locked from the inside. A tad irritating.
4. Door bracket broke. Very, very annoying because it made nearly impossible to open the sliding door. This one we paid to get welded as it was so annoying.
5. Clutch cable snapped. Fun because it rendered us completely stuck for 3 days.
6. Fans failed. Exceptional timing to have the fan relay fail. Means that I have had to bodge it the last week and now the engine that used to run too hot, now sometimes runs too cold as well.
7. Brake servo/master cylinder issue. I’m not sure quite what has failed here, but our brakes do still work. They are just incredibly hard to press and sometime the pedal just sinks too the floor.
8. Main engine fuse keeps blowing. This is due to the fan issue, so temporary. Nevertheless it hasn’t failed to happen at the worst possible moments. Down a very steep mountain road and then during the flash flooding.
Here is the summary of our route. I’ve had to do it in two sections because google won’t let me put in that many destinations. In total we covered approximately 1800 miles (this just shows out destinations for each night), is need to check our odometer for a more precise reading.
Stage 1
Stage 2
To anyone who reads this, I hope you have fount it mildly entertaining. The blog will be back next road trip!
The Kombi Chronicles 