Day 34 – Wolfsburg to Liège, Belgium

This was rumoured to be a long hard slog today. 600kms of road to make a beeline for Belgium.

And so it was to be. One ‘time control’ and a ‘track event’ in Peugeot at days end. Seemed simple from the advice we get and the route book didn’t have anything special to be aware of. The time seemed easy to achieve.

Wow! What a surprise. It’s Friday, the day people here planned their weekend and the roads were mayhem. Four way autobahns and villages, which we are always directed through, were jam packed with vehicles. 
And bikes on the roads. You’ve got to look out for bikes, especially on pedestrian crossings where they seem to have right of way at all times even at stop lights. Care is essential but when you’re in a hurry you have to go for it. 
Boy what an exercise! We raced where we could but the traffic was relentless. There was no way that we could get to the first time control in time. An accident on the autobahn and, well, we were getting angry that the organisation was so short sighted as to expect us to take many risks in order to achieve a timetable. We let them know how we felt when we arrived late. We were placated in that the organisation would take the situation into account and not penalise us.

More interesting structures

Then back on the autobahn and into the countryside through villages and townships.

For the quick peeks that we could take when we weren’t doing other things, these towns were really nice. Different construction and architecture for buildings set in flowing countryside. The populace must have been appalled at these machines racing through their hallowed territory. And not good for the organisation that drivers were disrespecting their rules, speed etc.
We were looking at the time needed to get to the track event and it didn’t look good for getting there in time. Steve tried hard to reach the track in time to no avail. When we did arrive we were met by two couples who we had previously befriended on other rally’s. Mick and Grace and Anty and Sonja. We were surprised and delighted to see them at the track. We were late but meeting them made up for the frustration that we had experienced throughout the day. 

Thanks for the welcome. 
We did the track with care as of the situation with not having spare wheels. So the speed was kept down. We’ve got to be practical if we want to get to Paris in one piece.

In the car park in Belgium