Chucking in the Towel

The sauna, nearly complete, roared into Rally HQ in Sevenoaks at 9:30 on Saturday night. The word “roared” is not used metaphorically. The hole in the manifold is now so huge that it’s not unlike driving a large dragon.

The last 1200 miles took Sven just under 26 hours, including a quick kip in a delightful Danish petrol station and a refuel every six meters or so.

The windscreen wiper "issue" identified in Sweden manifested itself most dramatically on the German Autobahn, when - at considerable speed - the wipers packed up completely in a thunderstorm.

Like any seasoned traveller, Sven scoffed at the continental weather, donned a pair of ridiculous sunglasses and stuck his kopf out of the window to see more clearly - this proved momentarily effective but he found it surprisingly tricky to steer and lean at the same time.

Giving up, he ploughed through a line of stout Teutonic cones onto the hard shoulder and hotwired the wiper motor directly to the battery. This solved the first issue but the electric windows were now stuck down and he realised that the wet leg he'd been suffering from was due to the fact the winscreen was falling out. This news, he had to admit, came as a relief: like the proverbial pessimistic German vegetarian, he had feared the wurst.

With our charity challenge completed, HMS Stockholm will be auctioned along with her spare parts following some mechanical work to get her back into top shape. Over 4000 miles and through 12 countries, the old Volvo engine consumed not a drop of oil or water despite being driven for over 10 hours continuously at various points. Apart from our temporarily cooked brakes and various electrical glitches, the car ran without serious fault for the whole trip. We think that’s pretty impressive.

The Sevenoaks to Stockholm Sauna Rally has featured in newspapers across the world from the Prague daily to South Korean Gazette (I would give you its proper title but my Korean’s not that hot). Googling “Sharrad Wilkinson Sauna” now produces around nine pages of results.

So far, we have raised over £4500 for Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust. Our JustGiving site: www.justgiving.com/sevenoakstostockholm will remain open until Christmas, so if you haven’t donated it’s not too late.
Lars, recently purchased Swiss felt hat firmly on head, has gone back to his veg, safe in the knowledge that if he ever gets into a sauna again it’s unlikely to be a moving one.

Sven, sitting in a ten foot high pile of towels and pine off-cuts, wonders what to do with himself next. Perhaps something a little more low key is in order.

Thank you everyone.

Images of the trip will be uploaded to our website within the next few days.

With thanks to our sponsors: Dane Valley Volvo, The White Company, Hammamas, Percy Walker and Co., Harvey's Video Productions, Ground Handling International, Ditto, Liberty International Underwriters, Norpe Saunas, Absolute Graphix, Tonbridge Learning Zone, Hildenborough Volvo.

Stockholm - Damage Limitation

The Sauna has made it to Stockholm. She’s content, we can tell. Coming off the ferry earlier, there was a spring in the old girl’s step: back to her homeland after twenty years banishment to England as a mobile skip. Our bright Turkish towels (thank you Hammamas) TIGHTLY fastened around our waists (following a previous cock-up on the alps) we took the low road (the only road) to the city centre and proceeded to get lost in the unimaginable traffic.

Apparently, provincial Swedes call Stockholm the Ice Queen (we know this only from the guidebook), presumably from the frosty reception they get when arriving (terrible pun not from the guide book). We're staying in the Old Town or "Gamla Stan", an island in itself - Stockholm is made up of a staggering 24,000 islands (direct quote) - and we wandered out earlier in search of food and drink, like the good hunter-gatherers we are. Moose was on the menu, naughty, naughty moose - a delicious treat, if a little heavy. Killing one is an entirely different proposition and requires some thinking about.

Sven is seriously worried that his stomach may have shrunk due to lack of food (he's cut down to three large meals a day) but Lars assures him that having to stop eating after the fourth course is in fact perfectly normal. Stockholm at first glance seemed as icy as we'd been led to believe but like most places, it warmed after a good square meal and seems a wonderful place.

Sadly though we're not on holiday, something that has become quickly apparent during the last few days. From the beginning this has been a challenge, firstly to raise £5000 for a cause we both feel strongly about and secondly to drive a 20 year old pine-clad estate across Europe to Sweden. We've achieved the latter of these objectives and are only 500 quid or so short of the former. I think we can call that a success.

It's been a pretty taxing journey, mentally, physically and financially. The car has seen better days. Both the saunagoers are essentially broke. Lars, quite sensibly, is taking the next flight out of Stockholm tomorrow. He's flying SAS and thinks that this entitles him to a free green beret and a set of throwing knives at duty free.

And Sven...? Well a captain should never desert a sinking ship, and with a pile of clean towels and at least ten hours of Dylan on the i-pod... why not?



With thanks to: the sauna cladding team, our parents and hugely supportive families, Tory, Tom's generous neighbours ( I still have a kilo of Tate and Lyle for the way home), our PR man: Joe, his family and assorted publicity assistants, Mike King (have you got that Sicaflex off yet?), the "Turdo" support crew, the Beemer Boys and Golf Guys (for slowing down for us), the Citroen 1CV man for the delicious beer, our dutch friends in Prague, the enthused Austrian traffic jam victims, Anita and Anders (the only people in Poland to look twice at the car), Dane Valley Volvo, Broadstairs (for the armour piercing headlights), all our media friends and generous sponsors, Adam Oliver (what a long journey it would have been without a radio), Beatrice and Hagen for your offers of a place to stop, Jason for some cracking logos, the long-suffering Ditto (the best print shop in Sevenoaks), all at GHI for their support and enthusiasm, Paul Alexander (who's evidently in the wrong job), the staff at SDBTT who we look forward to meeting when we're both back, and finally anyone who has supported us financially or otherwise along the way.

HMS Stockholm Meets her Match

HMS Scandinavia, the ship which is, at present, taking us across the Baltic is both older (some 30 years) and heavier (heavy) than our own rusty hulk. Ferries seem to have a peculiar feel to them and this one is no exception. Where else would you see a large group of men downing pints at half eight in the morning watching endless episodes of what looks like a Czech version of countdown?
“Ah, tuc Carol, consonant please, and another, and another, and another... Ok yes, I have a 15, zlelstwitetznictzly, how’s that?”

We’re on our third cabin now after various bits have fallen off the wall in the other two – most notably perhaps the tap, and the thermostat – no great loss as it didn’t work anyway. Lars is overjoyed at the prospect of having two spare bunks and has nabbed the extra pillows and now relines reading his book in a sort of “princess and the pea” arrangement. I shan’t have to shave for a week, having used some of the ship’s own-brand shower gel, which seems to possess all the important properties of Agent Orange.

Thank you Callum for the Custard Creams, I know you didn’t want to let them go.

The Long Road to Gdansk and the Morning Post.

Ever found yourself considering a driving holiday to Northern Poland? Stop, think carefully and book yourself on the next flight to Torremolinos. It’ll be awful, yes, but nothing, I repeat NOTHING in comparison to this. We drove the sauna through the night, being overtaken at various points on the cobbled tracks by a lorry full of jangling calor gas cylinders, a car towing a four metre trailer, 16 UPS trucks carrying the morning post and... wait for it... a house, on the back of a flatbed
truck.

You might think we were going slowly, but the sauna’s wooden needle barely dipped below sixty for the whole journey.

We’re now also in a position to confirm that the Daily Mail are wrong in their assertion that every Polish man under 40 is living illegally in a flat in East Anglia. They are in fact in Gdansk, thumbing their rosaries with one hand while the other hangs nonchalantly out the car window leaving the sturdy Polish thighs to do the bulk of the driving through the rush hour.

All this has rather taken it out of us. After a six hour non-stop drive from Berlin,
Sven and indeed the Sauna have developed chest infections – we’re wondering if the towels might be to blame – and Lars is now muttering incomprehensibly for much of the time. Our brief nap in the Polish woods did little to enhance our general wellbeing. We boarded the ferry to Stockholm (at ridiculous and unexpected expense) and hope to make the Swedish capital by afternoon on Thursday.

The sauna, having sounded “agricultural” for much of the journey – a Czech man made a point of stopping to point at it: “Traktor, tuc?!” – is now verging on the asthmatic and the electrics seem to be suffering from the damp weather. After five days of glorious sunshine, Gdansk gloom instantly put pay to our already ailing windscreen wipers – I can understand why Lech Walesa was so fed up.

North

Failing completely to appreciate the historical significance of the date, the Sauna left Prague and ploughed its way into Poland on Tuesday night following a brief stop in Dresden after bombing up the motorway from the south.

Dresden’s a remarkable place: wide airy tree-lined avenues and riverbanks dotted with picnicking students (who occasionally stand to throw a frisbee or kick a ball), weaving cyclists and joggers and groups strolling between cafes. All of this serves to give it a real university feel, enhanced by eye-popping architecture at every intersection – a considerable amount of which has been painfully reconstructed after we did a fairly thorough job of flattening it in 1945.

The Polish border brought a few surprises for Sven and Lars.
All though all roads may well lead to Rome, a great number of decent roads seem to lead to the Polish border, where they stop, abruptly. Lars left the wheel around midnight at a petrol station outside Berlin for Sven to drive the remaining miles into Poland, which he anticipated would be straightforward if not particularly relaxing.

Not the case.

Czech out the Sauna - Prahahaha

In the Czech news today:

A pine clad Volvo held up traffic in central Prague yesterday after some furious lane twitching in the Czech capital. Expressions ranged from bemused to outraged as the sauna swerved across four lanes of traffic in an attempt to reach a free parking space in the middle of the old town - something that quite simply does not exist.

Spare parts used so far: one headlight bulb

Other consumables used: one can of injector cleaner (delicious with salad).

Lars and Sven now plan to drive overnight to northern Poland where they'll find somewhere to kip until the ferry arrives.

Sven then expects to spend the next eighteen hours being sick.

Apologies for the brief message - a larger, image laden blog when we get to Stockholm!

Tally ho.

T&C