I Catch a Cold

Wednesday September 1

When Mary woke up at 6am this morning it was only 7° in the van. Yes it is the first day of autumn, but that is ridiculously cold. She had to find multiple layers of clothing just to be able to sit up in bed and write the diary. They are going to have to buy a heater if it stays this cold. The photo is of me parked in the field and shows all the Solar heatingpanels at the camp and this would be about a quarter of them. Didn't warm me up though! And yes there were very few people staying here.

Little did they know that the cold had really got to me as well. After packing up they set out and followed the Tom Tom directions. Mary noticed that I was not running as well as usual. I got a real case of the coughs and splutters. She hoped I would feel better after a few kilometres but things went from bad to worse and faced with a hill climb, I couldn’t cope. At this stage Mary knew something was dreadfully wrong, so suggested that they go back to the main town and seek help as they seemed to be heading out of civilization. So they turned around. Alan said just drive on but she wouldn't have a bar of that. On the outskirts of town was a Renault garage so they pulled in there but no one spoke English but one man did have enough idea of how to direct them to the VW garage through the other end of town. They managed to get down there without stalling. Again no one spoke English, but they found a man who understood a little and he said to go to the next town which was bigger. He found the address of the VW people there and they put that into the Tom Tom and set off. By now I had warmed up and was feeling a lot better. I was nearly back to my old self.

The feathers and fur contingent on the back seat took all this in their stride. They had absolute confidence that I would get better. Not so in front though. It was looking like the end of the golden run.

They did find the VW garage easily using the Tom Tom but again no one spoke English. Luckily they found someone who did and he translated to the others. They said they couldn’t help as I was too old and if I needed parts they wouldn’t have any and it would take 3 days to get them. But they did give the name of another place to try, so into the Tom Tom with that address. He also drew a good map with features to look for like KFC and Nissan. When they got near they stopped in a carpark and found that I was idling fine with no accelerator and quite smoothly. They decided that it must have been the extremely cold snap. It would have been down well below 7° in the night and as it turns out I don’t do the cold either.
Alan got out the original manual and it basically gave the instructions for starting in cold weather. It seems VW’s take a bit if warming up when it is really cold so the panic was over. He reset the Tom Tom to go in the direction of Vienna and it turned out we had not gone out of our way at all, just taken a route that wasn’t a short cut through hills and back country. So it had been a good decision to turn around.

The drive was straightforward from there on apart for a stop to eat lunch and pick up a few groceries. Some English people in the last place we were staying suggested we come to Klosterneuburg as the transport links to Vienna are so good from here. You literally step out the gate onto the train. They said to buy a 3 day travel pass which you can buy at the camp. So they decided to take their advice and come here. They got one of the last two places left for vans in the whole camp and this is the late in the season. It is jammed packed full of campervans with very little space in between each one. It is top of the range and well set up for Vienna with brochures and booking facilities for tours and shows. The people speak excellent English and are really helpful. So they got all the info they need and sat in the sun, yes the sun, and planned the next three days. There is way too much to see in three days so they will have to be selective. Mary decided to go and buy the travel passes straight away as they come with a book of discounts and offers and that helped in planning what to see and do.

Mary also decided that all the bed linen was overdue for a wash and got that all organised as well while they looked at the brochures. She was never going to risk washing it where there was no drier. After a really good meal they made up the bed and tried to watch some TV but were too tired and ended up packing it in and going to sleep.