Munich and Close By

On the Monday after our exciting weekend at Adenau and the Nurburgring, Ollie, Willy and I headed for Munich where we were to pick up Ollie’s girlfriend Xanthe and stay for a few nights. The drive was long and blocked with traffic – not the autobahn we had all heard of with people doing max speed – but we finally made it to Munich train station where Xanthe was waiting after her trip from Zurich. We all packed into the Peugeot and headed off to find another campground.

The ground which we settled at was in an outer suburb of Munich in a nice tree-filled area containing a zoo and golf course and river and more. For this leg of the trip we had decided to stay in the campground’s ‘cabins’. These turned out to be nothing more than caravans parked up in a back corner of the camp ground. Two rooms and four beds to each caravan.

Camping in style

That evening, Willy and I decided to walk up to the shops which we had seen earlier to try and find something to eat. I wouldn’t say the idea was a mistake, more so we made a mistake in choosing the direction to leave the campground. And after over an hour of walking passed abandoned houses, corn maizes and roadside life-size crucifixes, we had to ask someone where to find food. This led us on another walk for 20 or so minutes until we found what turned out to be a rather marginal Italian restaurant. After dinner we took the metro into the city and had a good walk around, scoping out the place for future referance so we could make the most of the upcomming days. We decided to taxi back to the camp ground – we had no idea how to get back that would take any less than a number of hours.

The following day we got up early and headed out to the BMW showroom and museum. The showroom is an architectural marvel designed by Zaha Hadid. The museum itself was amazing. The presentation and interior design was immaculate and the information accurate and very entertaining. They had one of almost every type of BMW you could think of from E21s to Isettas to DTM race M3s and CSLs, M1s, motorbikes and concept cars. Of most interest was the Gina concept car which appears to morph rather than swing open doors and bonnets. It is truely amazing.

BMW Museum

Gina

That afternoon we headed into town to take a look around. The first thing which you notice about Munich is that it is an amazingly walkable city. Almost the entire CBD-kinda area is pedestrian friendly with very little roads. And there were shops selling anything and everything you could want – finally I could buy some ledahousen (not that I did!). The clothes shops I found to be the most interesting because there was many outfits which were purely German in style. We also managed to check out some of the more historic sites including the town hall and square, and many of the crazy statues of Lions that Europe has to offer.

Red flowers and buildings

The following day it was time to leave Munich and head for Vienna. We decided that we would leave in the afternoon after taking a visit to Dachau, the first of the German concentration-camps used in World War II. Dachau was full of history, but bleak and grim in its atmosphere. I dont think that either Willy or I said one word to each other the entire time we were there, it almost felt disrespectful to talk when you were standing in one of the cruelest places in modern history. Just being there as visitors, we were unable to really understand the experience of what it would have been like to be taken from your home and family and housed there against your will. Still standing are the solitary confinement and special prisoner bunker, one of the sleeping houses and the crematorium and gas chamber (which thankfully was never used at Dachau). We returned to the car still almost in silence.

Dachau

We commenced the trip to Vienna. The day was about to brighten up as we were taking a detour to Schloss Neuschwanstein in Fussen, the castle of Mad King Ludwig II which was the inspiration for the Disneyland Castle. It was set up in the mountains of southern Germany and was absolutely amazing. Although only built around 200 years ago, it had the feel of a real medieval castle, complete with towers and walls and forest surrounding it. It was definitely very cool to see a real castle of this type!

Schloss Neuschwanstein

That night we camped not far from the Austrian border, it had got late and we decided to continue our trip to Vienna the following day.

Nurburgring!

Willy, Ollie and I arrived in Adenau on Thursday night. We had originally planned to stay in Frankfurt for one night but none of us really wanted to stay there for much longer as we had all seen plenty of the small amount which it had to offer.

After driving around for some time, encountering only ludicrously expensive camoping grounds, we finally found one which entailed a mix of nice locaion and non-english speaking patrons. This is all fine though. After holding up fingers and saying words such as ‘zelt’ and ‘auto’, we had managed to instruct the site owners as to how many people, tents and cars we had. That night promply ended. It was now the evening and tired as we all were, we went to sleep early in anticipation for the weekend to follow.

Adenau Campground

The next day was Friday. Not the official start of the weekend, but a good enough day to check out our new accommodation and the Nurburgring itself. We had rented an apartment in Adenau which overlooked and interesting corner on the track, no only could we see cars persuing each other at speed from our deck, but across the road was a prime viewing spot which could be reached after a short stair ascension.

View from our apartment

That afternoon it was time to head up to the track. Willy and Ollie were to meet up with some of their friends from various BMW E30 M3 websites and Ollie was also awaiting the arrivial of his friend Can (Chun) who had driven all the way from Turkey in his M3. After heading to the start/finish line, the first thing we began to notice was the unbelieveable amount of Porsches (especially GT3 and GT3RSs) and M3 (more CSLs than I’ve ever seen). During this initial astonishment, we met up with a fellow named Uwe (or oova if you want phoenetics). He was one of the website people and has driven from the UK in his 250hp, DTM-caged, handles like it’s on rails, M3.

Alfa at the Ring

Each night at the Ring is open tourist driving from 5 till 7. This meant that Uwe was able to start his driving weekend early and Olllie, Willy and I were all lucky enough to be able to join him for some laps. Now Uwe knew the track well, he had originally raced motorcycles there when he lived in Germany and was up to around 200 laps as a car owner. This meant he new every corner of the 26km track like the back of and by God, you felt it. I think that my first lap of the Ring was quite possibly the single most exhilerating experience of my entire life. If ever a person had grinned, I had out grinned them – for a full 8.34 mintues aswell, topping out at 220kph at the fastest part of the track. G forces like nothing I’ve expereinced. Just amazing, absolutely amazing. I think that the following picture does justice to the grandure felt from this ride.

After my first lap

But to be honest, you can not understand what it is like to experience something like a high speed lap at Nurburgring. We were passing everying from Porsche Turbos and GT3RSs, to turbo Civics and Lancer Evolutions. Uwe treats track driving like it is a philosophy, and I think this is one thing which separates him from the rest, allowing him to pass everyone in front of him even when he is surging due to low fuel.

The rest of the weekend went like a blur. There were hundreds of cars, thousands of people, a few more laps for the three of us and an overall amazing experience. We got sunburnt, we made friends with a kebab shop owner, ate dinner each night at the famous Pistenklaus, drank too many beers, ran around on the track at night and had experienced what motorsport was all about. I feel like i’m cutting this short, but it is hard to put into words what the weekend was like with out just repeating the one word ‘amazing’.

Oh, and I am now happy to say that I have seen in real life, and talked to owners of, real Euro-style Kadett Cs. So damn exciting!

Retro Rides!

On Thursday last week it was about time to leave London. I had been there for too long and finally the date had come for my departure. I was off to Southend-On-Sea, a trip which I had planned months prior to even leaving New Zealand.

The main reason for the trip to Southend was to catch a lift to Gaydon in Warwickshire for the UK Retro-Rides Gathering, very similar to the yearly national meet we have for oldschool.co.nz. Lots of people, lots of cars. Anyway, I took the train to Southend. Well, I took the second train as the one I had booked was cancelled (which stressed me out a tiny bit, but proved to be nothing to worry about at all). On arrival I was picked up by Mark from Retro-Rides in his wide-rimmed, stretched-tyre’d, slammed VW Polo, and after a bumpy ride we arrived at his house.

I was not there long as he was just picking me up. Soon we drove over to Mark’s friend Ged’s place, where I was to stay for the night. That night we ate dinner together, talked rubbish, and they bought me a selection of “beers I have never had before” to drink. Proper British ales.

England's Gold Ale

The next morning it was time to head to Gaydon, but first Ged decided to show me around Southend while Mark did some last minute work on his cars. We drove down to the sea. The day was amazing, one of the finest days I had experienced in England since I had arrived – this summer is very wet! As the weather was nice, we decided to walk to the end of the Southend Pier, the longest lesiure pier in the world.

Southend Pleasure Pier

The pier stretches 1.3 miles (2.1km) from the shoreline out into the sea, so it took a wee while to walk the distance. It turns out that at the end of the pier there used to be a ball room, until it burnt down. There also used to be a number of pubs and restaurants, but they also burnt down, leaving only the rusted steel foundations behind. After a look around the end of the pier, we took the train back along it towards the shore, it was now time to head to Retro-Rides.

We arrived at Mark’s and almost immediately, it was time to leave. Mark and I headed off in his 500 horsepower MkIII Cortina Van, Ged followed close behind in Mark’s supercharged v6 MkIII Cortina Wagon, and bringing up the rear was Mark and Ged’s wives in Ged’s son’s Chevette hatch.

Mark's MKIII Cortinas

Around 3 hours later, we arrived at the Gaydon Heritage Motor Museum, the  spot where the Retro-Rides show was to happen. Camping was the accommodation of the time, but I had no tent! Luckily a member of the gm-t.co.nz forum, Euan, had brought one for me, and amazingly it was brand new and better than any other tent I’ve ever used (he even gave it to me at the end, amazing generousity)! A blow up matress was even included in the package.That night we walked around, talked to a few people, had some beers and a bbq, but all hit the sack relatively early as we were all pretty tired after the journey up.

[image camp site]

The next day was more of the same. Mucking around, talking to people, bbqing, etc – everyone was waiting for the following day, the car show. Oh, and we also went to Santa Pod dragstrip, but to be completely honest, I find drag racing to be pretty boring. We were there much longer than I would have liked too! Gah! But it was OK, because the next day was the show!

[show from above]

Which was pretty amazing. Not only were there hundreds of excellent cars, there was free entry to British motor museum. We spent the day walking around the museum’s car park, looking at all these great cars. Some which I had seen in magazines, other’s from the internet which I had always admired and plenty of other excellent cars. It was especially cool to see one of those MK1 Golfs with the ridiculously tidy engine bay!

[car]

[car]

[car]

To be honest, it is a huge effort to get pictures for this, there are hundred of them and I don’t have the time to upload them all just now. I’ll chuck up a few and then the others later.

I am also changing the sizes of the images on Flickr, it takes way to long to upload all these pictures at 4 meg each.

*note for later,

I will add in the images soon! There are a lot to process.