Okay, so I left my house with this van on Monday 22nd and got back a few minutes before midnight last night.
Approximately 1800 miles with the original "unreliable" lucas epic pump with over 200k on the clock, without missing a beat (other than the small fire about 5 miles after leaving home).
A lot of mucking about and then Transitmania. Nothing ususal/different there... except I left, dumped a few bits at the workshop and drove straight to dover to meet up with some members of the transit van club, where we camped on Marine Parade virtually on the beach ready to get on the 5.50am ferry to Calais.
On the ferry we had my van, a mk7 swb (Brett and Donna), Peter Lee (+debs) steve stringer mk2 van, a mk1 Jennings Road Ranger (Paul and Mark), A 66 mk1 camper (stu) and a mk3 frisky camper (Janet and Simon - Freddyvan on here).
Photo taken at about 3.45am
We got of the ferry and drove in convoy to Lommel in Belgium for a nice lunch where we were met by Bridget (a Lommel resident who is a member of the NSVA who has a connect and an econoline) and we went to Fords Proving ground (which is not open to anyone who doesn't have a valid business reason to be there) where we had an excellent presentation about what they did, and were taken around and over the test courses in a mk8 bus (very impressed with that btw) and then a high speed run (circa 240km/h) around their high speed test track and a high speed trip around their handling circuit. They were running tests all the time we were there prototypes etc being tested the whole time we were there. An absolutely fantastic experience - but obviously because of what and where it is there are no photos (except the official group ones which will probably appear on the TVC website at some point) as we had to sign secrecy disclamers. The photo is in the carpark in the center of Lommel
We then headed in to Germany... where we stayed the night in a campsite run by a very friendly german couple. 1 night, currywurst with extra chips, 2 beers (250ml) cost me a grand total of 12E60.
We left the next day we left the campsite at about 7am and headed to the Ford factory in Cologne (Also the european headquarters) where we were made excessively welcome. We were met at the factory by a number of other transit vanners (unfortunately i can't remember all their names) with mk1 and mk2 vans. We were given a presentation about the plant and the history of Ford in Germany and then given a (very good) guided tour of the fiesta plant. Once that was done we were given lunch IN the heritage area where were shown a good selection of the german heritage collection with an excellent guide. The monument is the Henry Ford monument erected on the bank of the Rhine in memory and signed by Henry Ford Junior.
We then took photos etc, and were invited to a small meet at Getrag transmissions where there were all sorts of vehicles including, mustangs, volvo amazon, 2cv, austin healy sprite, even an old caravan. Again everyone was incredibly welcome and we were given pudding (a bit odd bu there we go!) We then went to the next campsite which was excellent.
The next day was a "filler" and we spent the day in cologne having a mooch around and a few beers in the town. We went back to the campsite for a bbq and a few more beers - where we met a nice couple from manchester who had been touring europe for 4 weeks in their (very well done)self built ex city link 11 plate jumbo. One of the other campers said we were on German breakfast telly as a result of the plant trip!
We then headed out to the supernats in Schutterspark in Holland for a van meet, where we met up again with Bridget (in the econoline this time) where once again we all had a fantastic time with live music and plenty of beer and chips!
No good photos as I forgot... sorry
Some of the vans had some small niggles on the trip, but nothing massive. The only problem that actually caused our convoy to stop for a short while was a radiator hose popping off!
Its been the best fortnights holiday I have had - absolutely fantastic. If you had the chance to go on the German trip and didn't you massively missed out! The Transit Van Club meets are often hard to beat, but this has been the best yet!
And once again - this van is brilliant!