Driving through a storm......

Someone rang Nigel at 0210 again today – must turn that phone off at night… we all managed to sleep until 0700 though so I think we are finally over the jetlag.

We woke to SNOW this morning – only a tiny amount covering the grass which with the constant rain was gone within the hour anyway.  This was a good thing as the weather report for today was apparently ‘ very bad for driving’ and the rain meant the snow and ice melted so it was a lot safer to drive.

We had the usual breakfast over at the little café in our village – we have only seen one other person staying here so far – there are 98 cabins….

We parked at the front door of the Nurburg Werks – the museum come theme park for the Nurburgring and gave Nigel two hours to play, timed so we could make Jona in Switzerland by about 6pm.

We explored the ‘werks’ and as there were only two other people in the place got to see and do everything we wanted to.  The ‘Gruen Hell’ was the highlight I think for Nigel and the boys loved playing all the big racing car games set up everywhere.

By 1215 we were on the road – easy 550km run down the autobahn to Switzerland, what we didn’t prepare for was the wind and rain making for a very scary trip (Goose and Chez – think back to that run we did in Italy and you’ll know exactly what we mean!!!)   It was constant trucks and traffic, pelting rain coming from all angles and wind gusts that gave Geraldton a run for it’s money.  We raced through as much as we could before dark and then things got even scarier when the light faded – of course there were delays due to accidents and road works and the trip was pushed out to over seven hours.   The average speed on the autobahn in 130kms but we were overtaken regularly by cars that made us feel like we were sitting on about 20km/hour.

We finally made it to Switzerland and checked into the B&B we had stayed at last time we were here – it’s a gorgeous little place overlooking the lake and on to the mountains.   5 minute refresh and we were off to Dani and Innes place for dinner.

Was great to catch up with them and their new baby (9 months) – Marios.   Dani had been texting us along the way and let us know how worried he was as we had just, unknowingly, driven through one of the biggest storms in Europe for 10 years!!   Zurich airport was shut down due to the wind and there had been truck roll overs etc….  the thought of the Aussies doing a 7 hour run in a car that may not have winter tyres was not a nice thought.  Nigel did extremely well getting us here safely.  I reckon all those driver training courses he’s done over the years all came to a head today!!!

We caught up on all the news about everyone from old times in Rapperswil / Jona. And made plans to do the Christmas markets the next day in the old town near the castle.

We were home by about 1030 and slept like logs!!!