Alex and Matt driving to Austria
Alex
So I foolishly booked tunnel tickets for 5:30am which required a 2:45 start in order to
collect Matt at 3… this was a silly idea! I awoke at 2:30, turned off my alarm and went back
to sleep. (Un)Fortunately Jess had also woken up and I was turfed out of bed and sent to
expo.
Things went smoothly until I lost the tunnel tickets somewhere outside Matt’s
house. Thankfully everything is automated and an actual ticket doesn’t seem to be
required.
Things progressed smoothly as we set off following signs for Brussels. Unfortunately we
followed them for a bit too long and ended up in the city centre. After passing through many
tunnels we appeared on the NE side of the city, not quite where we intended.
After several dubious U-turns and passing through the same motorway junction about 5
times we eventually got back on track.
At this point we hit the biggest thunderstorm I have ever seen ~3cm of standing water on
the motorway and large chunks of tree were flying everywhere.
Things wen't smoothly for about 8 hours as we passed through Luxembourg and germany
Things went a little awry at the Austrian border. Turns out my sav nav can’t join up maps
of several countries and doesn’t do international travel very well. We dutifully turned off
the motorway before entering Austria and got hopelessly lost. Eventually we found our way
across the border and the sat nav locked in. Eventually arrived at base camp around 21:30,
~19 hours after setting off.