| Previous | Next |
Zeebrugge-Frankfurt
E.Route Zeebrugge-Frankfurt : ETD 0500* : ETA 1300 : Dist. 335 m.
A.Route Zeebrugge-Frankfurt : ATD 1715* : ATA 0530 : Dist. 328 m.
- Depart Zeebrugge 1715
- 1730 - 1752 Food stop.
- Pass Bruges 1745
- 1750 - 1755 Mechanical failure
- Pass Brussels 1940
- 2010 - 2110 Meal stop beyond Brussels
- 2145 - 2150 Radio stop ( London )
- 2525 - 2330 Fuel stop
- 2345 - 0107 Frontier Clearance
- Arrive Frankfurt 0530
Est.A.Spdt : 41.6 mph Gross A.Speed 32.00 mph. Net.A.Speed 43.70 mph.
Stop time : 2:49 hr Speedo TD 3215 Speedo TA 3543.
Comment : Relatively easy day, as can be seen from even the gross average speed : Autobahn travel increased the average considerably. Asterisks on ATD and ETD indicate the original intention of starting at 0500 on 16th., abandoned in favour of an all-night drive to begin the expedition proper.
Iona remembers:
I remember being terribly impressed with my new friends, the Edinburgh girl
Comexers. I had just finished my finals and almost immediately I was a bridesmaid.
I bought some material for the dress, sewed it up,first time inside out, second
time back to front and had to buy one! The Comex ladies on the other hand made all
those wonderful covers and curtains wearing bikinis (which they may even have made themselves)
in the open air in a large carpark - and they all fitted.
By a fluke I wasn't useless myself. Some clever person suggested I go to the American Bank and
change my Comex travellers cheques into dollars. I managed that and even took a vast amount
of one dollar bills. As it turned out later this was an extremely good move (but don't ask why
as I don't want to end up in jug)!
Did I correctly recollect that when the (other) girls were making the seat covers in Frankfurt
(and the boys were heavily engaged in moving the seats) I actually saw a sewing machine on the
tarmac. Did we really take a sewing machine to India?
A silly detail I'll always remember about Frankfurt is the excitement of being let loose in
the American canteen and its promise of a slap-up meal. However the food wasn't labled and
after quite a bit of deliberation with the others I was with I ended up with either strawberry
sauce on my meat course or mayonnaise on my pudding. I can't remember which.
Jim Lindsay's diary:
A day of firsts. It was the first day of the real journey, of course,and the day we discovered
that the radios hardly worked. It was the day of our first change of navigator, after Liz B
was asked by her driver "which way at the railway bridge?" and responded "what bridge?" Apparently
nobody had thought that an eyesight check might be useful. So ended a 20-minute navigating career.
Don Winford took over. We had our first breakdown and the first of many many roadside meals. We
even had a two-a-side international football match across the Belgian-German frontier in the small hours.
Today was a rest day at the USAF base at Frankfurt Rhein Main. We had arrived at 0530 after a night trip and it was not worth going to bed. People were tetchy. It cannot be denied that we had our share of squabbles - any group of people would. This morning there was a dispute about the sewing of seat covers. Everyone had high hopes about the famed lavishness of catering at US bases, so our lunch was eagerly awaited. There was certainly a lot, but it was not gourmet food. After that the contingent went into Frankfurt for some sight-seeing. On the way back there was a navigational cock-up (a running theme but not on my watch this time, I may say) before we got back to the air base. Or so we thought. A cruise around the premises did not turn up any other Comex coaches and we eventually found out that we were actually at USAF Wiesbaden. In the meantime we had had a grand tour of what was no doubt a sensitive secure site. Back eventually at Rhein Main, we spent the night in a vast gymnasium full of Comexers.
Concrete views by Liz Y
Concrete is interesting up to a point. Types of it were used across the Middle East from ancient times.
The Mayans used it. The Romans used it. If you were really fascinated by concrete, then the journey so far
had been up your street. There had been the parade ground and ferry terminal in Dover, portside at Zeebrugge,
the German autobahns and now the USAF base near Frankfurt am Main. There was a lot of concrete here and I
guess it did look light and silvery in the sunshine, but if you were sort of hoping to sample the olde
worlde charm of Alt Frankfurt, then you had to wait till later that day. There were jobs to do.
Fay had to convince some of the girls to stick around to make seat covers and curtains for Cuddles and was
finding it a bit like herding cats. Lengths of cheap, robust fabric were produced and we needed to get to
work sewing them and fitting them to the seats and windows. The aim was to preserve Cuddles' market value
until handover at the end of the journey. There was some incentive to see which contingent could return
its coach in the best condition. The material wasn't exactly haute-décor, but it was functional and kind
of à la mode, in an anything goes, 60s style. Some of it had a garish yellow and black pattern. Another
length was bubble gum pink. The curtain material had a more subtle, creamy colour.
Meanwhile the boys set about removing and then reversing some of the rear seats so that there were two sets
of seats facing each other, Pullman-style, towards the back of the bus. Eight seats now faced backwards.
Altogether the result was quite an improvement to the ambiance on board. With the bog roll cornices, Cuddles
was transformed into a cheerful, if idiosyncratic, mobile pad. The curtains proved very useful when the
coach attracted too much inquisitive attention later in the journey. They worked as a sunscreen too.
The weather at the base was sweltering, the temperature rising to over 90°, although this was nothing to the
intense heat later in the expedition. We worked in the glare of the hot sun, scantily clad to keep ourselves
cool. Servicemen stationed at the base were apparently warned to keep away from the Comex girls. There were
unverified rumours that a few men had "been put in the slammer" to avoid trouble.
I don't remember too much about our trip into Frankfurt in the late afternoon. Quaint old mediaeval quarter,
maybe pastries. Did we go to a bierkeller? Wasn't Goethe born in this city? I don't think any of us had
Faustian ambitions or felt tempted 'to sell our souls to the devil'. Oh, and Germany was expensive.
Since leaving Edinburgh, we'd had two nights on the road with one intervening night in Dover. We'd sewed,
reorganised and recouped at the USAF base. We'd sight-seen a bit in Frankfurt. This was just the beginning
and, early on 17th July, we set off with some gusto for Salzburg. Of course, we did subsequently have a lot
more encounters with concrete. We slept on it in Erzurum and Herat, and bounced over slabs of it on
Soviet-built roads in Afghanistan. It was all okay in a brutalist kind of way!
| Memorabilia Corner Postcard sent by Liz Y |
