Namur to Amsterdam with one minor collision

8th June 2018 – Today’s destination Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Meeting point the Citadel of Namur (which had some serious hairpin bends) 9am.

Team kbbreview assembled just before 9am, bags packed and ready to go for day two. Today’s dress – The kbbreview Stig.

With a good night’s sleep in the bag, we were raring to go. Sadly, the enthusiasm was a little short lived as driver on duty Lindsay had a little mishap coming out of a car park. The source: an aggressively placed bollard. Lindsay said she didn’t like the look of it, so thought she’d give it a good seeing to. Turns out the bollard gave our Daisy a seeing to instead. Oh dear. 

Instead of heading north through Belgium towards Aachen on the border of Germany and the Netherlands to snap a photo of the team in all three of the countries (one of the day’s challenges), the search was on to find a garage to make sure the car was still safe to drive. Turns out, the track rod on the front left wheel was a bit bent (that’s not a good sign, apparently!), so we needed to replace it. Simple right? Not on a Friday when most mechanics are looking forward to clocking off for a pint and the part for a banged-up 2004 Vauxhall Vectra is in short supply. 

Very few miles, but seven garages and eight hours of searching, waiting, weighing up options, panicking, laughing and car delerium later, Daisy was in the hands of a very kind mechanic and things were starting to look up. Henesh helped the mechanic jack the car up and remove the wheel, ready for the new part, which we’d finally located at a nearby Opel dealer. With a glimmer of hope finally on the horizon, the team were nearly back on the road. Our destination of Amsterdam still the same distance away as it was at 9am that morning. 

  

Before we got the all clear to carry on the journey, the car got a lift on the ramp for a few final checks. Thankfully, the mechanic’s thumbs went up – we were back in the game…if a little behind. Bollard 1 – Team kbbreview 0.

On the plus side, the eight-hour delay did give us a chance to complete some of the other challenges: we got a picture of a dog in the car (belonging to one of the many mechanics we visited); we took a photo of the whole team on a bike; we ate Stroopwafels and came up with cheese puns (“You’re all off to Amsterdam and we’re still stuck in Namur, but don’t give Edam”).

  

If a little behind the other teams, within a couple of hours, we’d made it across the border to the Netherlands, inching closer to that final destination. And, finally, at 9pm (a whole 12 hours since setting off), we arrived in Amsterdam! Better late than never, right? 

Head over to our Instagram page for some highlights from day 2 – @kbbreview

We’d like to thank our partners who have been very generous in donating to such worthy causes, HPP, The 1810 Company, Uform, Nobillia and Blum.

If you would like to donate, please click here

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