This morning I turned the key in our car and it started: just like that.
All the cold Belgium camp-site air that had been slowly freezing the engine overnight could not impede the Mondeo's morning spring into life. No twenty minutes spent trying to coax a toyota diesel engine into crawling out of slumber.
And with that, we're back in the business of touring randomly across Europe.
At last it's time for us to come clean with the full story: the sad, sad tale of what happened to the little Townace van that couldn't (and didn't).
This tale also includes a giant yellow bear, a service station carpark and—mothers please skip this bit—not doing the washing up.
Cranky the Townace (aka Townie) was no stranger to not-working. Lights, exhaust, spare tires; at least three things not working (or entirely detached) was just everyday humdrum for our Toyota Townace. His door open light was unrelated to the status of doors and more an indication to his mood. And it was almost always in red nag mode.
On day ten, exactly one-tenth into the planned hilarity, Cranky out-did himself and completely - in mechanical terms - crapped himself on the E40 motor-way whilst driving towards Stockholm. He could drive up and down mountains and the world's longest underground traffic tunnel, but a flat motor-way was proving to be just too much and Cranky needed to shed a piston.
Or, as Swedish mechanics seem to refer to them, one of the "small wheels in engine".
As we pulled over on the E40 a small puddle of orange liquid started pooling under the car. This was particularly worrying as were unaware that Townie contained any orange liquids (we checked our orange juice supplies and were equal parts reassured and concerned to discover they were intact).
Trying to locate the source of the ominous gurgling noises we checked the engine, conveniently located under the passenger seat, Townie added some hissing to the gurgling. Townie clearly wanted some me-time, so we left him on the side of the motorway and walked 2km along the side of the road to the service station at the next exit. I was nominated to wear the EU-required reflective yellow safety vest for the trip. Apparently I was disproportionally excited about this.
After a leisurely lunch of service-station-approved hamburgers Si and I wondered back down (Simon having managed to wrestle the day-glo vest off myself) to see if Townie had concluded the wetting of himself.
He had.
We stepped over the puddles of Townace fluids to find that Cranky had concluded doing other things as well. Like having any oil or water in the engine. And not smelling like "broken". Mot and Ness purchased and lugged down some replacement oil and water that we were able to use to coax Cranky along the road (extremely slowly) and into the Preem service station car park where he took the initiative to turn himself off.
Once the Swedish roadside mechanic had listened to the death-rattle stylings of Cranky's engine he decided the way to help us would be get his mechanic mate and a passing policeman to come over and have a listen to the engine. The assortment of noises produced by the engine did indeed highly entertain the assembled crowd. They then took a vote and declared Cranky the Townace to be - and we're quoting here - "very kaput".
That night we set up our tents next to the service station carpark, under the watchful smile of the Preem bear. We had some tough decisions to make in the morning before Sten, our mechanic, came back to take Cranky to the wrecker. What would be worth carrying with us now that we're on foot? What objects should be left to their own devices in Sweden? To make the selection process easier we simply threw-out the wok, plates and utensils as each was used to cook dinner. There was no washing up to be done that night.
And our beverages. We were sure to finish off all the beverages. The bin wasn't getting those as well.
The next day four heavily laden Australians showed up at the town of Galve, propelled solely by their own feet, and caught the next train out to Stockholm. One of them seemed to be carrying a car stereo under his arm. All of them still seemed to find the situation surprising hilarious.
History of exactly what went wrong:
Problem: Dash lights stop working.
Solution: Si holds his illuminated mobile phone near the display until we're able to gaffa tape a torch to the side of the dash.
Problem: Spare tire falls off and rolls down road.
Solution: Gaffa taped the supports back together with the tire firmly in place.
Problem: Rear park and license plate lights stop working.
Solution: Isolated the lights at the rear of the car and powered them off a new circuit using speaker cable running from the car stereo ignition power. Switch installed in dash to independently turn the rear lights on and off.
Problem: Exhaust snaps in half.
Solution: Two sections reattached using a butter knife carefully attached with wire. Aluminum foil and more wire used to seal the join. Involved much crawling under the car.
Problem: Piston (we believe) goes horribly wrong. Engine now dead.
Solution: Get out and walk.
We have no van. We did have a van, and now we don't. Cranky the Townace carried us through ten days of hilarity across England, Norway and Sweden before going all "kaput" on us.
So as part of the grieving process we made a memorial video for him. It's all part of moving on. Even as we speak I'm in London with Si while Mot and Ness are in Glasgow - all in preparation for Hilarity Take Two.
Because my friends, the Hilarity100: it must go on. We're still marking off the days, each with their compulsory shenanigans, and before the week is out Europe will once again be subject to our random travels.
Driving around Norway we've seen plenty of houses (and bus stops and letterboxes for that matter) with grass growing on the roof. Makes plenty of sense from the insulation perspective, but the question remains, would you have to mow your roof?
Walking around the residential backstreets of Trondheim, I emerged from the end of a leafy walkway up a hill, turned to the left and had that question answered for me:
Yes. Yes you do.
If it were me, I'd just buy a mountain goat and sit it up on the roof.
The back lights broke and we fixed that with speaker cable and terminal blocks. Then the exhaust broke in half and we fixed that with a bread knife, alfoil and lots of wire.
And then it started making strange sounds on the E14 in Sweden on the way to Stockholm and it's now, in the words of a Swedish mechanic, "very kaput."
So we're down one Townace, and catching the train to Stockholm.
We seemed to entertain the roadside assist guy, another roadside assist guy he called over, and a passing policeman. That's our job: to share the hilarity.
We'll let you know more once we work out what we're doing. In the meantime, we've got a train to catch.
Bonus quiz question: can you guess the Swedish word for Broken? We know it.
Speaking of milk (and we were) here's a handy diagram informing you of one key tip for buying milk from service stations late at night in Sweden.
Also it should be pointed out that unlike Norway, Sweden's shops don't have handy ten-by-ten grids showing all the different dairy products in all the main European languages, which is how we avoided this particular dilemma earlier in the trip.
Oh what a berry beautiful day,
some cloud berries found their way.
They bunched together orange and ripe,
As the Hilarity crew tried to contain their hype.
Piled on top of vanilla ice-cream,
the Cloudberries began to scream.
Past the tonsils and into the tummy,
Norwegian Cloudberries are so yummy!!!
If it wasn't so cold you could be tempted to go swimming.
Even when the weather is miserable this place looks fantastic.
Nearly every day we turn up at a new campsite and as a general rule we don't have a lot in the way of life's little luxuries. There's no internet, no TV and limited electricity for anything else. So we have to make our own fun.
Norway's general abundance of water has meant that we've been camping in front of it most nights in one form of another. Accordingly, most of the campsites are now devoid of all smooth flat pebbles.
But what to do with some of the bigger rocks?
The beautiful glacial water of Norway's rivers was just crying out for drinks to chill and after a few minutes we had a superbly engineered, free-flowing beer fridge.
Obviously we needed something to do with the empties afterwards...
Now we'd hate to perpetuate some of the traits of the stereotypical Aussie, but for the record, drunken cheering will not get you kicked out of a camping ground in Norway.
As any good high-school chemistry student knows, you don't describe waters as "clear" because it's technically "colourless". Here in Norway not only can the water be described as "hand-numbingly cold" but as as extremely colourless. It's amazing how crystal clear water is when it's fresh off a mountain glacier.
And even in towns, where rivers tend to be a brownish (aka Thames brown) colour the water-ways here are still completely transparent in a rather creepy way. As you cross bridges you can count the many bicycle carcasses on the river bed below.
I'll admit I've never been so entertained by a milk carton as the bizarre history-of-milk series that Tine milk in Norway are running.
Click on the pic above for a closer look. Bonus points if you can work out all the text under each drawing.
We knew we were lugging excess electrical equipment around Europe for a reason: the first Hilarity podcast is here. Experience all the fun and excitement of a Toyota Townace struggling up the longest underground traffic tunnel in the world just as if you were squashed in the back between Mot and Ness. You'll have to imagine your own overpowering diesel fumes though.
Podcast Episode One (MP3 format, 2MB)
I've got to admit that I was expecting some pretty spectacular views as we drive around Europe, but I think Norway caught us all off guard.
It's just unrelentingly beautiful.... day after day of stunning picture-postcard views.
Every bend in the road or tunnel opens out to a stunning new scene of montains, fjords and blue skies. Even the bad weather brings spectacular views of mountains shrouded in clouds and blue-grey colours.
After an afternoon of driving through tunnel after tunnel—and this was the non-tunnel option of the two routes described in the Lonely Planet guide—we decided that tunnels were strategically placed to give your eyes a break from the scenery, otherwise you'd go into some kind of visual-sensory-overload.
When I get a chance I'll post some more photos of the freakishly beautiful scenery, right now I need to head out and see some more of it.
The first thing people seemed to tell us when we said we were starting in Norway was that the beer is terribly expensive. Sadly I can neither confirm nor deny that rumour as we're yet to actually buy any here. As it turns out, Norway's customs limits are pretty generous and without the concerns of weight limits like air travellers on the Spirit of Tasmania MS Fjord Norway, the Townie rolled off in Bergen with no less than 16 litres of beer.
Our Aussie flag stubbie holders will come to good use.
Off the ferry and into the townace we climbed,
to a camping ground we would hope to find.
Navigating in the dark,
whoops over a speed hump... we lost a part!
A spare tyre fell out off the townace,
what can't be fixed with Gaffa tape??
The fun of a euro safety sign,
and a fluoro vest to keep the traffic in line.
So we fixed the townie with sticky tape,
and found a camp spot next to a lake.
Our Townace passed its first Hilarity100 challenge when it successfully drove from London to Newcastle without any parts falling off. Simon and I did have to make several calls to Mot and Ness, who were waiting to be picked up in Newcastle, to put back our time of arrival an hour at a time; but the Townie's all about class, not speed.
Then while we were waiting in the Townie to drive a board the Fjordline ferry we noticed something odd about the side of the the ship. It you look closely you can still see the outline of the previous name of the vessel. If you looked even closer again, because you have an hour an half wait to board the ferry, then you could resolve that outline as the letters "Spirit of Tasmania".
Yes indeed, the good old Spirit of Tasmania that had once faithfully ferried people - including thirteen year old Mot - between Melbourne to Devonport is now zipping backwards and forwards between Newcastle and the fjords of Norway. And with that realisation we had Day One's official moment of hilarity. Only ninety-nine equally hilarious moments to go.
I've heard that my ex- colleagues have started a sweepstakes as to when the first day of non-hilarity will occur (feel free to add your own prediction). I'm not sure what the pot is up to, but I hear that Day 32 is the current favourite. What argument do you think it will take to turn our European fun into awkward driving silence?
I'm coming to you from the luxurious back seat of the Toyota Townace we'll be calling home for the next hundred or so days. I've been piecing together this website tonight while Matt's been busily installing a stereo and some speakers.
Provided we can find net access we'll be updating this site with news, photos and other mutterings from the trip as we roll around Europe in a roughly clockwise direction. Tomorrow morning Matt and I head off from London to drive to Newcastle and meet Mot and Ness, before we all catch a ferry to Norway to officially get things underway.
We'd love to know who we've got joining us for the ride on the website, so leave a comment introducing yourself and wish us good luck, good speed and much hilarity.