Some of the team on the peak of the Jungfrau: highest monutain in Europe

Sue and Ken with friends at the Jungfrau Ice Palace

We left Chur early to take on three more passes and to meet members of the Swiss MGA Club and Swiss MG Club at Glasen where they were all lined up in the local square.  They drove with us to the top of Klausen Pass where we were treated to morning tea by the club and given Swiss MG stick pins to add to the collection.  It was a great site to see fifteen plus MG’s driving up the pass in convoy.  There was an MG TC, a red TF, numerous MGA’s and an MGB.  Again this was bike riders heaven with riders coming from all over Europe to tackle the winding roads up and down the passes.

Members of the two Clubs joined us for the day and drove in the convoy through the beautiful  Susten and Grimsel Passes. The Klausen Pass is only open for about five months of the year and is just a superb drive.

As we continued on towards our overnight stop near Interlaken the drivers from Switzerland dropped off as they reached forks in the road which enabled them to return to their home bases.  Dominic from the MGA Club stayed with us and organised our accommodation at the Gasthaus Steinbeck 1797  at Wilderswil,  which is at the base of the Jungfrau Mountain – the highest mountain peak in Europe.  It is commonly known as the TOP OF EUROPE at 4158 metres.

 The following day we spent taking a train trip to the top.  The railway is an engineering feat in itself and the cost of $120 for a ticket was well worth the experience.  Ice tunnels and rooms have been carved   beneath the glacier and it is a strange feeling to be walking on ice with ice walls and ice roof. We were surprised to find  that  the Jungfrau Mountain has a sister mountain in China, the Huangshan Mountain which we climbed some two  months ago.

The scenery was spectacular with ginger bread houses, cows with huge cow bells grazing on buttercup meadows and a carpet of wild flowers including the Mountain Rose.

Astrid and Marcel from the MGA club spent the day with some of the group who didn’t take the mountain trip. Would you believe we declined dinner as we just can’t keep up with all the Swiss eating: big breakfast, cream cake morning tea, bratwurst and , rosti  for lunch, apple strudel afternoon tea and then a four course meal.

The convoy is getting bigger. Switzerland

Swiss friends:Switzerland

We followed that car:Switzerland

This is what we are driving through

Amazing Stelvio

Amazing Stelvio and our biker friends

Fabio, Italy

MG banner Italia

Stelvio Pass

Looking beyond the Stelvio Pass Italy

Things have only got better and better with lots of great surprises in store for us in Italy. Some of the MG team, drove down to Monza Race track, and two of the MGBGT drivers, Reg and Ian M had the   good fortune to get their cars on to the track and drive them, flat out I am told, for ten minutes. Sadly, the MGA drivers were not permitted to drive the track because their cars were open top and they had no crash helmets. There was great excitement with the drive and for the two drivers it seems it will be one of the highlights of the trip.

The Italian spirit emerged with “fabulous” Fabio, the long serving” il presidente” of the MG Car Club Italia, meeting the convoy. He could not have done more for us. He drove up to Brescia from Rome with Patricia, spent two nights with the team, liaised with the Lombardi chapter of the MG Car Club and they jointly hosted us at a wonderful restaurant in the alpine region of Brescia. It was a real Italian affair. We didn’t leave our hotel until 8:45pm and we were driven by bus to a family run restaurant where they produced all the food and wine. The establishment had been owned by one family for thirty years and had very sophisticated wine and olive oil producing plant. At one o’clock in the morning we were touring the cellars. The consequence of this was four hours sleep and on the road again next morning but there’s no gain without a bit less sleep!

The food was the best Italian meal,  absolutely everything was locally made and produced and although we access all of the food in Australia it was really  something to be eating a splendid meal with our Italian friends; Bruno, Emanuella, Giuliani, Pouci, Guidolfi and the others, one of whom had driven in from Zurich to spend time with us. It was a great night full of laughter and good cheer with Fabio presenting each car team with a boxed and engraved   bottle of locally produced spumante.

The following day Fabio lead the convoy through the Italian Alps to the Swiss border. The convoy now includes Vin from the UK driving a red MGA and Lou and Mike from South Africa driving MGBGT with V8 engine which they brought from London “sight unseen”. They had very significant over heating problems on the drive through the alpine passes but with some help from Peter it seems to have been addressed.

What can I say about the magnificent drive. Apparently the Top Gear guys say the Stelvio Pass is the best drive in the world, anyway a million European bikers must think so because it was like being on the most exhilarating and spectacular bike track with bikers flashing by and speeding around hair pin bend after bend ahead of us. Not many cars here but our fantastic little convoy made it, and dare I say it little Red Car did not miss a beat. Three of the other cars in the convoy reported brake problems and one car did a lot of back firing but they all made it. As Fabio said this is one of the most unique and challenging drives in the world and if we were not part of this convoy we would never do it. Thanks a million to Dave’s vision and planning with the inclusion of these real challenges in the drive.

Every couple of days on this trip I think this is “the best ever day ever” in terms of magnificent scenery and even   when I take off “my rose coloured glasses” everything is still pink and beautiful. Planet Earth is the most incredible place and the passes in the Italian and Swiss Alps are brilliant.

We drove through the Passo del Mortivolo and the Passo del Tonale reaching a height of 2,200 metres above sea level. This is real Sound of Music country. We passed through many tunnels and tiny villages surrounded by lush green countryside with flowers in full bloom. Hydrangeas, roses, impatiens, geraniums, petunias were everywhere in gardens and window boxes; so verdant and quite unlike our sunburnt country in the height of summer.

On to the famed Stelvio Pass at 2800 metres; this pass is unbelievable with one hair pin bend after another up the mountainside. The descent down was just as exciting and good brakes are the order of the day. Up the Ofen Pass at over 2,000 metres and into Switzerland and then the Pass dal Fuela at 2,149 metres. These passes are the part of the courses for many European rally circuits. It is “hang on” to your seats and watch out for the stream of bikers who roar past and take the bends almost horizontally. Brave guys.

Once into Switzerland we were met by Dominic Clancy from the Swiss MGA Car Club and as he led us through Dorf, Klosters and Landquart to our destination at Chur. Would you believe it his MGA limped into the hotel and had to be towed away next day. On the way up the mountain to meet us, a car had rammed his car causing quite a bit of damage. He had done a main or big end bearing. Just shows how tricky driving is but undaunted Dominic determined that the next day he would take a seat in Vin’s MGA and led the convoy.

Once again the kindness of people is just astounding, they take time off work, lead the convoy, organise functions, sightseeing and do everything in their power to make our stay memorable.

Gratie and Danhe Fabio and Dominic. Your generosity and passion for your countries is infectious and it has made our stay so memorable. It was “bellissimo” and”ist mega fein gsi”

Red Car up the Stelvio Pass

We are still taking wrong turns on the roads less travelled and as a group we generally loathe expressways. What do you see and where’s the adventure driving on an expressway…… not for us. There’s no accounting for what happens when you sit in a forty year old MGBGT for nearly 94 days.

We are now moving pretty rapidly and in the last few days all cars are speeding along. Fingers, toes and all other limbs crossed, please! This section is a bit of a “drive through” but we knew that when we signed on.

In Croatia the scenery was beautiful and we all enjoyed ourselves. High summer, 31 degrees all the flowers in bloom, the sky clear and blue, Adriatic just so warm for swimming, roads are fantastic, even  those less travelled, superb accommodation, can’t get much better we think as  it is predictably gorgeous  but it is starting to feel a bit shall I say it….easy in comparison to where we have come from.

On our drive from Split to Croatia we did take a wrong turn and then had to take a 30 minute ferry ride to get across an inlet. We did lose Reg and Mary or they lost us but with Tom-Tom and Mary’s navigation they made it to the ferry on time.

Now it is a breeze to drive across borders but something is missing. There are no black undercover cars trailing us, like in China, there are no officials policing the way we dress, there’s no possibility  our rooms are bugged, there’s no sense of will we get through the next unknown country  and what is in store for us.  The thing I most miss is, now we just drive along like every other car. From China to Iran we felt as if we were in a cavalcade of very special cars. It was unique for us and those we passed. Everyone tooted, waved, hung out windows and even the most retiring Nonnas smiled with a twinkle in their eye. We were making people laugh, even if it was only a ten second laugh, it was extraordinary.

Today as we drove down the three lane expressway into Brescia, Italy, the cars just flew by. Porsches, Audis, BMWs and every shape and size Merc. Flash after  flash  as they speed past and we were sitting on 110 kms. I only caught one person’s eye in 430kms and she looked from her Audi convertible with a condescending glance. I reckon if she did give the convoy any thought, which is highly improbable, it would be those poor, silly people in those beat up, old cars but little did she know where these cars had come from.

If I was passenger in her car I would have slept from China to Italy….totally ” non compos mentis”. It would be so easy to sit back and sleep as I normally do on any long trip but I am smitten by MG travel as you simply can’t sleep, you have to be alert and you see and hear everything that’s going on around you.

Today two South Africans in a MGBGT and a Yorkshire man, in a MGA joined the group to drive through to the UK with us. Tomorrow we meet the people from the Italian MG Car Club and they will drive with us for half a day so they can be part of this adventure. Maybe there’s still some surprises in store. Good ones I hope, just as long as we all stay safe and get to the UK. That’s the name of the game.