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Overland to Sweden in a 15 year old Toyota Corolla…part four

Following on from part three of this “adventure”, we made it into Sweden via the bridge from Copenhagen at 2105 local time. That’s just short of 13 hours and roughly 500 miles in Europe. We decided to take the short cut rather than drive north out of Hamburg and all the way through Denmark. We went NNE and picked up the ferry at Putgarden.

It’s a 40 minute crossing at an approximate cost of £50 but definitely worth it as I think it saved us between 3 and 4 hours driving.

Currently sitting in a friend’s house just outside the university town of Lund in Sweden, I am very glad we cut the trip down a bit.

My navigator Simon (age 11) and I had fallen out big time. I had given up trying to get any photos of the bridge as there was nowhere to stop, the revamped heating in the car have turned my socks into something that would willingly crawl out of the bin and run laps round the town in the snow so all in all bed is looking good!

After taking the driving pretty easy for most of the morning – rarely pushing above 60 mph – by the evening I was quite happy to clip along at 70 or 80. Road conditions have been very good with the exception of a stretch in northern Holland where there was sheet ice for 3 to 4 miles and only narrow clear lines between them.

One of the two accidents we saw had occurred on this section – a shunt between a 4×4 and a truck by the looks of it.

In places in Germany there were quite severe “ice ridges” on the road that were exciting to drive along, very similar to getting caught in a rut, with the tyres forced to follow the edge of the ice.

It wasn’t until we got to Denmark that there was much snow on the road, cars were still buzzing by at 80 though – my problem was being unsure as to which lane I was in and trying to take photos while driving (eek!).

Jenny has done fantastically but the engine is over revving again, and I have given up watching the fuel gauge go down. Having said that we have used 2.5 tanks of fuel and we have about 300 miles to go so overall so not to bad I guess. The snow conditions in Sweden are great, we had fun getting to our friends house driving on hard packed snow and 6 inches of lying snow alternately.

We start out again at about 0900 tomorrow and with a now fully charged phone hopefully will get some more updates out during the day.

[Show slideshow]
at-home-as-we-left2
serious-drivng-face
dutch-service-station
autobahn2
on-the-putgarden-ferry
waiting-at-putgardenii
just-south-of-hamburg-stopped-to-clean-the-windows

Come back for regular updates as we report on the progress.

Dec 19, 2010nickc
  • Overland from Sweden in a 15 year old Toyota Corolla…home at last
  • Overland from Sweden in a 15 year old Toyota Corolla…part two
  • Overland from Sweden in a 15 year old Toyota Corolla…part one
  • Overland to Sweden in a 15 year old Toyota Corolla…part five
  • Overland to Sweden in a 15 year old Toyota Corolla…part three
  • Over land and sea to Sweden in a 15 year old Toyota Corolla…part two
  • Overland to Sweden in a 15 year old Toyota Corolla…part threeOverland to Sweden in a 15 year old Toyota Corolla…part five
    Comments: 4
    1. Melvyn
      12 years ago

      Good going! Well done to you.

    2. matt corson
      12 years ago

      this guy is a total nutter ! I wouldn’t have driven to london in this car let alone to sweden.

      Fair play to him though, he made it

      • Melvyn
        12 years ago

        But fact is HE DID IT – and in old clapped out Jenny!

    3. Paul
      12 years ago

      Excellent, well done I’ve done a few trips to the alps in our old girl and it looks very similar, bloody cold!
      The old girl will get you there and back no problem, that nice 7 series doesnt look like it’d make it much further though!

    nickc
    12 years ago Blog, Overland to Sweden292
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