Comments:
Imagine your hotel room is a mere 4.5 square meters large; to climb into bed, you have to either use a ladder, or some artistic capabilities. A shower cabin is there, but so small, that you are likely to flood the room even after tiny movements. The toilet - well, it is sufficient to say that something like this is present. The chef de la cuisine is lousy, and the coffee is as good as you can make it. But when you wake up in the morning and look outside, you will see something like this:
The next morning shows this:
or that:
Of course, you can try to find nice hotels offering these scenic views and travel from one to the next, in order to enjoy a changing scenery. I tried, and it is not that easy. Most of the time, some lump of concrete or architectural structure will compromise the view, let alone the noise of other guests. So the only and logical alternative must be: the hotel room itself is mobile, transporting you from place to place. And whenever a scenic experience, remote from all other people and entertainment technology is what makes out a perfect holiday for you, the hotel-room must be capable to be moved off-road.
This is the philosophy behind our compact Bremach truck “Gwenn”, which my dear friend MTF often respectlessly refers to as “the Hankewagon”. However, in order to exploit its capabilities, one should try to learn more about the vehicle, its mechanics and electric system, its potential weaknesses and how to repair damages somewhere without any technical infrastructure; or at least, how to make the car moving again, even if this means to limp back to a city at a snail’s speed. And also it is good to stay in training for advanced off road driving with these vehicles, since you never know when you need it.
Once a year, the small group of Bremach and Iveco 4x4 camping car owners organizes a special meeting: partly to exchange experiences and “campfire stories”, partly to expand knowledge and practical abilities. In the previous years, we had a visit to the Bremach production facility in Brescia, near the Garda Lake in Upper Italy, a technical driving training in a dedicated testing range and a weekend course on “bush mechanics”. This year, however, we found something very special for our annual meeting: Driving the Lausitz.
The Lausitz is a landscape in the North-East of Germany, near the German-Polish border, not very far from Berlin. Since more than 100 years, the exploitation of huge brown coal resources made the region one of the major German energy suppliers. The coal is not excavated beneath the surface, but gigantic excavators are cutting deep wounds into the landscape, eating away not only nature, but also many old villages and houses located there for centuries. Since 1950, more than 25,000 inhabitants of the region had to leave their homes, sacrificing them to the energy hunger of the state. Until 1990 this happened in the communist GDR, where civil rights and people’s interest did practically not exist. Later, the people at least received an appropriate compensation and are able to purchase new homes. However, the traditional communities are torn apart, lost forever.
Location of the Lausitz coal region in Germany
At least the wounds in the nature are closed again: The holes are filled with water, becoming a scenery of countless lakes, while the hills created by the buckets of the excavators are first strengthened by special plants, until finally covered with thick forests. This renaturation process costs time and money, but it is hoped that the future as recreational area not too far from Germany’s capital will bring new life into the moribund industrial region, where the only jobs available are in the coal mining industry.
Normally, both, the active mining area, and the renaturation parts are banned for private vehicles. However, there is one tour organizer who has an official permission to guide tours since about fifteen years; result of a desperate effort of the region’s administration to stimulate tourism. Primary condition for the permission was that the tour guides must not offer a simple driving experience, but also supply historical, technical and ecological information with the tour. Please click on the following link to learn more about the tour organizers (German):
By the way: for people who are interested to see the area, but have no off road capable vehicle, the guides also offer to take passengers in their own vehicles.
When we asked them to organize a two-days tour for our trucks, they were a bit sceptical at first. Never before had they led such a large group of heavier vehicles through the area, therefore it was decided to split the entire group into two parties that would drive different routes.
On May 17th, 20 Bremach, Iveco and SCAM (another small Italian manufacturer of off road trucks, meanwhile taken over by Iveco and responsible for the production of their 4x4 Daily) trucks, all highly customized to fully accommodate their crew with all supplies for long distance trips, met on a meadow near one of the new-born lakes of the Lausitz area. The camp attracted several spectators from nearby villages, many asking details about the cars.
The planning by the tour organizer’s crew was perfect, we had everything we needed on the place, with full catering. While every vehicle has a more or less equipped cooking facility aboard, it saves time and permits to concentrate on driving and communication, when the food is taken care for. Additionally, the hospitality of these regions in Eastern Germany is famous, and we did not want to miss it.
The first day took our group into the active mining area. Upon departure, all vehicles received walkie-talkies for direct communication between the group and the guide, and there were two escorting vehicles with instructors present. Driving in the mining area is dangerous, and depends on a stack of special permits. Of course, no car may leave the group, which is why not one, but several guides made sure that no one got separated.
As a warm-up, we tried some specific situations, such as steep climb and descent, driving with maximum axle articulation, and - I admit that my heart sank into my boots here - the crossing of a slope at an angle where the vehicle was close to toppling over.
After that, we entered the zone where the huge excavators scraped away the soil in a thickness of some ten to fifteen meters, only to expose the pure black coal bed, which is removed thereafter. The soil itself is the rest of a primeval coastline, and thus very sandy, containing a lot of sulphur and other minerals. The sand is stacked on huge heaps, and after the coal layer is exhausted, the original soil is applied again, to make the holes in the landscape more shallow, and to facilitate the renaturation process.
We made our way through a fascinating and and extremely varied landscape: sometimes, it made us believe to be in some areas of the Sahara desert, with wide and soft areas full of sand. Every now and then, the wind would create a dust devil quickly moving over the soil. Between the small dunes, rocks and spots with very hard sand created a thrilling pattern of yellow and black parts. The sky was lightly clouded, but the light was hurting in the eyes. Sometimes, we found black rocks, that were not really rocks, but looked like scorched stacks of palm tree leaves: Rests of the beach on a sea that vanished millions of years ago, which are not yet coal, so their herbal nature is clearly recognized. You hold them in your hands, and are overwhelmed by the weight of the time ...
Here, the first critical situation occurred: One of the trucks threatened to tumble down a steep slope, after it lost its grip when the driver tried to turn upwards into the slope. All hands were needed to stabilize the truck by shovelling away sand under its upper wheels, and securing the lower wheels by placing metal sand boards under them. After a while, another Bremach, quipped with a large hydraulic winch, pulled the unlucky vehicle upwards. The following cars had to reverse and climb up the track they had come down, and which we had previously considered unnavigable. But with the assistance of many boards, ropes and speed all succeeded, and finally we all stood on a safe track again.
Other areas looked like the volcanic deserts in Iceland, with black rock, mixed with patches from bright red iron oxide and yellow sulphur. Vegetation was sparse here, they few grasses and bushes desperately clinging to the little ground water they are still able to reach; the mining needs a lot of water, which is why the ground water level drops drastically. Tolkien would have liked this landscape, since it could have been a good setting for Mordor ... It is not surprising that some television productions used this area to depict a scenery on the Moon.
Sometimes, we would leave the immediate mining area and cross small villages. The houses there are old, built from red bricks. Unlike concrete buildings, brick houses seem to age with dignity. Even when abandoned for ages, they still look beautiful, and not so raunchy like modern houses. Some of these villages will meet their fate soon, since the huge excavators are estimated to arrive there within the next months. This will bring the end to a village that stood there for centuries. As sad this is, most inhabitants accepted their removal since a long time. Since the thickness of the coal layer is well known, the schedule of land destruction is clear since some twenty or thirty years. And of course, the mining policy of the only noteworthy supplier of jobs in the region is not questioned.
Since it had not rained for a while, there was barely any mud on the tracks; not that we missed it, driving was difficult enough already without. There were tight turns, wild bumps, very steep descents that made my dogs helplessly slip forward in the cabin, and always we were accompanied by the voice of our guide Oliver, who gave us advice, but also many valuable information on mining technology, the ecological and economic background, on the plants and animals that can be found. This was really fantastic!
Our first driving day was long, and ended only well in the evening. For some of us, who had never been driving off-road before, the experience was really thrilling, more than one driver arrived in the camp with trembling hands and knees.
The second day focussed on the renaturation of the Lausitz area. We drove on the beaches of lakes that were just flooded with river water, since the ground water level is already too low, and also too acescent. In two or three years, the sandy beaches we crossed will be the bottom of new lakes that shall attract many tourists in search for recreation. Steffen, the second tour guide, pointed out the system of resettling plants: Before the natural vegetation of the region, a dense pine tree forest, can grow, many different stages see the preparation of the sandy soil with the help of small and unspectacular grasses, then a network of low-growing bush work is planted, to counter erosion by wind and rain, before young trees take over the lead. Hard work is done here. In former decades of the mining, the open scars were simply left deserted, without any human interaction. It was believed that nature can heal its wounds alone - but this did not work: Before a closed vegetation carpet could grow, erosion and chemical hyperacidity had practically destroyed the soil.
It is thus understandable that our routes had to be chosen very cautiously, and any deviation from the path was strictly forbidden, as soon as we crossed any vegetated areas. From time to time, we would go hiking a bit, searching for rare plants and animal tracks. The Lausitz is the first German region where wolves, exterminated since nearly two centuries, are resettling. They cross the border from Poland, and already two packs are here. For them, there is enough living space, and prey, since wild boars and deer have become far too numerous: a consequence of the ubiquitous cultivation of corn, that is used for the production of ethanol fuel. Unfortunately for us, we could not find any wolf tracks, though.
The off road challenges here were less demanding, compared to what we experienced the day before, in the active mining area. So we rather enjoyed the beautiful landscape. Well, there was a situation where I made a fool of myself, since I desperately tried to climb over a rather small, but sharp sand dune without avail. I did not want to accept the fact that I still had too much air left in my tires. Only after further reduction, I crossed the obstacle rather effortlessly ...
The two days of our Lausitz tour were absolutely great, and we were able to see a highly dynamic, quickly changing landscape, that is first destroyed by human activities, only to be repaired afterwards. Barely anybody from our group had believed that such a scenery exists in the heart of Europe. Consequently, it is not surprising that the experience will be repeated next year. Since we had seen only a tiny fraction of the huge area this time, the tour organizers are already planning another tour for the next Bremach meeting in 2013.
Regards,
Marcus
P.S.: As a true watchnut, I grasped the opportunity of this driving weekend to test a new rubber-coated sports watch under rough conditions.
Click on the following link to read my test report on the Ulysse Nardin Marine Diver “Black Sea”:
ulyssenardin.watchprosite.com
...as a long-time subscriber to the French car magazine "Gazoline", features of families taking vintage behemoths similar in many respects to these to all four corners of the Earth (and regularly broke down along the way) has always enthralled me. You folks were doing this in a far more gentrified manner, but what a fun thing to do! Looked like a fantastic event.
The Lausitz off-road driving experience
Exploring the Lausitz mining region: a man-made desert in the heart of Europe
by Marcus Hanke
by Marcus Hanke
Imagine your hotel room is a mere 4.5 square meters large; to climb into bed, you have to either use a ladder, or some artistic capabilities. A shower cabin is there, but so small, that you are likely to flood the room even after tiny movements. The toilet - well, it is sufficient to say that something like this is present. The chef de la cuisine is lousy, and the coffee is as good as you can make it. But when you wake up in the morning and look outside, you will see something like this:
The next morning shows this:
or that:
Of course, you can try to find nice hotels offering these scenic views and travel from one to the next, in order to enjoy a changing scenery. I tried, and it is not that easy. Most of the time, some lump of concrete or architectural structure will compromise the view, let alone the noise of other guests. So the only and logical alternative must be: the hotel room itself is mobile, transporting you from place to place. And whenever a scenic experience, remote from all other people and entertainment technology is what makes out a perfect holiday for you, the hotel-room must be capable to be moved off-road.
This is the philosophy behind our compact Bremach truck “Gwenn”, which my dear friend MTF often respectlessly refers to as “the Hankewagon”. However, in order to exploit its capabilities, one should try to learn more about the vehicle, its mechanics and electric system, its potential weaknesses and how to repair damages somewhere without any technical infrastructure; or at least, how to make the car moving again, even if this means to limp back to a city at a snail’s speed. And also it is good to stay in training for advanced off road driving with these vehicles, since you never know when you need it.
Once a year, the small group of Bremach and Iveco 4x4 camping car owners organizes a special meeting: partly to exchange experiences and “campfire stories”, partly to expand knowledge and practical abilities. In the previous years, we had a visit to the Bremach production facility in Brescia, near the Garda Lake in Upper Italy, a technical driving training in a dedicated testing range and a weekend course on “bush mechanics”. This year, however, we found something very special for our annual meeting: Driving the Lausitz.
The Lausitz is a landscape in the North-East of Germany, near the German-Polish border, not very far from Berlin. Since more than 100 years, the exploitation of huge brown coal resources made the region one of the major German energy suppliers. The coal is not excavated beneath the surface, but gigantic excavators are cutting deep wounds into the landscape, eating away not only nature, but also many old villages and houses located there for centuries. Since 1950, more than 25,000 inhabitants of the region had to leave their homes, sacrificing them to the energy hunger of the state. Until 1990 this happened in the communist GDR, where civil rights and people’s interest did practically not exist. Later, the people at least received an appropriate compensation and are able to purchase new homes. However, the traditional communities are torn apart, lost forever.
Location of the Lausitz coal region in Germany
At least the wounds in the nature are closed again: The holes are filled with water, becoming a scenery of countless lakes, while the hills created by the buckets of the excavators are first strengthened by special plants, until finally covered with thick forests. This renaturation process costs time and money, but it is hoped that the future as recreational area not too far from Germany’s capital will bring new life into the moribund industrial region, where the only jobs available are in the coal mining industry.
Normally, both, the active mining area, and the renaturation parts are banned for private vehicles. However, there is one tour organizer who has an official permission to guide tours since about fifteen years; result of a desperate effort of the region’s administration to stimulate tourism. Primary condition for the permission was that the tour guides must not offer a simple driving experience, but also supply historical, technical and ecological information with the tour. Please click on the following link to learn more about the tour organizers (German):
By the way: for people who are interested to see the area, but have no off road capable vehicle, the guides also offer to take passengers in their own vehicles.
When we asked them to organize a two-days tour for our trucks, they were a bit sceptical at first. Never before had they led such a large group of heavier vehicles through the area, therefore it was decided to split the entire group into two parties that would drive different routes.
On May 17th, 20 Bremach, Iveco and SCAM (another small Italian manufacturer of off road trucks, meanwhile taken over by Iveco and responsible for the production of their 4x4 Daily) trucks, all highly customized to fully accommodate their crew with all supplies for long distance trips, met on a meadow near one of the new-born lakes of the Lausitz area. The camp attracted several spectators from nearby villages, many asking details about the cars.
The planning by the tour organizer’s crew was perfect, we had everything we needed on the place, with full catering. While every vehicle has a more or less equipped cooking facility aboard, it saves time and permits to concentrate on driving and communication, when the food is taken care for. Additionally, the hospitality of these regions in Eastern Germany is famous, and we did not want to miss it.
The first day took our group into the active mining area. Upon departure, all vehicles received walkie-talkies for direct communication between the group and the guide, and there were two escorting vehicles with instructors present. Driving in the mining area is dangerous, and depends on a stack of special permits. Of course, no car may leave the group, which is why not one, but several guides made sure that no one got separated.
As a warm-up, we tried some specific situations, such as steep climb and descent, driving with maximum axle articulation, and - I admit that my heart sank into my boots here - the crossing of a slope at an angle where the vehicle was close to toppling over.
After that, we entered the zone where the huge excavators scraped away the soil in a thickness of some ten to fifteen meters, only to expose the pure black coal bed, which is removed thereafter. The soil itself is the rest of a primeval coastline, and thus very sandy, containing a lot of sulphur and other minerals. The sand is stacked on huge heaps, and after the coal layer is exhausted, the original soil is applied again, to make the holes in the landscape more shallow, and to facilitate the renaturation process.
We made our way through a fascinating and and extremely varied landscape: sometimes, it made us believe to be in some areas of the Sahara desert, with wide and soft areas full of sand. Every now and then, the wind would create a dust devil quickly moving over the soil. Between the small dunes, rocks and spots with very hard sand created a thrilling pattern of yellow and black parts. The sky was lightly clouded, but the light was hurting in the eyes. Sometimes, we found black rocks, that were not really rocks, but looked like scorched stacks of palm tree leaves: Rests of the beach on a sea that vanished millions of years ago, which are not yet coal, so their herbal nature is clearly recognized. You hold them in your hands, and are overwhelmed by the weight of the time ...
Here, the first critical situation occurred: One of the trucks threatened to tumble down a steep slope, after it lost its grip when the driver tried to turn upwards into the slope. All hands were needed to stabilize the truck by shovelling away sand under its upper wheels, and securing the lower wheels by placing metal sand boards under them. After a while, another Bremach, quipped with a large hydraulic winch, pulled the unlucky vehicle upwards. The following cars had to reverse and climb up the track they had come down, and which we had previously considered unnavigable. But with the assistance of many boards, ropes and speed all succeeded, and finally we all stood on a safe track again.
Other areas looked like the volcanic deserts in Iceland, with black rock, mixed with patches from bright red iron oxide and yellow sulphur. Vegetation was sparse here, they few grasses and bushes desperately clinging to the little ground water they are still able to reach; the mining needs a lot of water, which is why the ground water level drops drastically. Tolkien would have liked this landscape, since it could have been a good setting for Mordor ... It is not surprising that some television productions used this area to depict a scenery on the Moon.
Sometimes, we would leave the immediate mining area and cross small villages. The houses there are old, built from red bricks. Unlike concrete buildings, brick houses seem to age with dignity. Even when abandoned for ages, they still look beautiful, and not so raunchy like modern houses. Some of these villages will meet their fate soon, since the huge excavators are estimated to arrive there within the next months. This will bring the end to a village that stood there for centuries. As sad this is, most inhabitants accepted their removal since a long time. Since the thickness of the coal layer is well known, the schedule of land destruction is clear since some twenty or thirty years. And of course, the mining policy of the only noteworthy supplier of jobs in the region is not questioned.
Since it had not rained for a while, there was barely any mud on the tracks; not that we missed it, driving was difficult enough already without. There were tight turns, wild bumps, very steep descents that made my dogs helplessly slip forward in the cabin, and always we were accompanied by the voice of our guide Oliver, who gave us advice, but also many valuable information on mining technology, the ecological and economic background, on the plants and animals that can be found. This was really fantastic!
Our first driving day was long, and ended only well in the evening. For some of us, who had never been driving off-road before, the experience was really thrilling, more than one driver arrived in the camp with trembling hands and knees.
The second day focussed on the renaturation of the Lausitz area. We drove on the beaches of lakes that were just flooded with river water, since the ground water level is already too low, and also too acescent. In two or three years, the sandy beaches we crossed will be the bottom of new lakes that shall attract many tourists in search for recreation. Steffen, the second tour guide, pointed out the system of resettling plants: Before the natural vegetation of the region, a dense pine tree forest, can grow, many different stages see the preparation of the sandy soil with the help of small and unspectacular grasses, then a network of low-growing bush work is planted, to counter erosion by wind and rain, before young trees take over the lead. Hard work is done here. In former decades of the mining, the open scars were simply left deserted, without any human interaction. It was believed that nature can heal its wounds alone - but this did not work: Before a closed vegetation carpet could grow, erosion and chemical hyperacidity had practically destroyed the soil.
It is thus understandable that our routes had to be chosen very cautiously, and any deviation from the path was strictly forbidden, as soon as we crossed any vegetated areas. From time to time, we would go hiking a bit, searching for rare plants and animal tracks. The Lausitz is the first German region where wolves, exterminated since nearly two centuries, are resettling. They cross the border from Poland, and already two packs are here. For them, there is enough living space, and prey, since wild boars and deer have become far too numerous: a consequence of the ubiquitous cultivation of corn, that is used for the production of ethanol fuel. Unfortunately for us, we could not find any wolf tracks, though.
The off road challenges here were less demanding, compared to what we experienced the day before, in the active mining area. So we rather enjoyed the beautiful landscape. Well, there was a situation where I made a fool of myself, since I desperately tried to climb over a rather small, but sharp sand dune without avail. I did not want to accept the fact that I still had too much air left in my tires. Only after further reduction, I crossed the obstacle rather effortlessly ...
The two days of our Lausitz tour were absolutely great, and we were able to see a highly dynamic, quickly changing landscape, that is first destroyed by human activities, only to be repaired afterwards. Barely anybody from our group had believed that such a scenery exists in the heart of Europe. Consequently, it is not surprising that the experience will be repeated next year. Since we had seen only a tiny fraction of the huge area this time, the tour organizers are already planning another tour for the next Bremach meeting in 2013.
Regards,
Marcus
P.S.: As a true watchnut, I grasped the opportunity of this driving weekend to test a new rubber-coated sports watch under rough conditions.
Click on the following link to read my test report on the Ulysse Nardin Marine Diver “Black Sea”:
ulyssenardin.watchprosite.com
Copyright July 2012 - Marcus Hanke & PuristSPro.com - all rights reserved
Comments, suggestions, and corrections to this article are welcome.
This message has been edited by Marcus Hanke on 2012-07-20 15:55:41 This message has been edited by ED209 on 2012-07-29 20:16:01
Most enjoyable read Marcus.....
made my late saturday afternoon that much more enjoyable reading your account. Great to know that these denuded and scarred region is being reverted back to nature. Lovely photos to boot. Those angles you showed with these 4 X 4 wagons give me the shivers. You would be very well equipped to tackle the Australian outback with your 4 X 4 driving expertise.
Cheers,dreamer
I am dreaming of doing the Canning Stock Route one day ...
Actually, several of our Bremach drivers community had their trucks shipped to Australia, and spent unforgettable times there, in spite of heavy rain, which sowmwaht restricted the choice of routes:
The problem is, you need at least 8 to 10 months of free time to do that, which is impossible for an ordinary employee.
Thank you very much for your kind words!
Regards,
Marcus
The problem is, you need at least 8 to 10 months of free time to do that, which is impossible for an ordinary employee.
Thank you very much for your kind words!
Regards,
Marcus
Oh yes, the wet season....
Many parts including the Kakadu national park are closed during the wet season . Not even 4 X 4 's can get through. It would be good if you can do the Canning Stock Route.
Cheers,dreamer
Beautiful post.
Looks like an unforgettable experience to me. Very nice pics.
Thanks.
Vte 
Thank you for your kind comment -
it was indeed a great experience, one, that we are likely to repeat next year.
Regards,
Marcus
Regards,
Marcus
Me and my son ...
had a lot of fun only from looking at your pictures - gorgeous.
Thanks, Marcus!
Some days ago we already looked at your post in the UN forum and my son asked me to take some pictures for you.
Yes, for you
Here we go:
Best regards from Max (8).
Oliver
Thanks, Marcus!
Some days ago we already looked at your post in the UN forum and my son asked me to take some pictures for you.
Yes, for you
Here we go:
Best regards from Max (8).
Oliver
Oh, wow! A 6x6 campmobil!! ....
... I am really dreaming of something like that ... eh ... ah little bit larger than yours, Max. Anyway, thanks a lot for the cool pics of a cool vehicle, and you staged it perfectly! Oliver, thanks to you for the masterly photography!
Regards,
Marcus
Regards,
Marcus
I had 2 questions and a comment
Marcus,
My poor experience of off-road driving being only the Suzuki Jeep (Rhino in UK but a.k.a. Jimmy in USA) notwithstanding, I enjoyed your missive. Mine was mainly for driving to shoots with my green 'wellies', Barbour jackets and tweed flat caps....aahh those were the days...when Margaret Thatcher was truly made of iron and we all had loadsa money!
1) Don't you think TWO GPS navigation units was overkill? Especially with Rottweiller tour guide.
2) Did the dogs lean to one side when you did the 45 degree traverses?
Ahhh....I see the canines sensibly sat outside and watched the silly humans play in the sand!
Regards,
MTF
PS. I rolled Suzie Jeep in the snow on the Snake Pass in the Pennines (3 a.m. on a Monday) as the last vehicle they let through the checkpoint during a snow storm, after they closed the road behind me. It slid on its roof down the slope towards a 300 foot drop and at the last moment rolled back on 4 wheels pointing in the right direction for me to drive home. Bull bars intact but fog lights and pride bent........sh-1-t stains in my drawers!
I was returning from a weekend tryst in Wales with the then girlfriend....now the current Mrs MTF. Rushing back to Sheffield to be in time for my anesthesia list for surgery at 08:00 on Monday morning. I almost put myself in sleepy-bye land forever.
This message has been edited by MTF on 2012-07-23 10:56:14I never told her the full story
Yup ! Eventually she did agree to nuptials but that was years later.
I don't think the full story was revealed until much later. It happened about the time of mass hysteria ....er...mass media hype about Suzuki Rhinos turning over easily. I did not want her to say, "I told you so...."
I don't think they actually were that easy to turn over. Most likely, human error and sleepiness contributed to excess speed for the situation (snow drifts, downhill, bend in road).
The miracle was the 360 degree roll-over so the vehicle righted itself back onto wheels so no free-fall over the road edge. Not a scratch on the roof paintwork either, after being essentially an early form of 'snowboard'
Whew,
MTF
There is a well-known proverb, involving rats and a ship ...
... in sinking condition ... well, you get it.
Sorry for my late reply, I had overlooked your comment about the two navigation systems.
You know, ever since having seen "Apollo 13", I am a big fan of redundancies, and since I did not wear a chronograph, a second GPS would be the least to feel safe.
Seriously, my old and trusted Garmin 176 is mainly used for tracking, so I can save the daily tracks, and I also use it for waypoint management. Since far more than a decade, the Garmin system is an approved standard, and I can still read my tracks and waypoints made more than ten years ago, and export them in every other application, including Google Earth. With the many generic formats created by various PC-based programs, I was less lucky. On the other hand, a ncie UMPC tablet offers the comfort of a better overview, so I can use the Garmin for the display of the immediate surrounding, like the street I am currently driving on, and the tablet for the impression of where the streets fromt he roundabout are leading to.
Finally, the tablet software permits me to use pixel-based topographic maps, and unlike the old Garmin, it also offers speech-guided turn-by-turn navigation as well.
Nice story about your turning over. My wife managed to do this once, before we knew each other, and with her "Deux Chevaux", the Citroen 2 CV. It toppled over a hard wall of snow on the roadside, turned onto its softtop, and glided down the hill, like a sleigh. Due to the 2 CV's light weight, she was able to set it upright again, before the help arrived.
Best regards,
Marcus
Sorry for my late reply, I had overlooked your comment about the two navigation systems.
You know, ever since having seen "Apollo 13", I am a big fan of redundancies, and since I did not wear a chronograph, a second GPS would be the least to feel safe.
Seriously, my old and trusted Garmin 176 is mainly used for tracking, so I can save the daily tracks, and I also use it for waypoint management. Since far more than a decade, the Garmin system is an approved standard, and I can still read my tracks and waypoints made more than ten years ago, and export them in every other application, including Google Earth. With the many generic formats created by various PC-based programs, I was less lucky. On the other hand, a ncie UMPC tablet offers the comfort of a better overview, so I can use the Garmin for the display of the immediate surrounding, like the street I am currently driving on, and the tablet for the impression of where the streets fromt he roundabout are leading to.
Finally, the tablet software permits me to use pixel-based topographic maps, and unlike the old Garmin, it also offers speech-guided turn-by-turn navigation as well.
Nice story about your turning over. My wife managed to do this once, before we knew each other, and with her "Deux Chevaux", the Citroen 2 CV. It toppled over a hard wall of snow on the roadside, turned onto its softtop, and glided down the hill, like a sleigh. Due to the 2 CV's light weight, she was able to set it upright again, before the help arrived.
Best regards,
Marcus
Love those big vehicles...
...as a long-time subscriber to the French car magazine "Gazoline", features of families taking vintage behemoths similar in many respects to these to all four corners of the Earth (and regularly broke down along the way) has always enthralled me. You folks were doing this in a far more gentrified manner, but what a fun thing to do! Looked like a fantastic event.
Vintage behemoth ...
... which reminds me of an Australian offroad monster truck, bearing the name "What the hell is that", but in some kind of Australian slang truncation which I do not remember and therefore makes it impossible to find the web page. Yes, in Germany old offroad trucks are also popular as a base for campmobiles, mostly old army and firefighting trucks are used.
Regards,
Marcus
Regards,
Marcus
Had a neighbor with an old Hanomag....
...not one you see every day in the U.S. Always liked though they were pretty cool. This message has been edited by mrsnak on 2012-07-29 17:38:02
Years ago, a friend of mine was a Toyota Landcruiser man and
He kept a large wallmap of Australia in his office.
Every year he would do a 4-6 week trek through inland Australia and chart the trek in texta on his wallmap. That was fascinating to look at and dream about.
Places with populations of 5 or less. Places and roads inaccessible to ordinary mortals. Photos just as stunning.
He was also a marathon runner and champion mountain bike rider. The fittest and youngest looking 60+ year old man I ever knew.
Thanks for the read.
Regards,
Richard.
A testament to the Land Cruiser...
...originally a copy of a Land Rover, but far more reliable. Would be my off road vehicle of choice. Vintage, of course.... This message has been edited by mrsnak on 2012-07-24 17:10:37
Learned Something
Learned something about the mining area in Germany. First its existence and secondly the environmental costs and social costs that have derived from them.
Thank you for documenting your adventure for us! A learning experience for me!
This learning experience was what made the trip so unique for us ...
... as well. It was invaluable to get the info on the history and economy of the region, together with the problems caused by the coal mining, and to experience these issues first person.
Regards,
Marcus
Regards,
Marcus
Those vehicles really are incredible.
What I find so amazing is their capability given their enormous size. My 4Runner has a very good suspension lift, steel plating on the under carriage, and beefy mud terrain tires. Very sophisticated electronic traction systems and hydraulically controlled sway bars. It will go anywhere I am willing to drive it, and far exceeds my driving abilities. But it is a lot smaller than these trucks. I sure could use that extra cargo!
The difficulty is to learn driving with the larger mass ...
most of us came from "normal" 4x4 cars, from Defender, Patrol, Landcruiser, Grand Cherokee, etc. The step to the large vehicle was really difficult for many of us, including myself. Not only the different seating position was responsible for the difficulties, but the different mass. In a standard offroader, you use the high power per pound, and the relatively low mass assists. On a corrugated track, a normal offroader only rarely builds up oscillation until it becomes undriveable. A loaded truck will do, so one always has to think "big": How will the mass inertia react when driving over this terrain formation?
Additionally, it is the difference in horsepower that enforces a different kind of driving. My Nissan with a gross weight of some 2.5 tons has 125 horse power, the truck with 5 tons has the same. But, the Nissan has ten gears to shift, the truck has no less than twentyfour gears to choose from, so it is a question of finding the right gear, momentum and choosing the correct route over the terrain. I admit that I am still learning, and trips like that into the Lausaitz are an invaluable help.
Regards,
Marcus
Additionally, it is the difference in horsepower that enforces a different kind of driving. My Nissan with a gross weight of some 2.5 tons has 125 horse power, the truck with 5 tons has the same. But, the Nissan has ten gears to shift, the truck has no less than twentyfour gears to choose from, so it is a question of finding the right gear, momentum and choosing the correct route over the terrain. I admit that I am still learning, and trips like that into the Lausaitz are an invaluable help.
Regards,
Marcus
Thanks for this reply Marcus.
I imagine it feels quite different driving something so heavy. I looked at the photo of the trucks leaning sideways several times. Pretty sharp angle. Of course, the bulk of the weight remains low on these monsters, but that must take a lot of getting used to.
I hope you will continue to post the truck in this predominantly "car" forum. I will do so with mine as well. A good reminder for all the sports cars guys that while we cannot keep up with them, we surely could go over them if it were ever necessary!!
I hope you will continue to post the truck in this predominantly "car" forum. I will do so with mine as well. A good reminder for all the sports cars guys that while we cannot keep up with them, we surely could go over them if it were ever necessary!!
Great experience but above all fantastic post!
Difficult o realise that when i blast past Dresden on the A9 from Munich to Berlin, i am close to those landscapes!
Thanks for your intersting explanations, i would have wished your post to never end.
Btw: when i moved from Spain to Berlin last year (1st of october, i believe) i think i saw your monster on the motorway A7 in France around Montelimar , was it you?
Best regards
Luc
Yes, this was us, returning from vacation in Spain ....
... thanks for your kind comment. I think that the region around Berlin has many interesting landscape to offer, the only thing lacking are nice mountain pass roads ...
Regards,
Marcus
Regards,
Marcus