Day 2

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Day 2

© Kay Drury 2001-2004

Last updated
27 July 2006

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Friday 26th October

Epinal to Imola

After an early start and a quick charge for Cybil we found a large supermarket which sold batteries. The one bought the day before was wired up to the Equinox for charging and a new high powered one was attached to Cybil. From then on the rest of the day was spent swapping the two batteries over as soon as one went flat.
	We were glad we hadn't attempted to continue on to Basle the night before as the road now became windy A roads rather than motorways, but the scenery started to improve making the drive really enjoyable. The previous day there had been a fire in the tunnel in Switzerland, but we'd worked out an alternative route going over rather than under the mountains, and we were really glad we did.
A lot of Jobbers had originally thought of going that way but changed their minds because of the fire, which means they missed out what we thought was the best part of the route to Imola. Battery swaps at the top of the mountains gave us some great Kodak moments. We also had great fun doing Italian Job type stunts, taking it in turns driving three abreast through the dark tunnels in the mountains, but I was driving at the time and Karen was using the MiniWorld camera.
	With a constant supply of new battery power Cybil behaved fairly well. However on the steep inclines she was struggling a bit and chucking out some smoke. We gave her a drink of 20/50 and checked her air filter, which was clogged up with black gunge, so that was discarded allowing her to breathe in the fresh mountain air - after that she was really travelling.

Just before Milan we hit the Italian motorways in the rush hour. I don't think I've ever seen driving like it, speeds well in excess of 100mph with cars nose to tail. We were trying to keep the gaps between our cars to the minimum we felt was safe so as not to be split up, but cars were still swapping lanes using our gaps to do so - frightening!

Just after Bologna we got a text message from Richard in Cybil saying that they were struggling and might need to do a battery change on the hard shoulder. It was a terrifying thought as at this stage there were two motorways running parallel with just a narrow strip between them. We all slowed down and drove along the inside lane looking for an exit - which there wasn't - and eventually Cybil conked out about 500 metres before an exit to a petrol station. We quickly attached her to the Equinox with a tow rope and hauled her to safety. Phew!

After that we did the short run left to Imola and arrived at the hotel with time to spare before dinner. We thought at one stage that we were going to have to find another hotel for the night as only Ben, Mark, James and David had pre-booked for that night - we'd not been sure whether we'd arrive that night or stop somewhere else as we had up to midday on Saturday to arrive in Imola. The first response from the hotel was that they were fully booked and we'd have to go elsewhere, but then they discovered that we were team 01 and a room suddenly became available. We then managed to talk them into finding a room for Richard and Cuan as well, so all was well in the end.

Cybil was taken to the hotel garage to meet the Italian Job service crew for the first time. After a good meal and a few drinks we retired to get ready for the official Italian Job start the next day - we felt we'd already had so much fun and experienced so much in two days, that it seemed impossible the Job hadn't even started yet!