CAPE TO CAPE CHALLENGE 2000 - Report 5

Saturday 8 July
By the time we reached the Oresundbron at Malmo we were over four hours ahead of our original outline schedule. The new bridge opened on 1st July, and we were concerned that the first full weekend open would be extremely busy, but there were no queues at all, and we were soon crossing this impressive structure after taking our obligatory border crossing photo. Our route then took us across Denmark, via the Great Belt Bridge. Here we found far more traffic: it appeared that all Danish families were taking to the road with caravan or boat in tow. At the German border we lost several minutes queuing thanks to border checks. I was now driving and looking forward to some de-restricted autobahn driving: unfortunately heavy traffic and some heavy showers intervened.
Then in Hamburg we lost 20 minutes queuing at roadworks near the Elbe tunnel, so we had to pass the time guessing whether German girls fitted the stereotype painted ina Scandinavian joke we had been told a couple of days ago. Neil took over to the south of Hamburg and his experience of driving on the autobahns proved very useful. He managed to squeeze nearly 190kph out of the car (OK this may not sound THAT impressive), but the opportunities seemed few and far between.
North of Hannover we waited in queues for no apparent reason, although we later discovered there had been an earlier accident that had been cleared by the time we arrived. The Montego continued to run faultlessly and an oil check revealed negligible consumption. David then took over for a trouble-free run through Frankfurt, although complying with speed limits on the autobahn was now becoming a real pain. For us it meant overtaking cars in unlimited sections only to have cars pass us as they ignored ludicrous 100kph limits on downhill gradients, or 60kph limits in road works. Indeed it seemed as though most of the E5 south of Frankfurt was being renewed as we encountered over 20km of roadworks.
John Dalton

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