I’m still a little sleepy, but I’ve punched in all our waypoints on the route. Take a look at our cannonball route.
Here’s how our trip breaks down:
Day 1 - London to Brussels
- 260 miles
- 8 hours (left 12 noon, arrived 8pm) but three hours wait at eurotunnel.
Day “2″ - Brussels to Prague
- roughly 1000 miles
- 20 hours (left 1am, arrived 9pm)
- google maps reckons 24 hours. not bad, not bad.
- usually 570 miles (straight across)
Day 3 - Prague to Zagreb
- 300 miles
- what a cinch. we laugh at 300 miles!
- 8 hours (left 11am, arrived 7pm)
- we were forced to endure a convoy behind a “safety car” at legal speed limits in austria for 3 hours!
All in all about 1600 mile trip. Of the 60 hours since leaving Earls Court, we drove for 36 hours, partied for about 14 and slept about 10. Would we do it again? In a heartbeat!!!
Just to follow up on Lou’s post, we’ve arrived!
Safe and sound and in one piece. We have an extremely tired Z4M that looked after us beautifully and never once moaned or complained, even after dropping her into 3rd gear for the 10,000th time in 48 hours. All said and done I think we’ve done about 1800 miles since leaving Earls Court on Friday. We’ve met some fantastic, and partially insane, people on this trip and have laughed ourselves silly.
A quick thank you to Lourens for being such a fantastic and competent co-driver, but also for putting up with my antics. I think we played it very safe the last few days, but no road trip would be complete without me doing at least one silly thing that we all wish I hadn’t. Sorry dude! 
Right now it’s time for a shower and then a great big phat party. I think I might even have a cigar! Pictures and stuff to follow soon.
x
Sven
Fantastic. What an absolute blast. This was really tough, it was long and the driving was very hard but we had a hell of a time. We are sitting in our room and feel like we are still moving, like the feeling you get when you get off a ship. Totally shattered but highly pleased with ourselves.
We did it the long way round, we were the first to do it this way and it feels great. There are lots of other cars who joined us today who came direct from Germany and Austria. Some guys are still in Germany waiting for their cars to be released and some of these geezers have hired a private jet to make tonight’s party…that’s the spirit. It does not matter how, you just have to get here.
We were greeted by a nice welcoming party with lots of spectators and the Zagreb major which makes a change from the reception most had in Germany. We are waiting for our shirts to be pressed and then it’s off to a black tie champagne reception and dinner…can’t wait and we are going to get bloody drunk tonight.
Lots of videos and pics to be uploaded but were going to party first! Lou
We drove over 1330 miles in the past 36 odd hours of which 30 was on the road. Cannonball is all over the news with 20 cars impounded in Germany and so far only 25 of the 140 cars that started yesterday has arrived in the Czech Republic….we expect a maximum of 40.
Sven and I decided to drive AROUND Germany from Brussels which included Belgium, Luxemborg, France, Switzerland and Austria en route.
We are shattered having not slept so I cannot think or type, we will upload our route map tomorrow morning and a little story about Sven chasing the Police car (not the other way round!)
Live FREE!
So we’re safe and sound at the Eurotunnel.
We’ve had opportunity to test the full set of revs available in all gear combinations. This was done in the interest of knowing that the car is okay and capable of operating within manufacturers parameters.
We were able to test the brakes quite a few times too. Interestingly, these brake tests occurred mostly near or around these white vans with “Safety Camera Partnership” written on the side. Most of these vans seemed to be equipped with cameras and such things. I can’t wait to see if we’ll be sent any footage of our car with all our awesome stickers on! Although it’s likely that the M6 we had in front of us will be blocking most of the view.
We are all waiting to enter the Train departure area to upload our cars. Some good driving here and funnily enough it did not take us very long once we got out of the city!
Were on our way….slowly!
London traffic is great, 2MPH!
Anyway it allows me to post as we go, check our progress on the map here: http://www.kalayl.net/cannonball/
Whopeee!
After 1 hours of peak traffic slogging we finally arrived at Earls Court and what a sight! A gazillion pounds worth of cars with a few suprises such as a Roll Royce Phantom complete with Blow up doll in the back and a Ferrari 599 covered in pictures of nuts…they are promoting a testical cancer research charity!
Below a few pics from the morning!
Continue Reading »
I’m up. Awake. And I’ve already had two Nurofens and a big glass of water. If that ain’t the way to start our rally, then I don’t know what is. The big day has finally arrived, and I am giddy with excitement.
Our movements for today are pretty simple. We leave my house at 07:30 and head for the Earls Court Exhibition Center, which is right here. Then at about 11:30, we’ll be making our way across London (congestion charge anyone?) down to the Eurotunnel terminal. Finally, once on terra europa we head on over to the Conrad Brussels hotel, which is here, and looks spanky and far too exclusive for a bunch like us to take over for the night.
Right now though it’s time to hit the shower and get pretty for the cameras. See you later.
Today’s been a busy day. Most of it was about washing and polishing and stickering the car. Some pics follow after the fold. The full set is available here
This is very much a “before” shot:
Continue Reading »