Paris / New York - Transcontinental 2009

[BlueGerbil]

October 6, 2008

Travelling also means to face new situations and to adjust to them – that is exactly what the expedition demanded from us in a democratic way today! The press conference – which has been prepared excellently by the Representation of the State of Hesse – turned out differently than planned. A national strike in Belgium caused a failure to appear on the part of the representatives of the press and also shut Belgium completely down. It is impressing to notice all the things that were not operating any longer – beginning with a non-speaking radio host as well as buses and train lines. Due to the restricted space in the Hessian State House of Representatives, we presented the banner exhibition along with our three Jeeps in the automobile museum – the only open available space. Besides the visitors of the museum we were also happy to welcome a delegation of the Representation of the State of Hesse as well as representatives of Chrysler Belgium.

Our vehicles were also the center of attention in front of the museum. We particularly liked a Romanian tour group which would have joined us right away. It was a very pleasant, open-minded meeting. After reaching Rotterdam in the evening, we had to stop at a doctor’s office because Falk – our cameraman – has hurt himself on his foot. Right after the treatment we continued our way to the Goethe Institute where they were anticipating our arrival.

But before the greeting, the creators of our Jeeps had to take care of the parking of the expedition vehicles first. Due to a very narrow driveway – only slightly wider than the vehicles themselves – and a constantly closing electric gate this proved to be a time-consuming undertaking. In the evening, the sincere greeting by the employees of the Goethe Institute compensated for all the effort.

[Jeff]

Negotiating car parks and narrow city streets - definitely sounds like a Jeep adventure

[cj4a nz]

sounds like an interesting trip will be following

[BlueGerbil]

October 14, 2008: Switzerland

After the farewell in Limburg we left southwards early in the morning. Our destination: Switzerland – more precisely our partner Alcosuisse in Delémont and IBS in Thun. The factory manager of Alcosuisse was able to 100% satisfy our curiosity about the bio ethanol-production with his explanations and a tour through the factory. We got to know how little chaffed wooden pieces get produced into bio ethanol, that we will carry in our tanks and use on the further trip.

Afterwards we headed towards Thun. At the company IBS, the expert Beat Wyss, adjusted the battery-control-system for our excess-battery-system in a impressive way. Thus our Jeeps' batteries will be loaded in an optimal way and we will have enough capacity to use 4 winches, floodlight, walkie-talkies, laptops and a lot more.

We went to refuel our vehicles at an especially from Alcosuisse supplied gas station around the corner. But not a regular tank, the entire additional tanks got filled up with the valuably bio ethanol out of wooden waste. The owner of the gas station had a whimsical smile on his face as he presented the invoice for 1,700 liters of bio ethanol. The biogenic fuel is clear like water, contains 85 % ethanol and does not stand in competition to any nutrition due to wooden waste as basic material. Bio ethanol of the 2nd generation is one of the crucial points of our idea to not only use renewable energies for spectacular record drives but also use the long range media presence to promote the possibilities, advantages and need to use those resources.

We barely moved as we noticed that the driver’s door got wet even though it was not raining. So we jumped out and tried to find the reason. We were able to find out that one of our roof mounted tanks was leaking. Immediately we welded the tank using the cold-welding-process. After we refuelled the tank, everything seemed to be alright. Special thanks to Beat Wyss from IBS at this point, whose garage we were allowed to use for this repair.

After such an exciting day we spent the whole night driving through France on the highways. Our next destination: the Catalan metropolis Barcelona.

[BlueGerbil]

October 15, 2008: Barcelona

The night time driving through France smoothly continued and we reached Barcelona in the evening. The Catalan capital city is covered with creations of Antoni Gaudi and rife with small alleys so that it even was an adventure for us to navigate our almost 3 meter high expedition-Jeeps. Finally a nice police patrol escorted us with active blue light through the city to our hotel.

Late in the evening Matthias Jeschke had two photo shoots and an interview with representatives of the Spanish motor press. We finished the day with a delicious typical Spanish dinner.

[Simsy85]

I still don't get how they are going to get across the water...

[CD]

Geezzzz all that black top driving.. .looks like they chose the correct Jeep for the job