Yesterday evening (Saturday the 24th of October) the 37th edition of our annual "LTV Nachtrit" took place. And as in the previous years I did a last minute check on the day of the event with a friend. Luckily this year it was a rather relaxed affair. There were a few small changes but nothing serious. In the end we only encountered one problem in the shape of road works that had extended beyond their original limits. But with the help of a detailed digital map we worked out a diversion route in 15 minutes. So not too bad for the 262 kilometre long route.
And although the weather forecast for the Saturday evening was rather bleak, with a code yellow for strong wind gusts and heavy rain I decided to leave the Land Rover at home and take ‘t Kreng instead. And I didn’t regret the choice. Actually the weather during the day was rather nice with lots of sunny spells to dry the by times very slippery roads. I even managed a short stop to take in one of the many fine views you won’t see in the dark!
Added bonus was that ‘t Kreng is a wee bit quicker than the Land Rover. So I managed to make up most of the time we lost while working out the diversion around the roadworks. And just before four o’clock in the afternoon I parked the car in the parking area at Rolduc Abby, which was again the start and finish location for this navigational tour:
It had been good fun driving this car on a longer tour again. I actually added approximately 450 kilometres to the cars odometer over the weekend without any problems. But the drive nearly ended in disaster. A Belgian driver entered one of the roundabouts in the route indicating that he would leave the roundabout at the first exit for him. So I didn’t stop and drove onto the roundabout. That was when he changed his mind and carried on till the last exit. Only by braking very hard I managed to mis him by just a few centimetres. It looked like he didn’t noticed anything of what had happened! Luckily that was the only incident for us.
As we had sent all changes through to Roger (the route master) during the trip, all changes to the route book had already been worked out by him. So there was nothing more left for us to do but have some “koffie met vlaai” and watch as the 45 teams, with 4 different nationalities and a nice mix of old-timers and young-timers, heading off into what turned out to be a very wet and windy night. And take a few pictures of course:
And by 5:45 PM the last car was flagged of into the dusk. Traditionally this being Jan with his Triumph TR7 V8.
After the sound of the V8 had faded into the dusk there was nothing more we could do but wait, for the first teams to return. Turned out that most teams managed to finish without to many problems, despite the by times rather bad conditions. And it was good to hear that most entrants had enjoyed themselves!
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