Larvik to Hirtshals

We had the whole day to do a shortish distance to catch the ferry to Denmark today. So rather than sit on the boring main route we decided to take the slow road.

None of us knew just how slow it would become.

Lovely twisty turny roads up and down low hills running alongside rivers. Coming up to a bend, John went to change down to third and my gearstick snapped off at the root. John managed to yell 'big problem' on the CB to the others and then quickly pulled in to a very handy layby.

Stick had brittle snapped right at base, slightly inside the ball of the selector so it meant there was no way of attaching anything temporary to either get it out of third or to use to drive further.

Needed to take all front floor, transmission tunnel, and bell housing cover off so selector mechanism could be removed. This allowed us to select 2nd gear, and we would have the bits loose should we find some one who could weld the stick back together again.

Floor back in the car and I then had to do the next 50 miles in 2nd. Luckily, with my range rover diffs still in place I could trundle along at about 35mph, but I still held up plenty of traffic. Unfortunately not many camper vans were held up - that would have been some payback.

We decided to just head for the ferry. If we saw something promising on route we would stop. Sure enough, James spotted a series 2 in someone's garden, (he has an uncanny knack of spotting series land rovers) we stopped but they were out.

Fortunately the road was easy, reasonably level, and I didn't have too many roundabouts to deal with until I hit Larvic. There I'm afraid I just bombed it across a few not being very courteous. I had to stop at a pedestrian crossing for two old people though, one with sticks, the other with a trolley. I suspect they were waiting for me.

Made it on to the ferry, and with some help from the 'home team' ( Cassie) I have a welder to go and see in Hirtshals tomorrow morning.

Getting away from the ferry terminal was a bit of a problem in Hirtshals. In first gear you can't go very fast down a dual carriageway. Found a pull off, stopped and got into second gear. Hotel only 5 miles down the road, safe and sound for the night.