Flying Through the Ruhr

Those who have worn the light blue of the Royal Air Force are acutely of its history. The Royal Navy have the Armada and Nelson. The Army have Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme. But the new boys on the block did not get going until 1 April 1918 so their history revolves around the 1939-45 conflict. Fighter Command get most of the recognition due to films like the Battle of Britain but most of the effort in terms of resources, time and casualties was put up by Bomber Command over Germany because they were the only outfit able to hit back at the Nazi war machine in any meaningful way until 1944.

Our first long distance haul just happened to be through that very industrial heartland known as the ‘Ruhrgebiet’, the nightly stomping ground of the Lancasters. So there was a certain historic, poetic edge to our journey via the ‘Ruhr’ to the Saurerland on the other side. Ninety five percent of our journey was by autobahn and we had noticed that most long distance lorry drivers took Sunday off so that was the day to go.

Lancaster Crew 1943

Now the worst weather conditions you want for your first outing with a new caravan is heavy snow. The second worst weather is heavy rain. We had the second. What was worse was we could see the rain on the radar on the internet and the rain was coming along for the ride on the whole journey. We weren’t going to change our plans at this late stage so we ‘kicked the tires and lit the fires’ and set off. The rig behaved superbly, steady as a rock, brakes working as they should and responding to the throttle when required. It appeared that our Lancaster bomber (as we now christened her) was going to take us all the way. This was more than could be said for me and Wendy. I broke the initial 15 minutes of silence by saying ‘have you got a drink, my mouth is really dry?’. Wendy replied ‘So’s mine’. I felt the left side of my chest and could feel that my heart beat was up. After a quick look at each other we burst out laughing as the penny dropped that we were experiencing stress and the adrenaline was pumping round our bodies. So after a swig from the water bottle, and putting on our Queen CD we started to relax and so did our heart beat.

Lancaster Crew 2012

Wendy was a good navigator, she had planned every interchange and landmark with thoroughness and gave the pilot, sorry driver, good notice of what to expect. I’m sure she would have made a good bomb aimer as well but she didn’t get the chance. We drove through the Wupper valley which is very uphill and down dale but the Jeep’s Mercedes 3 litre V6 engine has amazing power. I was surprised at how effectively it could accelerate, we even overtook a slow moving lorry going uphill. The self-adjusting brakes and stabilised  coupling kept us steady even on the steepest down hill sections. By the time we left the autobahn for the final leg to Brilon I was quite enjoying myself. The rain had finally stopped just as we pulled into our Sauerland campsite just south of Brilon.

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