Two drifters off to see the world

There's such a lot of world to see (today's theme tune).

My huckleberry friend and I headed south, into Poland, today. I woke to a coffee, which was rather pleasant and we had a funky little frankfurter hotdog thing for brekkie.

There's not all that much to report really. We spent most of our time either in the van or at garages fixing different problems.

Fooling around in the warm water cupboard

The first fettling sesh was all about tyre pressure. Then Tony drove lots, we played 20 questions and iSpy, and passed by deer, herons (lots of heron nests), hares, dogs, cats, pheasants, cars and snow barriers. We've definitely hit more populated areas now. There's more traffic on the roads, the tarmac surface is smoother, and the corrugated metal roofs are now shiny plastic/composite tiles.

The van (more appropriately now named Smiley Miley) started misbehaving late in the afternoon. The temperature gauge had shifted a little to the right and so we stopped to allow the engine to cool. We also topped up the coolant with water but, in the time it took for us to have our second frankfurter of the day, the temperature didn't drop so we figured something was a little awry.

As dusk fell, the speedometer then starting playing up too and, whenever Tony turned on the main headlights, the speedometer dropped to 0mph. He had to fiddle about with the fog lights to get the speedo to go back to normal and we then realised that the dashboard was dimmer than usual and the headlights weren't working as they should. We spotted a layby and pulled in - right in front of the Polish police. They were very helpful and (after confirming there's no chance we'd find an autoelectrician at this time in this area) they directed us to the nearest garage.

7 minutes up the road we pulled into the garage and discussed what would be the best course of action if, as Tony suspected, the alternator was knackered. As we were discussing options, Smiley jumped back into action as if everything was better all of a sudden. Most bizarre. We decided it would be best to not move the van or push on and ate at the restaurant that was conveniently located next to the petrol station. The restaurant also has rooms and so we're crashing here for the night.

Cross everything that the van starts tomorrow, peeps!