Hessisch Oldendorf 2013

AAaaahhhh man what a blast was this show!!!

I lefthome on the evening of wednesday 29th to meet up with fellow bus owners at dover beachfront where we parked up to get the early boat on thursday morning..
Once landed in Dunkerque we re-grouped and made a convoy of 11 Splitbuses.. this convoy was rather Unique, with a very early bus.. a ’50!! Owned by Dai Watkins and was “thrown” together to make this trip. 😀

Further more we had a 51, 52’s, 53’s, 54 sunroof, Single cab, early bullet buses and the hitop..

Chez’s 53 hippyracer and Ben’s 51 Buzz’s 54 sunroof, the green ‘windup’ barndoor and in the back Dai’s 50!

The reason why we had to stop was a overheating engine in Ben’s 51..

Another stunning bus in the comvoy was the 54 deluxe from Graham! Scotty’s 52 RHD, Simon’s 56 Pg/Sg and Mike’s 59 RHD.

Half an hour later we were back on the motorway continuing or ever lasting super slow convoy at approx. 45 mph.. We decided to do some shopping before we would go to BBT’s and so we came off the motorway just before going in the Antwerp Kennedy tunnel.

We draw a serious amount of attention at the local supermarket 😀

As soon as we tried to get back on the motorway we came to a complete stand still, we didn’t even made it on the motorway. I jumped out of the bus walked on to the motorway and saw a sign : accident – wait at least 1 hour. Damn!! A quick word with the rest of the group and I decided to lead all the buses around via the waaslandtunnel aka “bunnyhole” (konijnepijp) through the center of Antwerp whilst rush hour!!

A few shots made by Mike as I was too busy focussing on not loosing anybody!
Thanx to everybody for cooperating well and making phone calls in between!!

B- routing..

Dai’s ’50 – What a piece of history!!

Rush hour in front of the “konijnepijp” (waasland tunnel), a bit scary with all these expensive things on the road.. 4 lanes going in to 1 and not a single car that would leave you a gap, you literally have to squeeze yourself in.. Nearly impossible to do with a convoy.. BUT we all made it safe and sound! 🙂

We finally arrived at BBT’s after a 7,5hr drive! The weather had turned from rain to beautiful weather which created the perfect atmosphere amongst loads of VW fans! (pics by BBT)

Plenty of people enjoying the FREE and fantastic BBQ from Bob by the fresh-a-licious catering team.

A great opportunity to see BOB’s own collection, he own’s an amazing car collection!!

We had a great evening meeting lots of old and new friends..

Early birds in the morning enjoying the lovely breakfast continued with the start of the convoy to Hessisch Oldendorf.

Because we had such a long drive to Antwerp we decided to have a lay in and skip the cruise in the morning so we could drive a little faster and don’t have to stop all the time.. 🙂

A few pictures of the cruise..

Alan Scott’s (Scotty) 52 RHD – the oldest RHD on the road!

Chez William’s 53 – He used to race this bus down the strip!

We catched up with the BBT convoy.. and over took them.. 😀

Vrooaaammm.. we were having a steady cruise at ± 75 mph.. not bad for these old rust buckets.. 😀

Saw some very nice cars in the Convoy..

Eventually we over took the whole convoy and arrived about 15mins earlier.. 🙂

Thanks to Niels for these nice pictures..

We parked up in the center of the town. Later on the eve they played music down the road and around 3am I called a night..

A very busy and lovely show started early saturday with the center square packed with barndoors

Chez doing what he does best.. 🙂

Streets packed with early beetles..

Oval windows everywhere..

Streets filled with buses too 🙂

Another Highroof!! Jari from Finland came down and drove about 2000km to get there..

A lot of very nice early buses!

One of the highlights of the show were the schwimmwagens..

They all went to the local river and gave a little demonstration.. impressive to say the least!!
I met a family from Singapore together with a friend of them, all VW heads (they have some split buses and even a kombi restaurant – Kombi rocks) and gave them a lift to the river, they enjoyed it a lot. If you read this, I hope to meet you again some time!!