MGF Treffen 2002 day 6

Thursday 5th September – Day 6

Up for breakfast at 9:30 this morning (after a much needed good night's sleep). I managed to blag a bucketful of water from the fountain in the market square (thanx Ann!) and proceeded to wash the majority of the road grime off of Scarlet, we are not going to have a great deal of time when we get to Berlin for such things and the procession is tomorrow morning, so IMO it needed to be done. I was just getting to the
wheels when Mike and Vyv arrived with a sparkling Trophy and directions to the nearest jet wash, so
Mike Satur, Dieter and Rosi and myself set off for the Elf garage to do the job properly.
Whilst waiting for the jet wash to become vacant, Mike asked me what time we needed to check out by. I had asked this very question this morning so was able to reply 11:00am, we both looked at our watches and saw that it was 10:50… Mike borrowed Scarlet to make a dash for the Hotel and save another day's room rental, whilst I proceeded to jet wash his TF. I found the TF to be trickier to wash than the F, mainly due to
the extra angles. Particular attention needed to be given to the side air intakes and the black bumper sections are deceptive in that they look cleaner than they actually are. Still, it wasn't a chore and soon the car was gleaming again. Mike returned in Scarlet with news of a blowing exhaust – I had been wondering why she was feeling sluggish since the 'ring. We haven't managed to pin it down yet, but the noise appears to be coming from the exhaust manifold area (a good excuse for the EBD one? Need to sort out the flexi joint though). We headed back to the Hotel for the journey to Berlin and departed shortly after midday.

Last night I asked Ted if Michael was the reason for the slower convoy speed and he replied that the East German police are really hot on speeding and he felt it wasn't worth the risk. Fair dues, anything that stops me getting a ticket is all right by me. Some really lovely roads on this first leg, through the Harz region, following a river through heavily forested mountains – superb. Remember yesterday I mentioned about Stefan let me use his uplink from his room to post on the BBS? Well, apparently Jenny had left some clothes out (she was in the bath) when I knocked and Stefan had tidied them up before getting me in by putting them in the wardrobe. About 10 kilometres into today's trip he suddenly flashed his lights and did a U turn. At the time we were very puzzled, it transpires that he had forgotten to retrieve Jenny's clothes from the wardrobe and had to go back to get them! Shades of Gareth on last years' Treffen… :-) We had a short unscheduled stop to see a landmark (the story goes that a knight tried to jump a canyon on his horse to save a damsel, but fell to his doom. At the bottom of the canyon is an imprint of the horse), before setting off once more to our lunch stop in Quedlinburg.

Quedlinburg is a very picturesque town, currently undergoing restoration (with world heritage grant money). Before the wall fell, the East Germans didn't have the money or resources to maintain their properties and so the majority fell into disrepair. Also a number of property owners fled to the west and the state issued their
properties to tenants (who also let the properties rot – no vested interest I suppose). There are major works underway to undo the ravages of time in numerous places like Quedlinburg and the Germans have made fantastic progress, but there is still a long way to go (hence the poorer road surfaces I referred to in Tuesday's report). The group split up for a short while whilst we walked through the town and found a nice place for coffee and cake (a German lunchtime institution), before heading back to the cars, where we met
up with Stefan and Jenny again and the final part of the journey. So, although briefly we were only 10 MGs in convoy, we were now back to the full compliment of 11 again.

This last leg of the day was less interesting being a mixture of fast A roads, blocked by slow moving traffic (Ted's being careful remember so overtaking was kept to a minimum) and Autobahn, again at a respectable pace. Personally I was thankful, given Scarlet's blowing exhaust and lack of power. Hmmm, I have just had a
thought, I always finish off the Treffen with a blast through the Dartford tunnel, with the exhaust manifold
sapping the noise (as well as power), this could be less enjoyable. :-(
Anyway, back to the report. There was a couple of incidents on this stage, firstly Ted had a little trouble
getting on to one of the autobahns as there was a Passat pulling a caravan in the slow lane who wouldn't pull over to let him on. But the main one of the day involved an Opel Kadett (Vauxhall Astra) van, Mk2 if I have identified it correctly. We were stuck behind a pair of lorries with this Opel in front of Ted, when the road opened up into three lanes at a set of lights. The Opel (and us) lined up in the middle lane in order to pass the lorries in the nearside off of the lights when they changed. Anyway, as the lights went green, the Opel floored it and engulfed the convoy is plumes of thick, black smoke!! Not very nice when you are driving a convertible with the roof down! Other than this and Dieter and Alex taking a short cut off the Autobahn to the Hotel in Berlin, the last leg was completed with the minimum of fuss and we arrived in Teltow near Berlin at around 6:00 this evening.
The hotel is a Marriot, called the Courtyard and is rather nice, in a Posthouse kind of way. Outside in the car park is a host of MGs, ranging from T type midgets through Y and ZA/B saloons to Midget, MGA, MGB and MGC models. There are also RV8s, our Fs and Mike Satur's TF and a couple of new Z cars as well – impressive. No modern triple M's though and although I have difficulty spotting them, there are
very few (if any) pre-war models other than the T types. We checked in and met Mike Standring
who is one of the organisers of the event and is a fluent English speaker, an ex-pat maybe? I have a fantastic 'Treffen Berlin 2002' pack consisting of instructions in English, stickers, a name badge, the biggest rally plate I have ever seen and a free hardback book called 'Aus Liebe zum Sportwagen' which appears to be a German book on the pre war MG models, complete with loads of photographs. It looks like a fantastic read,
but unfortunately it is in German, so in my case it will be a souvenir of the Treffen this year (I am thinking about getting all the BBS Treffener's to sign it). As well as collecting the pack, I was told that the tour bus left at 7:30pm. Mike Satur said; after spending 6 hours driving today the last thing I want to do is sit on a bus for another three hours. I must admit I agree with him and I decided that, given the early start tomorrow my time would be better spent getting the car ready for the procession. I leathered it off (to remove the day's road grime) and then applied the first coat of Super Resin polish when Mike arrived and said he's changed his mind and would be going on the tour after all! I couldn't leave the car like this so I resolved myself to a quiet evening in the hotel alone. The coaches left and I carried on with the polishing (super resin polish, high gloss top coat, bumper care on the black trim and Greygate on the rear screen and windstop
plexi-glass panel) before realising that somewhere I had lost my room card key! I searched around but
couldn't find it so I went to try and explain the problem to the reception in my very poor pigeon German. It all went rather smoothly (the girl behind the counter not only remembered me and my room number, she also spoke excellent English – I was impressed!) It was whilst sorting this out that Erik and Fran recognised my
voice and said their hellos. :-) They couldn't get a room in the hotel with us and had arrived too late to join with the tour bus, so they were discussing tomorrows' events when I walked into the reception area. After resolving the start point for tomorrow's procession I got cleaned up and we had a nice dinner in the restaurant. Erik and Fan's car is running better, they had a job fining the parts though, resulting in an abortive journey 160 kilometres out of their way before finally getting them fitted. Just as we had finished the
others came back and had a buffet that had been laid on specially. The tour was apparently quite good, but it was nice to have a bit of 'quiet time' with Erik and Fran instead. It's good to have them back with us, I for one was quite concerned in Zell when they left us (seems like ages ago!)

OK, I am writing this at 11:50pm in my room and I have an early start tomorrow (6:30am), so I am going to leave the phone dismantling until tomorrow night. I may have time to visit an Internet café tomorrow, but the itinerary is pretty full so I will have to play it by ear. In the meantime, "This is Scarlet Fever signing off" (I have always wanted to say that!) ;-)

SF (Teltow – near Berlin)

Treffeners of this day
Ted Newman
Andrew Phillips "Scarlet Fever"
Patrick & Ann Beet
Mike Nunn & Viv
David Smith & Jackie
Richard Tookey
Stefan Gibney & Jenny
Allessandro Faccetty
Erik Baekelant & Fran
Dieter Koennecke & Rosi
Mike Satur

Visitors with MGF
Stephan Fischer & Sandra
Another MGF from the UK
Several courtesy cars (4?) from Berlin MG dealers and MGR Germany