Munich to Chesterfield by road

Four Sixt UK employees, 900 miles, 17 hours, 8 cans of red bull, 2 cars, 1 flask of coffee!

Our epic journey by Catherine & Dave…

Whilst many tourists have been turning to car hire as an alternative to air travel, some of us from Sixt UK were also caught out by Eyjafjallajökull’s sudden eruption last Thursday morning.

In fact we had barely started our first meeting at Sixt headquarters in Munich on Thursday morning when news began to break that flights had been grounded as a result of the ash cloud heading towards the UK.

At first we thought it could be a wind-up from our colleagues in the UK, jokers that they are, but it soon became apparent that this was not the case and in fact the chances of us flying home that evening were becoming slimmer by the minute.

We eagerly kept in touch with our UK colleagues and by lunch time our fate was sealed – Easyjet EZY1888 from Munich to Manchester had been cancelled. However we were soon booked onto the same flight due to leave the following evening, which Mike, our SEO expert was initially booked on anyway.

However overnight the situation took a turn for the worse and our fears were confirmed when our new flight was cancelled as the closure of British airspace was extended until 01:00 on Saturday morning.

We had two choices; stay in Munich and wait for the airspace closure to be lifted or find an alternative method of getting home.

The fact that most of us had only brought one change of clothes and already had plans for the weekend (mainly involving football matches), coupled with the uncertainty about when airspace would reopen made our mind up. We would attempt to drive from Munich back to our UK head office in Chesterfield. Deciding on the Eurotunnel, we easily made a reservation for the car and booked our slot for 5.57am on Saturday morning.

Our BMW 3 series estate, that we already had on rent from Munich Airport, would take us to our Heathrow branch where we would swap it for a British car, and leave the German vehicle ready to be taken back to Germany.

So at 6pm we waved goodbye to our colleagues in the German headquarters and headed North to the beautiful village of Anzing, so that our Commercial Director, Per Voegerl, could collect his luggage from his mothers house. It also meant that we could all enjoy our last meal before heading off – a delicious mixture of Bavarian meats and breads.

By 7:30pm (German time) we were on the road with a bag full of snacks and drinks and the sat nav system kindly reminding us that we had 970km to go until we reached Calais!

Per, took to the wheel for the first five hours and made great progress on the German autobahns, so much so that when Dave took over on the German – Belgium border there was only 345km left to Calais. We only had 2 stops to get petrol and drink coffee, with Catherine kindly telling us that she couldn’t drive any of the way as she didn’t have her glasses. Fantastic excuse, but we weren’t going to let her loose on the roads so the remainder of the drive was left to Dave.

Whilst Per slept after his work behind the wheel the two passengers, Catherine and Mike, worked hard to keep Dave alert as we navigated the poor quality Belgium motorways. Catherine possibly worked a little too hard with Per getting little sleep due to her constant talking and laughter. Yes, by this time hysteria was beginning to kick in, but the knowledge that we were making constant progress eased our boredom.

Along the journey we learnt a few things about eating and drinking whilst travelling…

1. Don’t try and pour coffee in a car when travelling at speed – it goes everywhere

2. When drinking CapriSun, don’t squeeze the drink when trying to put the straw in – it goes everywhere

3. Don’t tip Nutella chocolate dips upside down to read the packaging when the lid has already been taken off – they go everywhere

Navigating through Belgium was easy, with little concentration required as we followed the sat nav and it’s ‘straight ahead’ instructions to Aachen and Liege. Fairly soon, the tough hour of 3am arrived, it is unbelievably hard to stay focused and even remotely interested in the drive ahead at this hour in the morning. Infact, at this time we were lucky we were speaking to one another as conversations stumbled from one bizarre topic to another.

Normally at 3am Mike would just be going to bed, Catherine would have been in the land of nod for a good few hours, Dave would just be coming in from a night out and Per would be contemplating getting out of bed to check the amount of UK reservations and his google analytics!

With Dave in control we cruised into Calais and followed the signs for the Eurotunnel – the final leg of our journey was fast approaching. Having paid for a ‘flexiplus’ ticket we sailed through customs and followed the priority boarding instructions all the way through to the front of the queue for boarding. At 04.30am we turned off the engine, we had made it. Funny thing was, nobody else had. After paying for priority boarding thinking that the Tunnel would be extremely busy we ended up in a car park, alone. Where was everyone – the TV and internet had said that all other routes were extremely busy? Normally we may have worried that we were in the wrong place, or that everyone knew something that we didn’t but after 9 hours of driving, sleep rather than worry seemed the best option and within minutes we were all in the land of nod.

Disturbed from our slumber by engines starting and flashing lights, we hurriedly started our engine and began to board at 6.00am. As pulling onto the Tunnel required some degree of skill, the manoeuvring was handed over to Per ‘Jeremy Clarkson’ Voegerl rather than Dave, who we decided was more of a James May and we all know his level of skill.

38 minutes later we arrived back on British soil………greeted by fog, or was it Volcanic ash?! In true Top Gear style, the next stage of our journey was to make it to Sixt Heathrow to return our German car, which we had strangely become attached to and collect a UK vehicle for the final leg. We would complete our final stage of the journey in a Volvo V70.

The severity of the flight ban in the UK really hit home as every motorway sign featured the message ‘Heathrow Airport Closed’.

Back on the left side of the road and in day light Catherine offered to take over at the wheel, but Per declared that he was “on a mission” and “in the zone” so we let him complete the 3 hour drive back to Chesterfield.

We finally arrived back at our UK head office at 10:20am 17.5 hours after leaving Munich!

Was it worth it? Probably yes. Would we do it again? Probably not – well hopefully not anyway!

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3. O’Zapft is! Oktoberfest Starts in Munich
4. Sixt’s own Rocket at Munich Airport!
5. Sixt Ice-skating at Munich Airport!