“Well, I’d rather they sang at me, than shot at me”
Tallinn - Riga
Milo was playing up a little today.
In the morning, after about 5 minutes of driving, the temperature gauge went a little bit mental. When I say it went off the scale, it literally went off the scale. If this was a comedy movie, the needle would have been spinning around in circles like a clown’s bow tie, and the only reason it was not spinning was that the oil needle was in its way. It was on Spinal Tap’s 11 volume.
Meg assumed the needle was just broken, but after a few seconds later when we decided to pull over, and smoke started coming out of the bonnet, we realized perhaps it was a genuine problem. We found a small half bottle of water (we weren’t confident the carbonated water we found underneath a seat – bought in error from some foreign service station – was ok to use) and put some anti-freeze with it, into what I believed to be the radiator. It looked like it didn’t take oil. We thought this would suffice for a few KMs until we found a garage.
At the garage, the lady behind the counter must have thought I was mental. First off we bought 4 litre bottles of Evian (the only way to guarantee we didn’t get carbonated water), to fill up the radiator. Then I came back for some more anti-freeze to have as spare, and then a final trip for some oil. Well, I thought while I was at it perhaps I should replace the oil. Yep. It was pretty much empty.
So, an hour later than planned, we were off again. But, needless to say, that wasn’t the end of a little Milo overhaul. In Helsinki we’d noticed the exhaust appeared to be rattling a little more than usual (I should clarify here that it has rattled against the car axle since day one – we were told the previous owner had fitted the wrong exhaust. Not sure how that happens, but hey). It’s particularly noisy on the cobbled streets and tram tracks of Helsinki, Tallinn, etc. At lunch time, I decided to make the effort to look at it, and noticed that the ‘clip’ holding the exhaust to the ‘car’ was split/cracked, so the exhaust now was officially resting on the back axle, rather than just whacking it on every bump we went over at slow speeds. But, never fear. We have cable ties and bungee cord. The cable ties were too short, so I went with the eBay 99p bungee cords. After some careful wrapping, and granny knotting, one of the plastic hooks on the end snapped off, and I ended up punching the concrete tarmac with my thumb. There was blood, sweat but thankfully no tears (another reason why I would be no good in the army, a little bit of a cracked nail and a tiny bit of blood, and I needed to sit down for 20 minutes and gather myself – some baby wipes and a sesame street plaster did the trick though). So, it was time to find a mechanic and a real person who can fix such things.
Thankfully we stumbled across one in the town, and a bizarre speaking Estonian helped us out without too much trouble. When I say bizarre, I mean bizarre in a great way. When he first started talking, I literally thought he was English. He had a proper English accent, was doing the right nodding and saying, “right” and “gotcha” in all the right spaces. But, it transpires, he just watches eastenders a lot. They fixed the exhaust for pennies (‘pay whatever you want to’ is a dangerous way to do business in my mind, but I think they did ok out of it in Estonian terms).
Ok. Finally off. Riga was the destination, and we arrived in the pouring rain at around 6pm. At this point I’d like to quickly blame Hollywood for souring my opinion of Eastern Europeans (as during the Rally last year, they were nothing but lovely people – besides the dour faced border guards). On the drive in, we were getting eyeballed a lot for Milo. And at one point, some dudes in a Vauxhall Cavalier estate/station wagon were playing some Dizzee Rascal and flipping the bird at us, lip syncing the words and so on. This however, was why I was glad they were singing at us, and not kicking off at us in a Rocky IV style manner. Thanks Hollywood.
Time for a quick shower, and the obligatory tour round the Old Town. I can’t believe how cynical we have become over these amazing cities. I needed to force myself to get out of the hotel (Olympics was on) and even see the town. And, again, an amazing looking place, but I think Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn have just spoiled us, and there just weren’t enough “wows” from us that the town deserved. It really was an amazing looking town and on a Sunday day after we hadn’t driven 500km with these dramas, then we would definitely have been much more appreciative I’m sure.
Day 15
