The team of five congregate for the start of our Trans Asia 1977 trip
October 1977
Everything was ready, time to get going. Pete and I stayed at the house in Holt, Norfolk. Chris caught the 17:02 from her home to Norwich on Saturday 22nd October 1977. Celia joined us. We picked Annie up from Ipswich Station on Sunday 23rd October 1977. Getting ahead of myself. It had rained since we parked the vehicles in the meadow. The wheels of the Ford especially, left tracks as it manoeuvered to the field gate, much to the annoyance of Pete's Dad understandably. Not quite the auspicious start that we would have liked.
Pete travelled directly to Felixstowe, whilst I stopped of at Ipswich Station to collect Annie off her train from London.
The truck did make it to Felixstowe docks but not without incident. Stopped at the docks, the gate keeper pointed out that we were losing oil. That was a good spot on his behalf. The oil filter cover had worked loose. It was a simple case of getting under a hot truck engine, tightening the one bolt, and pouring replacement oil into the top. We had plenty for the trip, so it was not too inconvenient. However, had we continued to drive with the loose oil filter, we would have continued to lose oil until the oil light would have come on, probably just after the cover would have come of altogether and destroyed itself as it bounced along the road. It was Sunday, so there would have been no replacements available, until Monday at the earliest. A discussion would have taken place, resulting in Pete and the girls catching the ferry as booked, and me fixing the Ford and paying for another ferry. Fortunately, the guy on the dock gate had sharp eyes, and all that was avoided.
The 1986 Ordinance Survey map of Felixstowe has a block note 'Vehicle Ferry from Felixstowe to Zeebrugge 5 to 8 hours'. We boarded the ferry and started our adventure in earnest.
Date to remember, Sunday 23rd October 1977, the beginning of our second Trans Asia adventure.
See and hear an example of a Ford D series on YouTube. After you have seen hat video, then try this 1968 Ford Commercial Vehicle Range advertisment. Our Ford, with an E registration number plate was of 1967 vintage. A notable thing with the Ford D series was the high revving engine compared to other diesels of the day.
Below, after a short delay a map will appear which will run an animation of the route. It is currently under developmemt and is a bit experimental. However, that now returns an Error page. The product was by www.animaps.com, but that also leads to a Error page. The iframe string within src was "http://www.animaps.com/pb/433320001/3467/Trans_Asia_1977__Eastboundkml#c=true;e=true" width="600" height="600" frameborder="0". Recorded here just in case, but removed to avoid the Error.
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To see the photos of this article in HD follow this link to my photo gallery site. Click here.
To see a map of the approximate route, click here
