Published!

Tim had his first travel writing article published in the Driving Section of the Friday Vancouver Sun! The article is below or visit the article on the Vancouver Sun website.

Arthur expanded his owners' language skills

Vancouver Sun
Friday, January 06, 2006

In the spring of 2003 in London, my wife and I started a four-month odyssey around Europe by camper van. We bought a cute red VW with an air-cooled engine, which was mechanically very simple, and therefore easy to fix when it broke down. Unfortunately, we had many occasions to find out how easy it was to fix. When it wasn't so easy to fix, we got to learn the names for various car parts in different languages from the mechanics we visited. Before we even left the U.K., we learned that a gas tank is called a "petrol tank" in Britain.

We held a contest by e-mail to come up with a name -- the winner was "Art van Delay," both a reference to Seinfeld and, as it turned out, an apt description. We called it Arthur.

We took the ferry to France and drove to Switzerland. Arthur didn't have a great power-to weight ratio, and didn't like the hilly parts of Switzerland as much as we did. He had a few little mishaps along the way, including the time where the accelerator became stuck on the freeway (fortunately, the brakes are more powerful than the engine), and the fuel filter filled with water (fixed with a Swiss army knife). After visiting some friends and doing some skiing, we meandered through the south of France and headed to Barcelona, where we learned to say "carburetor" in Catalan.

After touring the rest of Spain, we drove back across the entire continent to Slovenia, where we relaxed in out-of-the way places, enjoying the quiet of one of the less-travelled corners of Europe. Things became exciting again when Arthur had a precipitous decline in power output just outside the local mechanic's shop in Postojna. We had not yet learned the Slovenian term for "engine open-heart surgery," but fortunately Arthur's ailments were self-evident and the mechanic diagnosed the problem and wrote the price on a piece of paper. We were relieved at his estimate, until we realized he was asking for Euros, not Slovenian tolars. We enjoyed all the delights of scenic Postonja, then left to let the mechanic do his thing. We visited Lubljana and Piran by bus, and when we came back, the mechanic had brought Arthur back to life after this delicate operation.

Arthur led us through more adventures, taking us to Salzburg, then Prague, then back to Salzburg because we left our camera there. Along the way, we learned how to say brakes and carburetor in German. We eventually headed over the Alps one last time and into Bavaria.

This was the beginning for the end for Arthur, as I'm afraid we overheated his poor engine severely.

We soldiered on, spending a wonderful week in Berlin before catching the ferry back to the U.K., driving to York, which Arthur liked so much, he didn't want to leave. While he was having a new alternator fitted, we got to see some of the second- and third-string attractions of York, including the decidedly pro-Richard III museum.

Arthur came through one more time, as we toured the highlands and islands of Scotland, which would have been virtually inaccessible without a vehicle.

At one point, near Fort William, Arthur gave us an awful fright when he spat up a spark plug, but I crossed my fingers and stuck it back in, and he kept going. Arthur limped south as far a Carnarvon, North Wales, where he once again spat up a sparkplug, but this time it wouldn't go back in.

We managed to force him to crawl to a mechanic, where we learned how to say "write-off" in Welsh.

We breathed an internal sigh of relief, as our trip was coming to an end soon and we didn't much fancy trying to pawn off this lemon on another unsuspecting traveller. We said our goodbyes, stripped him of everything we could carry, and sold him to the mechanic for parts.

Arthur van Delay, 1980 - 2003

May He Rust in Peace.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006