Last Friday, on 9th October, we boarded Robur with all our kit, two kids and our two JRT’s and departed to the north – we were initially joined only by Jarda, a friend with an S3 88” Station Wagon. He would normally drive up in his Minerva, but the freezing temperatures forecasted for that weekend discouraged him from using a vehicle with no door tops and a loosely fitting tilt.

Deciding to avoid the notoriously crowded streets of Beroun, we headed north, using narrow, winding country roads through Autumnal forests – some lovely views, even if the sunny forecast for the weekend obviously didn’t apply for Friday afternoon. It was a cold, drizzly afternoon.

After some traffic hiccups at Lány and a fill-up at Smečno, we headed for Mělník, where Petr, another member of our 4-vehicle posse was supposed to meet us up. In the event he got stuck at work and called us up he would be leaving later, so we passed Mělník and headed up towards Česká Lípa, Nový Bor and Rumburk, where Pavel, the last member of our small column, was already waiting.

At Česká Lípa Robur starting to cough as if we run out of petrol (a known, recurring issue on some of our longer journeys) and eventually stopped – as usual it had to be at the least convenient spot, a narrow road in the dark, with no hard shoulder and lots of traffic. After a quarter of an hour Robur had to be towed away by Jarda’s truck as staying at that place was becoming dangerous.

After removing the engine cover from the cab and poking at various parts of the engine bay (petrol was proved to be in abundance in the line just before the carb, spark from the coil was also observed), Robur started as if nothing had happened. We’ve had this throughout our Austrian trip, we attributed it to the hot days and hot-running engine, but apparently this could hardly be the case during this weekend’s trip.

We headed towards Rumburk, picked up Pavel in the complete darkness of the mountain passes, filled up petrol just before crossing into Germany (lower prices at our side of the border) and drove up to Reichwalde without any further mishaps.


Filling up close to Rumburk, with Robur next to Jarda's motor

A forest close to Reichwalde (close to Boxberg in the former GDR) is the location for 1. Technische Schauanlage für Kübel- und Geländewagen e.V., a small privately owned, non-profit museum of military staff cars and light offroad cars.
The museum, a small restaurant and about 10 guest rooms with shared shower/toilet facilities, is housed in buildings formerly used by GDR’s police and the state prosecutor’s office for training of their staff. A short offroad track and some outbuildings housing the owner’s future projects are also at the premises.

We unpacked our kit, parked the trucks a bit further away from the buildings and went to have a few beers with the pair of very hospitable owners, Jana & Tilo, who kept us entertained for the rest of the evening. We figured out a time table of leaving the dogs out as their horse dog Clyde didn't like other male dogs and went to sleep late that evening, dead tired.


Our trucks lined up for the Saturday's busy programme

Saturday, 10th October 2015, was set to be a busy day. After breakfast we went to see the museum's display, which included about 20 trucks of Nazi Germany, GDR, Soviet, British and American manufacture. Some interesting vehicles were on display, including some that I have never seen. Especially the unique GDR staff cars were interesting, as only about 4000 were ever built, with relatively few surviving.


An East German P3 truck, with a 2407cc inline 6-cylinder engine - more info on this type at the museum's website here



Two burnt-out Series Land-Rovers were also on display (acquired and fully restored by their previous owner, whose garage was then torched by some sick bastard)


The remains of a WWII Tempo staff car - a two-engined beast with both axles steered. Never accepted by the Wehrmacht due to two-stroke engines, but bought and used in limited numbers by Sweden, Japan and Indonesia. Yes, the same Tempo brand that built their own slightly perverted version of Series I's in the 1950's.


A proper gem - a Raupenschlepper Ost, the remains of a tracked artillery tractor built and used by the Germans on the Eastern Front during WWII. An air-cooled V8, a manually-operated differential lock and other goodies inside - more info courtesy of Wikipedia.

We then moved onto the museum's own offroad track. Nothing overly complicated or difficult, but it did manage to send my heart racing as I am not too experienced crossing ditches just for the fun of it. I loved the track and was eventually gutted that we didn't have more time to do a few more rounds as I had to admit it was fun

First round behind us - let's do this again!



We were then met by our kind guide, Jens Günther and his wife Hanka, who answered my request via the German LR forum, Blacklandy.de, and came to our rescue to guide us around the area. Jens modified his S3 88", but his car battery switch was a bit of an overkill:

His S3 is powered by an electric motor, with large battery packs underneath driver's and passenger's seats as well as underneath the rear tub. The vehicle has a range of about 200 kilometres and takes about 16 hours to fully recharge. Jens is using this as his daily motor, so apparently it does work as it should.

We left Reichwalde for a greenlaning trip, saw a collection of old wooden houses at Erlichthof (close to Rietschen) and ended our tour at Görlitz, Jens's home town, where he organized secure parking for our motors and a hike through the old town Görlitz, where we also had dinner.

The old houses at Erlichthof - great home-made cakes

Our secure parking at Görlitz, a courtyard close to Jens's workshop


The old town of Görlitz.

We drove back through the pitch-black night to Reichwalde that evening, had a few beers again with Tilo and slept well.

On Sunday we packed our kit, paid the bill and said our goodbyes to our hosts as well as Pavel, who took a different route down. We drove south to Löbau, where we wanted to see the only cast-iron observation tower in Europe, the King Friedrich August Tower on the Löbauer Berg. We scaled more than a hundred steps, but despite the chilly morning air, the views were well-worth the effort.

We had to make a very short diversion, but a photo like this had to be made. After all, he was our biggest fan!








At the tower.

After seeing the tower and gulping down hot coffee at the very nice restaurant there, we moved on. We filled up after crossing back to CZ, had a short lunch break in a sunny spot just off the main road, and arrived home tired but happy. Robur had another of his "moments" just before arriving home, but a bit of patience cured it again...


Our lunch break close to the Czech-German border

A great trip we did just over 500 kilometres and enjoyed the lovely countryside, especially on the way back, when everything was coloured-up by the sharp Autumn sunshine. I think we'll be coming back

PS: Sorry for the hi-res pics, tired of FB messing up the image URL's, so with time all the linked pics on the forums get lost...