Bilstein Tour 2022

Already since 2019 I am looking forward to a trip to be organised by the MBRC107club.nl to visit the Mercedes factory in Sindelfingen (the birth place of the R/C 107) as well as a visit to the Mercedes-Benz Museum.

As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic made everything different and so the trip had to be postponed to 2021, then to 2022 and now we are hoping to see it happen in 2023...

Anyway, when we learned that this trip would not happen in 2022 either, at almost the same moment I had received an invite to participate in a 5 day tour to Bilstein in Sauerland. So, Bingo! That was the perfect opportunity to (temporarily) replace the long awaited Stuttgart trip...

How funny it was to learn that the people that organised this trip are also the driving force behind the Stuttgart trip! Knowing how well they have organised this trip, the Stuttgart trip will be something to look out for!

Day 1

Anyway, 12 cars with 24 participants assembled in Vlodrop for a 5-day trip. After a very tasteful lunch, opening speeches and hand out of road books, we left for Lennestadt-Bilstein. About a 180 kilometer drive in hot weather. At a certain moment the thermometer in my car indicated 97 degrees Fahrenheit while driving, so everyone looked forward to a refreshing drink as well as a shower to slightly cool down!

Hotel Bilstein in Lennestadt offers all-inclusive stays of 5 days the whole year round focused on mainly dutch customers. As the organisers of this trip claimed: having an all-inclusive setting takes away any potential disagreement on what anyone is drinking or how much and avoid disputes on each others contribution: with all-inclusive this has all been settled upfront! I rest my case ;-)

Day 2

Central theme this day was the visit to Atta Höhle, the dripstone caves in Sauerland. So in the morning a nice tour from hotel to the caves and afterwards returning to the hotel.

Day 3

On the Saturday there was a free program, i.e. nothing specific was organised by the organising committee. I took the opportunity to make a tour together with Bram looking for wine, but unfortunately we have not been able to find any wine yards, only wine sellers. But we did not return empty-handed ;-)

Day 4

This day we had two smaller tours of approx. 50 km: a tour around Bilstein and in the afternoon a tour around Biggesee, the artificial lake created for producing electricity.

Day 5

And off we went for our trip back home... Time flies when you are having fun. With a nice lunch and later on a departing coffee everyone found their way home, trying to circumvent the farmers' protests in the Netherlands.

So, that's it? All there is to describe the chronological events in single sentences? No, not really...

Like-minded people but different...

All different people unite under one common passion for the type 107 (or at least half of them, as sometimes partners only participate as being partner of a person passionate about the type 107...).

12 cars, 24 people. Most of the people had already known the other participants as they yearly go out for a trip. Only 3 cars were "new", 3 couples experiencing this for the first time. Amongst those were we...

Exchanging ideas under the bonnet of a car or lifting a glass on the terrace: great opportunities to learn new people. Probably the most exciting of all!

And the last day even partner switching! I had always wanted this, but never allowed by my wife...  ;-) Anyway: so drivers had a different passenger in the Sunday afternoon trip. Another view, another conversation. Nice!

Navigation issues...

Although careful thoughts were given to the routes, making sure that the several navigation systems would use the same route, in practice this was not always the case. TomTom always trying to send you back to a waypoint you did not yet cross but you have passed already a long time ago... Skipping a waypoint in MRA Navigation was not straightforward for some of us.

Anyway, most of the time the group stayed together following the organiser who had created the routes in the first place. So nothing could go wrong...

Hmmm... not fully true... Speed cameras seem to work properly in Germany...

Afterparty events

So, everybody returned home safely. But then our WhatsApp group exploded with notifications on COVID-19 infections. Some immediately after returning home, others a few days later. Yes, it is contagious...

Slowly the messages on COVID-19 died away, but suddenly a new trending topic in our WhatsApp group... The speed cameras in Germany did work properly and the pictures had made their way to the postboxes of the "violators"... Luckily not very high amounts as we had all behaved fairly decent ;-)

Another time? Yes!

Looking back at this long weekend we have really enjoyed ourselves together with all other participants. The hotel was fine (slightly hot), the routes were not too long, so we were perfectly in time anywhere we were supposed to be without any stress. With the free day there was time for other activities as well. So, compliments to the organisers!

We have already signed up for the next year's event!