Patu Patu to Salzburg

On my first night in Vienna I met Steve and Claire who are road tripping around Europe in a van before moving to London. Like most of the people I've met in hostels, they were Australian. I can't decide whether this is because every young Aussie is in Europe right now or because Aussies are remarkably friendly. Probably both.

Along the way, they have picked up many hitchhikers and are used to having an extra body in their van every once in a while. By the end of the night, Steve had recruited four of us to come along on the drive to Salzburg, a smaller city along the German border, conveniently close to Munich's Oktoberfest but just far enough away to have reasonable accommodation prices.

In the morning as we left the hostel, I was struggling to picture the van. Steve described it as a converted Ford Transit that several groups of friends have driven are driven around Europe over the years. I asked Steve if the six of us were going to fit. He assured me that there would be no problem. While six passengers would be their personal record, the van who goes by Patu Patu Bang Bang (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in Samoan) has seen more.

So we had Steve driving (on the right side!), Claire in the middle and fellow Aussie Brinton riding shotgun. The Americans, Dana, Ian and I, were in the back-sometimes on the floor, sometimes on the couch/fold out bed, sometimes sitting up, sometimes lying down, sometimes reading, sometimes gazing out at the Austrian countryside.



Aussies up front

 

Cargo/´Living quarters



Patu Patu was riding great with her(?) new Croatian diesel pump. The back window was a collage of stickers from auto repair shops around Europe- a testament both to her resilience and territory covered. I asked Steve how many kilometers she had racked up over the years, but he didn't know.  The odometer resets at 100,000km and someone along the line lost count of how many times it had started over.



With a Salzburg city bus and a SmartCar for comparison