Second vehicle was an unmarked police car. Breathalysed me and showed me the 0.01 result.

Time to throw my hands up in the air and laugh. Told him "no way".

Solution was to try his partner's breathalyser. 0.00. So he waved me on.

The pass was a bit of an anticlimax. We almost missed it when we blinked.

This is the by-pass.

Just finished lunch and a car full of army people stopped.

A mixture of checking documents, apologising for inconvenience, explaining that Romania was on the other side of the river, and so on.

Used the mobile phone to check with head office and went on their way.

Difficult to comprehend as it looked like the coal mines were closed.

In our 13 year old book of maps it looked like we would have to drive much further north to cross the border. In our new book and the gps there was a minor road on the Hungarian side so we headed that way.

We haven't worried too much about being level but not only is it not level we struggled to make it so.

After a bit of investigation the cause was a bit obvious.

The bottom two leaves on the right hand front spring have broken at the front u-bolt.

The main leaf is showing the effect of a lack of support.

Mostly we've tried BBC, ABC, Deutsche Velle, etc. We found the simplistic propaganda style of China Radio International a bit too much, though it was by far the easiest to pick up.

Deutsche Velle seems to be winding down in favour of the internet. The BBC wound down many years ago so reception has been patchy.

I always thought the duff-duff music of Eurovision was just for the song contest. But no. Its what they play on the radio.

Reason for this photo is that we have FM Stereo classical music from Hungary.

There's been a steady evolution in the music from Asia to here. But this was a step change.

One was occupied but the occupant was too quick for us.

Must be getting near to Christmas.

Despite the broken spring leaves we decided to take the minor roads past Beregove. So minor the border crossing didn't exist on our old paper map. The road on the Hungarian side is shown as minor.

It turned out to be the smoothest major road (almost motorway standard) that we've driven on. Very front spring friendly!

Instead of us leaving the vehicle and hunting down all the stamps officialdom came to the vehicle. And nothing could overtake us.

The forms were filled in for us. There was the added bit of a search with a drug dog and a series of seemingly casual questions about drugs.

This is the Hungarian side which was similar. The vehicle registration was interesting. I think they must be used to something more elaborate than our computer printed registration reminder. But someone with a higher authority appeared, we had a brief discussion about "original" while I pointed at the windscreen sticker and all was ok.

They even filled the forms out for us!

The search was also more interested in drugs and ignored the issue of animal product import into the EEC.

Either borders are getting easier, we are getting better at them, or both.

It took forever to find and wasn't open. Pity as it was within walking distance of the castle. We were directed to the campsite at the thermal pools. Stayed two nights as we needed a rest and some washing.

This is the basilica in the center of Eger.

Most of it is more modern though.

A bit like piggy in the middle. Looks like the town has been invaded from both east and west.

The elevation mechanism is a cam. The rear has a roller.

A serious cannon!

The siege worked, the castle fell, and the Turks ruled Eger for about 100 years.

Apparently climbable with a very narrow spiral stair,, but we decided not to.

Something about it caught our eyes.

These are our first gothic arches.

Next to a chair lift to the highest point.

For us this is an oasis where we can pause for thought, a bit of recovery, a few repairs and parts. There are also a few campers passing through - the simple delight of speaking English to someone whose first language it is.

And people who share the stresses of independent travel so can provide relevant help more easily. For example, we now have a paper directory of "Aires De Services" in Europe.

There are also quite a few Slovenians to help us plan the next country.

There is just enough sun to almost keep pace with the solar.

It seemed to work but in fact miscalculated. By a couple of km.

Our arrival at Ziglugeti wasn't at all smooth though the Budapest traffic is relatively kind. At one corner we were blocked by a low bridge. Began to get suspicious about the gps when a phone call to the camping ground gave us a sense that they didn't know of any low bridges in the way. They did tell us there were signs from the main rail station so we headed there and followed our noses. 

And no springs.

Looks like the crack grew for a while before finally breaking.

Probably good news in that I'm pleased it wasn't just one pothole. Wear and tear over very rough roads until the final pothole that broke the camel's back.

The central holes should all be the same size and were directly onto the steel bolt.

Most of the wear was in the rear shackles and these were replaced with a steel bush inside new rubber bushes.

It was interesting comparing the methodical step by step approach of our two spring repairers to the almost random approach of our repairers in Asia. Radically different approaches with radically different outcomes.

Vodafone are just as silly in Hungary as they are in Aus and needed a passport which I didn't take with me. So no mobile phone yet. Fortunately plan B was to use two HF radios so that Ali and I could find each other.

After trying several places over a few days to rid ourselves of leftover Russian and Ukrainian currency we finally found a place in the mall. Not very good rates but the currency was otherwise dead money.

Fortunately there isn't the around $200 limit for withdrawals on our debit card in Hungary so we were able to extract sufficient cash from the ATM to pay for the spring repair.

What a wonderful old water tower.

Complete with copper roof.

Not sure what happens next but someone has bundled the leaves up neatly into these plastic bags.

A bit of quality control occurring though I'm not too sure what was being measured.

I took the opportunity to check the shock absorbers.

They need replacing but sounds like they may be hard to find. The spring repairers will do some searching and let me know.

Most importantly - its level!

To get from campsite to spring repair and back meant driving through the centre of Budapest and across one of the Danube bridges.

The gps did most of the work. We just had to look for the weight restrictions and deal with alien junctions and traffic.

It all flows quite well. We've got used to peeling off to the right to find an overpass giving us the left turn.