Our next destination was Hossegor, a small town in the south of France, right on the Atlantic coast. Hossegor used to be a rather unknown seaside resort, but some time ago it has become the mecca of the surf industry. In summer, the small town is full of tourists, also the beaches are crowded, so that surfing is rather less fun. In autumn, after the ASP Worldtour, on which the surfers determine their world champion, it becomes abruptly quiet. This opportunity, also good waves and empty beaches, we did not want to miss.
Shortly before we reached Hossegor, however, our gearbox broke down! The gears no longer want to go in and with Ach, noise and 20 kmh we still arrived at night in Hossegor.
It was clear to us that we couldn’t drive 2 more kilometers with this transmission, let alone all the way to Portugal.
A kind of mechanic who removed the gearbox with us was quickly found and fortunately for us, one of the two contract workshops in France was in Bordeaux, so not so far away. So Julian drove with a rental car and the removed transmission, to Bordeaux, in the hope that it can be repaired there.
3 days later it turned out that the workshop in Bordeaux could not obtain spare parts for our gearbox. That was a problem!
We knew at that time that there is a reconditioned gearbox in Germany, but it costs 6000€ and that would plunder our travel budget quite a bit.
We thought back and forth. Either we stay the next 6 months in Hossegor and wait for spare parts, or we spend a lot of money for a new gearbox.
We decided to take the transmission from Germany and are now waiting for it to arrive here so we can install it.
We have been in Hossegor for more than two weeks now, but we could use the time to refresh our surfing skills and to do some work on the bus.
