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The next morning we planned to fly in to Maklar (LHMR), Hungary where an ATC colleague of Danny's was eagerly awaiting us. So it was after fond farewells to Michael, the Migman, and a stamp in our passports by the local border gendarmerie that we gunned our Lyc's and bumped our way off the lumpy runway.

We had to go to a 'customs' airfield first before venturing on to Maklar and so headed south again to the Austro-Czech border (at the unpronounceable lake place), down past the eastern side of Vienna, across the Austro-Hungarian border into Hungary and 10nm further to Fertoszentmiklos (LHFM) where we were assured customs and fuel could be had.

We were right on two accounts - Customs yes. Fuel yes. However, electricity No, hot drinks no, melting ice cream in the freezer and boy was it hot. Hot enough to fry an egg on Paul Vickrage's bald spot ! Eventually the man in charge of Hungarian electricity paid his bills and juice was restored. We quickly refuelled in the heat and departed almost due east towards Maklar.

Our route took us over more deeply wooded rising ground - very beautiful and sparsely inhabited. We chose to go in loose formation and I'm not sure if that helped the Hungarian ATC controllers based in Budapest, They did get us mixed up once or seven times! For those of you with charts or atlases we routed Gyor, Tatabanya, north of Budapest to Dunakeszi and then direct to Maklar. Dear reader it is at this moment in time when you find out who your friends are! Maklar airfield wasn't on our charts (the photocopied editions kindly supplied by Johannes), however, thankfully, the village was, but that's all! It is strange, how slow AA5's & AA5B's become when they want an AA1 flyer to do the hard work for them! They all plonked down their flaps, pulled down the revs and set the stall-warners going in their endeavours not to have to be the ones to find the airfield!! I did find it (I saw a windsock and guessed the rest). Swooped downwind and landed in one of the roughest airfields know to man. The grass was long; there were no runways delineated and no fuel. Everyone landed safely. Danny's friend was there to meet us and organise our stay. Also there to meet us was an officious 'airfield manager' who demanded 20Euro's (about 20 USD) per airplane, per night! An objection was quickly voiced with dire threats of immediate departure from "This Mickey Mouse dump"!! (It was a bluff, as I didn't have enough fuel to get anywhere safely!) We negotiated it down to a flat fee of 10Euros and walked away.

A bus had been arranged to pick us up to take us to lodgings. The bus would meet us just down the road, in the local village. So we tramped about a mile down the road to a hostelry offering amber nectar and food (we were starving!). The wait lasted about 4 hours! In which time much more amber nectar had been tested. Eventually the bus arrived to much cheering and we all gratefully staggered into it and dozed during the trip to our hotel.

The hotel seemed to be a converted house but with all the necessary facilities. It couldn't accommodate all of us so some had to slum it in a more formal hotel environment. We all met for dinner that evening. And what a dinner!!! The table was sagging under the weight of plastic 2 litre coke bottles - dark ones and light ones! I'd never seen white coke before and I'll probably never taste coke like that again!! The bottles were full of home made hooch and other firewater. We had a great evening with good food, the wonderful company of the hostels family, Danny's pals family and all us buccaneering flyers giving vent to loads of laughter and singing - If anyone tells you that someone's trousers fell down that night whilst standing up on a chair trying to take a photo - don't believe them! Oh yes. There was great hilarity that night.