Back in the camper

Wednesday 4 July 2012 – On the road again… sing along now

Day 82 and 77 to go

So here we are back in the familiar setting of a campervan while camped up in a park and ride that has designated spots for campers to stay overnight. We made it to Lindau, a town on the edge of Lake Constance. We are basically at the edge of Germany where it meets the borders of Austria, Switzerland and Lichtenstein. We’ve been here for a couple of hours and the thunderstorms have set in. It is quite relaxing having the rain fall on the roof in a constant pitter patter.

We had a relaxed start to our day. I woke at 8.30am and read some of my book “A Patchwork Marriage” that I am really enjoying. We then got out at 9.15am, cleaned up and went down for breakfast for our selection of cereal, cold meats, cheese and scrambled egg. When we returned to the room we gathered all of our things and packed up our suitcases and at 10.40am we checked out of the hotel and wandered across the road to the train station.

It took me ages to work out the ticket machine even with it in English as Germany has too many places with identical names. Eventually I located what I needed and we found our train, boarding it with 20 min to spare.

The train journey was fairly quick and we arrived in Friedberg at 11.45am. Unfortunately the station has no lifts and two lots of two flights of stairs to contend with, one up and one down. JOY! We heaved our overloaded bags to the exit happy to see many taxis waiting for a fair. We jumped in the first one and were taken on a 5 min journey to the McRent depot.

We were greeted by Susannah, who went through all the paperwork bits with us, before taking our security deposit. I collected a Europe road atlas and camping guide on our way to our van that was parked out the front ready and waiting for us. We were glad to see that the van was the same as the one we drove through Spain with all the mechanical bits identical, however the layout inside was slightly different.

We did the check over of the van and by 12.40pm we were on our way. With the GPS set to Lindau we had 4 hours of solid driving ahead of us. We were up and on to the motorway in no time and once there the kilometres peeled away. It is wonderful being able to do 140km comfortably and legally as it really eats away the distance.

At the halfway stage we pulled into a food stop and grabbed our lunch, enjoying the break from the car. It also allowed us to adjust the mirrors so Paul could see fully, as he almost wiped out two cars sitting in his blind spot. Enough to give both of us a heart attack!

With our 20min rest done we were back in the van and ready to tick off the final 200km. It was generally easy driving. We had the occasional sections of road works to deal with which slowed all the traffic but on the whole it was pretty easy.

The scenery from the motorways was not particularly spectacular, though there were glimpses across wooded valleys and fir tree lined mountains. The closer we got to our destination the darker the sky became. We kept wondering when the weather was going to hit.

At 5.15pm we had pulled off the motorway and were driving the last few kilometres to our destination. We stopped briefly for some food, though there wasn’t a lot of choice biscuits and chips. We ended up with some croissants for breakfast and beer, coke and OJ. Paul found a 5 pack that came with a glass for 5 Euro. We figured that was a good buy.

We returned to the van and drove a further 500m to our parking spot at the park and ride, not my intended destination, as I had found a camping ground right on the lake, but this was good enough. We began the unpack of our cases into the storage spaces of the van. Paul worked on the outside bits like the gas and I made the bed. Finally we were done and enjoying a cold drink.

With the weather still looking threatening we decided we would go for a walk and see if we could find a proper supermarket to no avail and as the rain came down we decided it was best to turn around. We returned to a small pizza & Kebab joint next to where we had parked and bought a kebab and also collected some change that we needed to feed to the parking meter for our stay.

We returned to the van and had our dinner while listening to the rainfall. It wasn’t easing up. There were flashes of lightning and thunder for a while. With dinner done I wrote this blog. Paul was tired after his day of driving and was ready for bed at 8.30pm. I soon joined him to read my book and then it was lights out for me too. 

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