Denmark at last

"No we are NOT going to the Swingers Aire in Hude!" Mr. Fluffy can be such a party pooper sometimes. I had no idea that such places existed but there it was in our Ries Mobil Bord Atlas (motorhome camping guide).....adults only swingers' club (in German of course). I love my translation app. I didn't really want to go but thought it might be rather hilarious to have a look....oh well further into the wee fee wasteland that is Northern Germany we went. It has not been my favourite part of the trip so far with its fairly flat uninteresting landscape and dull towns but the stellplatz in Heide was really pleasant and a great stopover on the way up to Denmark. We topped up with LPG before crossing the border and found that the diesel is a lot cheaper in Denmark, around £1.00 per litre, which is rather a treat.

Danish border

We have arrived in Ribe which is a beautiful medieval town and we visited the oldest church in Denmark which sports some rather dodgy 1980s frescos above the altar. As we descended from the fabulous view at the top of the tower, the dulcet tones of a female choir reached our shell-likes and we sat for a few moments taking in the glorious sound. It turned out they were a Finnish choir who were giving a concert at 5 pm so we went back for the show. They were, once again, divine but we discovered we had to sit with a group of parents as the local school choir also went through their paces finishing with a resounding version of Akuna Matata complete with hand actions. The girls appeared to find it very amusing when the town band struck up just outside the cathedral almost drowning them out....unfortunately they carried on regardless in the true spirit of 'the show must go on' but there were many giggles from the youngest choristers which made Akuna Matata mildly bearable. To hear a snippet of the girls singing click the link.

The aire in Ribe is free and walkable to the city centre where there are many lovely shops and cafés. We may stay another day.  

Rare sight of Graham drinking a beer with a head on it

view from top of the cathedral

Heide

The drive to Heide was rural and flat and seemed longer than it actually was as we were stuck behind a few tractors towing caravans – they were on their way to a tractor tugging competition and their top speed was 25km/hr. Overtaking is of course much more difficult when driving on the right with your steering wheel also on the right. This is where a good, experienced passenger is essential. One of the few things that Kerriann takes very seriously is giving me ‘clear ahead’ and ‘clear left’ directions. We always use that precise terminology so there can never be any misunderstandings.

The option of a ferry crossing was preferable to negotiating the roads around Bremen and Hamburg so we had a rather fun trip across the mud flats from ……. To ….. It cost us 17.50 Euro but saved us in fuel and livened up the drive. We tried to get online in the van to no avail – a walk to McDonalds didn’t work either as their free WiFi was not working but we did enjoy the iced smoothies! Kerriann had a couple of urgent emails to send so we carried on searching around various industrial estates  – in the end we stumbled across a large electronics goods retailer and sat on some the seats they had kindly provided inside the front door. Kerriann managed to get on line and send an email whilst a large security guard was eyeing us up suspiciously. We walked a few kilometres in the opposite direction and discovered Heide town centre where we felt sure there would be an internet café. There was only one but it was a very seedy casino/gaming centre where a large moustachioed gentleman behind the bar explained the rules of internet action in perfect German whilst puffing on a Marlborough. We gave it a miss.

Getting our shopping priorities right...booze and chocolate

The Stellplatz is lovely and the weather is great – up to 25C in the shade today.  We met a Welsh/Belgium motorhomer who advised us that the diesel prices in Denmark are slightly lower than here in Germany so we are changing our plans to fill up accordingly. We will however be doing a big food shop and will top up the LPG tanks before crossing the border. The face is returning to pretty much normal. Denmark tomorrow – and maybe some makeup.

Twist to Rodenkirchen

Occasionally it is nice (or necessary) to stay on a camp site rather than an aire but it can be rather expensive – the site we stayed on at Exloo was lovely and included many extras including free ‘do it yourself’ pancakes but it was rather expensive. We found the site in the Bordatlas directory which is written in German. We thought the price was going to be around 16 Euro a night but had not realised that that was per person. In the end, with tax it worked out at 37 Euro (£30.00) for the night. Whilst this is rather more that we would expect to pay we don’t regret staying at such a friendly campsite especially as we have had so many nights in Holland at very little cost. The average cost for an overnight stay on this trip works out at only £4.20 per night over the 15 nights we have been travelling. 

We are now in Twist in Germany, staying on our first Stellplatz (free parking place for motorhomes) and it is very attractive. We are parked up under some trees near a lake and have been planning tomorrow’s drive whilst sitting on a stainless steel bench and table provided for our use. The Germans, French and Dutch all seem to encourage motorhomers to stay in their villages. Wake up Cornwall County Council (and many other British councils) – your ‘no staying overnight’ policy is deterring motorhome owners from visiting Cornwall. Why not remove the height barriers, restrict stays to one or two days, and charge say £5.00 per night?  This will make some extra income and encourage some relatively wealthy visitors to spend money in your villages and towns. 

Enough of my rant!  Thanks France, Holland and Germany for your generosity. The sun has just popped out so I think I will sit outside and read my book. Tomorrow we head for Brake.

Graham

Parked up in the north of Germany after a night in Twist –Twist by name but not by nature as it was very quiet and the highlight was a trip to Lidl to purchase some rather gorgeous German bread. We had next planned to stay in Brake but Kerriann didn’t like the stellplatz which was along side a rather industrial canal. I think I would have been happy watching the large barges doing their thing but K was worried that the adjacent Esso refinery might explode - aren’t women funny?  We moved on to another stellplatz in Stadland which wasn’t where it was meant to be but have ended up on a large market square in Rodenkirchen. As the name suggests there is an interesting old, red church here with a rather beautiful, painted interior.

Twist 

Twist chemical toilet emptying area..aaaah the thrill

We cycled the 3k to the Bronzezeithaus, a reconstruction of a Bronze age house but the automated turnstile accepted our two euro entrance fee but wouldn’t let us in – never mind, it was a nice ride and good exercise. Could not get on line yesterday or today and the local bar/hotel would not let us use their password unless we stayed there so we are not finding Germany quite as friendly as Belgium or The Netherlands – but their lawns are particularly well manicured! The quietness of the small towns seems slightly odd – there are parking spaces for a hundred cars here but there are only 5 or 6 parked up. It must be said that we are enjoying the differences especially as the sun is shining!

Dickie alone in Rodenkirchen carpark

Graham

Well my face is slowly de-swelling. Methinks my body took the ‘Michelin man’ fashion reference a bit too far. I now only have two large ledges of interstitial fluid at the top of my cheek bones giving me an ever so slight Cro-Magnon appearance. I have been make-up free for two days……unheard of!!

lovely eye shot

Today we are off to Heide and that should be our final German destination before we cross over into Denmark. We will bid farewell to perfect lawns, no wee fee (we hope) and sleepy towns and welcome the drama and excitement of Danish pastries and……..

Hunebedden Central

I have just gotten of my bicycle and am living in the vain hope that, one day, my buttocks will return to their normal shape.

We arrived in Exloo, in the heart of Hunebedden country (Dutch stone burial chambers) and immediately jumped on our bikes to explore the surrounding area. After cycling around 30km I now feel like my sitting bones are about to protrude through my, not insubstantial, fleshy bewtocks. My left knee has also exploded but we had a lovely time, nevertheless. Borger has a museum/centre looking at the history of the Hunebedden and I must say has one of the most boring films I've ever seen. The images of snow and ice were impressive but that was about it. Save your 8 euros if you are coming this way and just nip around the back where you can see the biggest hunebed for free.

Visitors climbing on the stones

A relaxing moment - not on the bike

Exloo camping is where we are staying. It is run by a rather lovely chap called Chris who is doing his best to make us feel welcome. He invited us to an evening of making panakokken by the fire and sat us by some English speaking guests, one of whom had a grandson who duly instructed Mr Fluffy on how to make colourful rubber band bracelets.

Great concentration

That's one hell of a fire pit

A promise of even more excitement was made: "We have a special great at 815pm so you must wait for it" said Chris. Graham continued with his rubber band crafting until at the appoint hour we were treated to a very amusing playlet acted by some of the other visitors. Despite being in Dutch there was a lot of visual comedy and ewe found it very entertaining. Lots of people popping up and down from there chairs when their name was called which sounds tedious but was actually hilarious. By the way, no one here drinks. We were the only people having a beer. 'Typical English' I could hear them thinking.

Actors heading to the stage

The stage

I have woken up this morning with two swollen eyes. They are also very itchy. Not sure what has caused this but it looks extremely unattractive and I will need to wear sunnies all day. (I will not subject you to a photo as it is too hideous). Off to Germany today to the amusingly named Twist. 

One Thousand Miles Down

The trip mileometer (are the modern digital displays still called that?)  has just turned 1000 miles and we are on a campsite in the East of Holland. The trip computer also tells me that we have averaged 30.5 miles to the gallon which I think is very good for a big (3 liter) engine in a fully loaded van. We usually travel with a full water tank as we can never be sure if we will stay somewhere where water will be available and we keep our two gas (LPG) bottles topped up, not that we have used very much yet as we have not had to use the central heating Hooray!

The Gang

I have kept a note of costs so far for the 15 days (and nights) that we have been ‘on the road’

Distance  1053

Fuel cost £ 212.00

Food and drink costs £ 255.00

Ferries bridges etc. £ 92.00

LPG Gas £ 6.50

Overnight parking/ camping £ 71.00

Excursions/museums etc.  £ 37.00

Total costs so far £ 853.00

Average cost per day £ 56.00

The above costs include stocking up on wine in France!

I am expecting the mpg to drop when we get into hillier regions - I have been driving in Holland at around 55mph on long, flat, straight roads – ideal conditions for Dickie if a tad boring for the driver!

Graham

Harlingen to Groningen

"Let's go out about 9 o'clock, there's sure to be some shanty singing in the town with all those sailors here for the rowing race". Graham is ever the optimist. Having heard tales of the Boscastle gig rowers on their annual race weekend in Tresco we were sure there would be a lively atmosphere in town. As we strolled in we saw a slew of burly chaps spilling on to the pavement. "Aha our first lively pub". As we drew closer we noticed the masculine brutes were not partaking of any hop based beverage but we're queueing up for ice creams and pancakes. Party animals!

 

Different types of fish nets

Quentin enjoys the scenery

Walking around town proved to be a further disappointment with no rowdy behaviour or alcohol induced antics whatsoever, so we thought we'd have a few drinks and go back to Dickie. We found a lovely hotel overlooking the port and sat down to order a beer. Within minutes a strapping young lad appeared and started taking the cushions in from all the chairs around us...."can you pay now because we're closing in a few minutes". It was 9 40 pm. Tresco it ain't.

Having said that we spent a very relaxing morning watch the 130 rowing boats take off from Harlingen to Terschelling which is quite a row. It was extremely well organised and took exactly one hour for the 13 groups of ten to take off. Our favourite was WaterHex the Water Witch which sported a very lovely witch on a broomstick on the front.

The boats head off

We headed off to Groningen after the race and I had just finished reading about there being very little traffic in the city as most people had bicycles when we got stuck in a Giant traffic jam. Several hours later we were able to drive the wrong way down a slip road to get off the highway and head to our next destination.

Our first traffic jam

Groningen is a busy city with the hint of Bangkok ( in a good way) about it. Everyone cycles and the centre is jammed with bikes. They are undergoing a major reconstruction and a large part of the main square is being rebuilt. We did the city walk and easily cycled the 4km in and out of town - I must say this cycling lark is rather fun.

Enjoying a cycle

Harlingen by Graham

Harlingen has to be on of my favourite motorhome stopovers - I loved the sleepy old town, the beautiful old sailing boats, the people, the lift bridges and the aire. For 7.5 Euro a night it was a bargain. If you are in the area it is a must, especially if you can make the tall ships race this summer in July.

row boats the night before  the race

The Dutch must have much softer bums than the Cornish – if you look closely at the photos you will notice that one of the gigs has seats has a sheep skin cover! We wouldn’t expect the tough Boscastle gig rowers to put up with this!

padded seating

There are only 10 marked (and listed) spaces for motorhomes but last night we counted 26. We are told that there can be up to 50 on this location and that nobody minds as long as they buy a parking ticket. As usual, our neighbours were very helpful and chatty. Kerriann had noticed that they had a lovely (rat sized) white dog that they transported around in the wicker basket on their bicycles! “You can purchase one like this locally” they tempted Kerriann but I put my foot down (being very careful not to squash the dog).