Tuesday 16th, Neibull, Germany.
Same as the U.K. the Summer has finally arrived, hooray!
We have one mission today, to sort out the wifi issue before we head into Denmark.
We move to an aire only 20 minutes away but it's in a town so we think that's our best shot. On arrival we fill up with water get showers and, as Alastair still can't get access, we walk the 5 minutes into town.
At the information shop we find out that the town square is a free wifi space, how civilized.
We spent the hour before lunch sitting on benches catching up. Alastair can't work out what the issue is however Lisa is much more successful making contact with our family and friends and downloading the Independents' we have missed.
After lunch Alastair phones 3 Mobile in the UK. Goodness knows how much that costs. 3 Mobile's data SIM is advertised as saying it can be used abroad 'just like being at home'. It turns out that Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway etc are 'just like being at home', but Germany isn't, which is why we racked up massive charges and then stopped getting any access. Access stopped because we had hit the maximum £39 per month we can accidentally spend. Why not £5.00? we wonder. AND the 15 per month we pay for 5G is not included just added.
Anyway Mohammed from 3 Mobile explained the problem , which was that we should have bought a cheap SIM in Germany and not used 3 Mobile at all! However all is not lost because from september Germany will be included! AND Mohammed asked his boss if they could refund the German overcharges AND his boss said YES!! Full marks to Mohammed. Brilliant service. (now how much will BT have charged for the call??)
Result and so we did at bit of facebooking for free in the town square.
Back to H. We are getting excited about Denmark because neither of us have been before. Last of the UK beer, 3 Euro wine, a podcast about Jimi Hendrix and another about the Fender Strat then bed. LTD.
Monday 15th , Dagebull, Germany
What a difference a day makes or at least a day's rest. We were up and off by 9am.
 |
| on the road with Hamish the Hound |
En route we find a Sky supermarket, recycle our bottles, get food for 3 nights and stock up on alcohol for Norway, its' the first time we have ever bought a crate of beer|. 20 0.5L bottles of weissebier cost us just E17 and we get E3 on returning the bottles. Excellent value. Also invest in 3 boxes of wine at about E6 for three litres, which is about 1/3 of UK prices. We even stop at a Lidl, recycle our beer bottles from there and have a euro off next time we visit.
 |
| They have these woven basket shelter thingys- here too. |
We look at the first possible howff which looks fine but is away from the sea so we head on. The road follows a dyke beside a body of water until we arrived at Dagebull, a little tourist spot and the ferry port for the south Freisian lslands.
 |
| ferry port |
 |
| we are behind a dyke |
Hamish is tucked in a carpark specially for motorhomes, no facilities. We even did some more washing, all by 1pm and stress free.
Very pleased with ourselves after a spot of lunch we head out to explore.
As we walk along the dyke people below us take a dip in the North Sea while others try to sunbathe while sheltering from the wind. We wander around the ferry port and back along the dyke.
 |
| us once the tide ran out |
After tea we go back to the dyke as the sea is out and Alastair encourages a very reluctant Lisa to take her shoes off and wade across the mud, joining a scattering of other adventurous souls.
 |
| Twinkle Toes- she hates stuff between her toes. |
 |
| Muddy Toes- Lisa in trauma! |
It isn't as bad as it looks and we were able to walk on the sand rather than in it.
 |
| Well Lisa manages to sink!! (look how huge the beach is- you can see one fluffy dot) |
It stretches for at least a kilometre out towards the islands, tiny fluffy dots on the horizon, with ferries steaming slowly past incongruously close to shore.
 |
| Look- it goes for kilometres |
 |
| and there are big ferries right close in |
Sunday 14th, same spot- Norderheverkoog Campsite, Osterhever. Howff 13.
Hooray no driving today!
As we ate breakfast there was a heavy rain shower but overall the sky was blue with a cool wind.
We set off on our bikes with lunch and water along the track we walked last night to the thatched house where the man was playing with different boys toys, his Ducati.
Eventually we came to the main tourist attraction, a path that had been constructed across the reclaimed swampy land that led to initially mud and then a beach but this was not just any beach it was 3km wide. Way markers to guide people across the sand to the sea were established by wooden posts placed 10m apart. As we set off we could see people dotted about walking towards an empty horizon the wind whipping the sand around their legs with huge black and grey looming clouds in a big sky. Lisa said it looked like a scene from an armageddon movie.
About halfway across the clouds burst and the wind whipped the rain into our faces. Prepared we put on waterproofs and carried on walking as most people headed back. The shower cleared quickly and the wind dried our waterproofs. When we reached the sea a ship was crossing which looked bizarre and a handful of other people had braved the waIk. Then we just turned and headed back. The beach was deserted the rain having sent everyone scurrying but as we neared the path people started to appear again.
We planned to get lunch once we could take shelter behind the dyke which is when we realised we had forgotten lunch. Instead we cycled back to the campsite.
The test was over quickly and we had a relaxing evening and an early night.
Saturday 13th, Norderheverkoog Campsite, Osterhever. Howff 12.
While you are reading todays blog just keep in mind that we are not undertaking a comedy of errors just to keep you entertained and secondly that we are Ok.
Today are have a single plan, to travel no more than 30 minutes, preferably to a wild camping spot, and then chill.
After breakfast and showers Alastair heads off to access the camp wifi (2 Euros for one hour) because it only works on the Main camping field. Our Huawei mobile data dongle thing isn't giving us wifi. So he wants to check if there is a problem online. Before we left Alastair spent days researching and working on making sure we could have access to wifi at an affordable price. (A Huawei mobile wifi dongle combined with a Three mobile data SIM, which is cheap to use throughout the EU, was the best choice.)
After logging into the campsite Wifi, he is disturbed to discover that in under two weeks we have been charged over £50 for just 1GB of data! Our package with 3 mobile is £15 for 5GB per month. Stress! Apparently we hadn't ticked a certain box on the Huawei to say we were in Europe, so we are being charged extortionate rates. This is from a company that emphasises in its adverts how cheap it is to use in the EU! Stressed and confused Alastair came back to H to check the Huawei, for said ticked box. It was ticked! So are we being stitched up? A. takes the long walk back to the main camping field and wifi. (Can't use the Huawei because of incurring massive charges). Can't phone 3mobile because of charges, so attempt contact via camp wifi but running out of hour's allowance. Stress! There is an online chat but there is a queue eleven deep. 18 minutes left! So completes a complaint form and requests a response via email, the phone option is no good because we don't have a 3mobile phone! Done with 2 minutes to go! Walk back up to H. It is nearly 12.00 so we need to rush off before we get charged for an extra day!
Ironically we are scared of using 3mobile and the Huawei and incurring more charges but have no choice. We need to receive the result of our complaint!
All of this takes until 12pm by which time we have to be off the campsite swiftly. We empty grey water, Lisa has already filled our water tanks. We hurry off. We are several minutes down the road when we realise that, in our rush, we haven't emptied the loo! Stress! An amateur error for wild camping. We are knackered and it is only midday.
Luckily our next spot is only thirty minutes further North and is close to what looks like an amazing beach. No more mud.
As we approach the town we are in a line of traffic. We realise it's Saturday. It's August. Most of Northern Germany has come here today. Driving is stressful. We drive past a garage. It has L.P.G., which we need. So Alastair takes the next right planning to turn around and return for the gas. lt is one of those long, straight, narrow roads packed with cars. So no hope of turning. Stress. Eventually we are able to turn right into a spacious car park. Stuff the garage!
After the frustrations of the morning Alastair has already had enough. We are supposed to be somewhere for the night by now. As an alternative to shouting at people we get lunch. Then we rethink.
From H. we can see the endless snake of cars going along the road. We use our apps to look at places to stay near us. We are obviously in holiday resort territory. Everywhere is over 20€. We really need to be saving money after yesterdays expenses but we need to go somewhere.
We find an aire that costs 15€ on our app. It isjust past the wild camping spot we had planned to use. Hurrah. For A's sanity we will pay 15€, maybe even stay 2 nights. We can pick up L.P.G. on our way out tomorrow. Good plan.
We pass the wild camping spot which is bumper to bumper with cars so clearly not an option anyway. Alastair misses the turn for the 15Euro aire. We end up on another endless long road with no turning. Now there is some cursing!
Finally we pull into the entrance to the aire, which isn't easy. It's a small space with motor homes parked in the entrance, we join the queue. A Frenchwoman indicates where to get an entrance ticket. We go into a tiny booth where, as usual, everything is only in German. No staff so we need to use a machine like a parking meter. People are waiting behind us as we are desperately trying to work out what to do. Stress. We realise that it is 26€ to stay here plus extra for water etc. Exhausted as he is Alastair refuses to pay and we leave the booth. We now have to negotiate Hamish's way out of the queue and turn in cramped conditions. Sweating. Cursing. We find some waste ground to rethink. New famous plan required.
Alarmed at the prices around here Alastair uses a different app, Danish possibly, where he finds a small campsite about 20 minutes North for 10 Euro. Hurrah! We decide to give it a go but as we are leaving the town with the L.P. G. garage AND it's the only one we have seen for several days, we decide to fill up.
We pull into the garage and amazingly there is no queue! We realised when we took H. to the Loire a few years ago that we needed an adaptor to fit to our L.P. G. fitting, There are four different fittings across Europe. Thank goodness for EU standardisation. We took H's cap off the L.P.G. and checked that we did need an adaptor. We do. A climbs into H's boot to collect them. He checked the place he thought they were 3 times. He checks all the other nooks and crannies, no sign of them! Stress. Sweat. Curses. Victor Meldrew emerges!
After several minutes of searching we realised this wasn't perhaps the best day to be doing this without inflicting serious injury on some innocent bystander. New plan! We can come back at a later date when we (A) have more resources to cope.
Alastair's frustration and distress from earlier returns. All of the hours preparing and things were just going so wrong. Anyone would think it was the 13th. Lisa tries to reassure him saying it was just the first time we had done it and things would get better. (Ridiculous optimism as usual.) It just didn't feel like it right now.
As we pull into the plan D campsite A realises that we had left H's gas cap on the top of the L.P. G. machine. Stress, Sweat, curses, meltdown, Victor and now Basil Fawlty!!!
The little campsite is lovely. A small field with a well cared for pony and goat and only 10€ with our own tap and electricity, an oasis. Double Hurrah!
We paid the woman and then emptied the boot. A quickly found the L.P.G. adaptors. We couldn't leave part of H. behind so clutching the adaptors we headed back to the petrol station. The relief as we saw the cap still on the top! This time getting L.P.G. went without incident and we set off back to the campsite. Sometimes determination pays dividends, thank goodness.
When we arrive back we pay for a second night, the first sensible thing we have done. We settle down to listen to the end of our audio book and drink too much wine.
Friday 12th. Howff 11 Toenning, Scheswig
For the first time last night Hamish needed his silver blanket over the windscreen to try to keep us all warmer. However it had hidden the ticket showing we had paid our 10€ to use the aire services. At 6:50am we got a knock at the door. Half asleep Alastair managed to find his shorts, opened the door, half naked, to be confronted by a uniformed woman with severe expression, eyebrows were raised at his sartorial elegance. "You have ticket?" A. scrambled to find it thereby avoiding a serious diplomatic incident.
The weather has warmed up from 11 to 15 degrees but remains interminably grey and raining. We decide that we will head to a campsite to get our washing done as firstly it's not sightseeing weather and secondly absolutely nothing will dry in this cold weather, Alastair is running out of shorts and we need a tumble dryer.
As its Friday its new budget day, we only went over last weeks budget by 3€ so we are pretty pleased with ourselves, so we can stock up. As we head towards the supermarket we drive along an avenue lined with wind turbines. The visibility is so poor that as the blade of the turbine rotates skywards it disappears into the cloud.
Fridge full we head to the campsite crossing the River Eider (Dunter on Papay), Hamish bravely faces the heavy rain.
The campsite is 16€, ouch and of course they don't have change for the washing machine. We choose our spot overlooking the grey river and start to head into town for change. The aires all require change and because we mainly use our card for shopping we never get any. Lisa has come without a waterproof and the sky is heavy with rain so has to head back. Alastair goes to a bank but is told the nearest place that will change money is 18km away, unperturbed he heads to the post office and gets 20€ of change, the new boy who serves him is 'chaperoned' by another assistant.
Meanwhile some officious busybody tells Lisa that someone has space 9 which is where we are, they are coming at 3pm so we need to move. Slightly affronted Lisa said she would check with reception. Reception said pitch 9 and 15 were reserved.
Once Alastair got back we moved, no one went into pitch 9.
We do our washing successfully while listening to T.M.S. listening to the sunshine at Lords. Its' not been the same without Aggers and there is no Blowers for this test either.
Of course there is no wifi and we have had none for a couple of days so Alastair spends 2€ to access the sites wifi tomorrow. This is proving to be an expensive day.
Washing done we take a pre-tea walk along the river. There are small wooden jetty's that go over the mud with a little ladder that takes people down to wallow in it with showers to wash off the mud at the end of the jetty, well it takes all sorts!
Alastair was just saying it feels like Norfolk when we spot a family of avocets wading in the mud. They use their beak to flick the mud aside and get to whatever it is they are hunting.
As the rain starts again we head back to H. for tea, T.M.S., some more of our audio book before our time runs out and an early night.
Thursday 11th August. Howff 10 Friedrichstook, Schleswig.
After a lovely stop over we wake to a patch of blue sky but as we set off and head North west it starts to rain, it's also cold and windy.
By 11:30 we are at Friedrichskoop. lt looks like a little tourist place, we think we are by the North Sea but it's too cold and miserable to go exploring. All 3 of us feel tired and we are supposed to be chilling now, l think we envision a rest in the sun but it feels more like a duvet day.
We find the aire but then drove back to the main road to the supermarket for bread. This was a better class of supermarket, called Sky and run by the coop. We take another sample of beer, local natural beer called Dithmarscher straight from the cask and put into bottles, and wine, which is a vegan white.
Back at the aire with lunch and T.M.S. we were planning a kip but the England batsmen are going down like skittles so far too nerve wracking. Then Eddie Jones, England's Aussie rugby coach, is being interviewed at lunchtime by Ed smith, so we have to listen to that. Thank heaven for longwave radio because we cannot get 3g internet here.
So it dries up slightly and we take the chance to explore by walking towards the sea. Our view here is always limited by the high, grass covered Dykes that protect this reclaimed agricultural land from the sea. We climb up steps to a view that rivals Burnham on Sea ie a vast expanse of grey mud with a very grey North Sea beyond and even greyer lowering clouds above and grey cold rain now falling upon our waterproofs. We head down the slope towards the incongruous, gaily striped, roofed, wicker basket chairs (Strandkorb) for two. Settling in for at least three minutes we attempt photographs.
In the increasing rain we do the only thing possible: browse shops and tourist information. The short tourist strip offers two restaurants a couple of nick-nack shops and bike rental, which we dawdle around for as long as poss. Then back to Hamish and England's Moheen Ali delivers a hard worked 100! Beer, risotto, Walsall Library's free downloaded audio book (Peter May 's The Firemaker), bed.Wedel Nature Park, near Hamburg, Wednesday 10th August. Howff 9.
A week today we were on eurostar so we get to put on clean bedding .... small pleasures. We can't get longwave here and Lisa starts to panic but Alastair manages to get the Today programme on BBC Radio i-player app. This could prove to be a traveller's life saver.
We tried to have a lazy start to the day but we are still on the road by 10:30. We headed North west towards the German coast so we can bumble before heading into Denmark.
En route we stop at Lidl , this time we splash out on a 3€ bottle of white riesling, we need to replenish our stocks before going North and we need to know it's drinkable.
We walked along a track beside the river and decide to get our bikes. We cycled along the path and knew it diverted slightly so followed a woman ahead. We were soon back on the main road going in completely the wrong direction so we headed back to H and started again. People sat on benches enjoying the view looked slightly bemused seeing us go past for the third time, twice on a bike. 
Once we were on the right track we had a lovely cycle along the Elba past beaches, more huge houses, watched container ships 7 stories high coming along the river. There had been heavy showers all day but we dodged them for our cycle, got back into H and it hammered down.The 3€ wine was far too sweet for us. Lisa suggested we save it for tomorrows risotto and we tried a 6€ bottle we had also bought, it was 0.K. but we both agreed we preferred yesterdays 2€, we have obviously been away too long already.
Bremen, Tue 9th August
After a quiet night we put some washing in and got back on the autobahn and started to head North to Bremen. For those of you who are alarmed by the ground we are covering we are planning to slow down once we can get to the coast. Alastair has formulated a rule for us which has one common link......beer, fair enough.
We read in our German lonely planet that in an attempt to 'green' the cities we needed a sticker before going into some cities. We stopped at a garage just outside Bremen and Lisa dredged up her GCSE German to ask if they sold them. The assistant was very helpful, they didn't sell them but she explained where we could get them. We nodded, thanked her very much in German and walked away not having understood a single word she had said.The aire wasn't much further on so we just risked it without a green sticker. 15€ for a functional stop near to the city. There is another British motor home here, the first one we have seen since France. We speak to them briefly the next day and they say the same, only us out here.
Before we left home (a week ago today) Lisa had a genius (she thought) idea about drying our washing. With the sun on Hamish he heats up beautifully so we put a hook on a suction pad stuck to a window and a butcher's hook attached to a bar at the other end of H and strung a washing line between them the idea being that while we go out everything drys. We put the clothes outside to drip dry while we get a coffee then hang things inside. Two slight problems, firstly we were sheltered from the little bit of sun there was by trees and secondly it was cold and cloudy. It did work.... eventually but give us a bit of sun and it will be fabalass.
For 50 cents we got electricity and charged the laptop and A's toothbrush.
Lisa insisted on making sandwiches to take with us for lunch which seemed very tight to Alastair but today we have a beer budget and we dont want it frittered away on food.
We cycle into Bremen, lock our bikes by tourist information and go exploring with our map.
Bremen is a picturesque city especially the Schnoor but it was chilly and started to pour down and we huddled in a doorway for 15 minutes waiting for it to pass.
Having seen the sights we had a house meeting. We had looked in the bars and not fancied any and it was too cold to sit outside so we decided we'd rather see what German beer are could buy and head back. Lidl was the only supermarket and we bought 6 bottles of Pils for 2.50€ and we can get 25 cents back on the bottle (if anyone knows how we do that please let us know) and a bottle of Reisling for 2€, last of the big spenders! We loaded up Penelope's basket and cycled back.The pils was surprisingly O.K. Having warmed up Alastair read that we were near a beach so we saddled up again and this time headed left. There was a beach overlooking the Weser and we watched Dragon Boats, yachts and kayaks. We went into the Cafe Sands and ordered a Hakke Beck and a wheat beer, Bremen is the home of Becks.
As we cycled back Alastair tried to take a shortcut, he forgot he had to dismount Penelope gracefully and instead tried to throw his leg over the back, he hit the basket and both Alastair and Penelope crashed onto the floor. Only pride injured we cooked tea and risked the wine, it was drinkable!
Tecklenburg, Germany, Monday 8th August
A cloudy, cool day.
Before we left Alastair had a last attempt with the wifi, all of the Europe blogs had gone. Alastair kept his cool and even managed to put 4 photos on.
We have really enjoyed the Netherlands and hope to come back in the future to explore more.
We set off just after 10am aiming to get petrol that we had seen at a good price on the way in, sat nav took us a different route and inexplicably the petrol was several cents more expensive on this side of the town so we carried on.
We aimed to travel as for west today as we could in about 4 hours so got on the motorway and listened to our audio book. We have already lost all track of time and have to keep asking what day it is. Its hard to believe this time last week we were at home still packing. We have bought a spider with us from home, Edith lives behind the wing mirror and is enjoying European insects.
Just before 1pm we drove over the border into Germany. We pulled into the first service station to find the first difference, the Ioos were free. Throughout Belgium and the Netherlands it cost 50 cent to use the toilet at the services. In Ghent we had gone into a McDonalds for the first time in our lives just to climb 3 flights of stairs to find 2 women insiting the toilets cost 50 cents.
About an hour after crossing the border into Germany we headed to our first overnight stop, it existed hooray. lt cost 5 euro for 24 hours so using our overnight maps that Alastair had downloaded we chose another destination. There are so many overnight stops it is a huge difference from the previous 2 countries. We got diesel that only cost a euro a litre, worth waiting for.
The spot is a little carpark in a very beautiful village. The whole area was badly damaged in WWIl and has been rebuilt beautifully. We went for a walk to get our bearings and got a viewpoint from a hill to see miles and miles of flat land, this area is famous for cycling.
Yet again the sky clears and we have a beautiful evening, a quiet one for us reading up on Germany. Lisa is managing her bites with ice aswell as cream and tablets.
