Tuesday 26^th July

We turned clean up day into a leisurely affair with a sleep in until 9am. I really needed it. Then, after breakfast, we organised our ‘stuff’ so it would be easy to vacuum out the van including inside the cupboards. David went to procure the bread rolls and a treat to look forward to after the cleaning and then we set off in search of the service station with a vacuum cleaner. Fortunately, the first one we tried had one and was easy to find. For 50c you get 7 minutes but the cleaner is a cumbersome affair especially with the cramped room inside the van.

Getting back was a little more challenging. You could not do a left U turn as the tram line cut right down the middle of the road separating the two rows of traffic. Either side of these lanes were a mass of one-way streets that looked a nightmare on the map. We continued to drive south away from the camping area until I spotted, high to the right, an inconspicuous black and white sign showing how to do a U turn. David missed seeing it. It was a case of turn right and there was a U turn lane that allowed you to return, cross the tram tracks and turn north. From there all we had to do was follow the signs to the camping ground.

The rest of the day was predictable and unexciting although we did manage to wipe over most of the outside of the van, even though we didn’t have to, but it was merely a lick and a promise. There isn’t much point really, as we have had at least three light showers today. It actually gave us something to fill in the day, would you believe?

We used our awning as a dining room today to keep food crumbs out of the van and discovered, at this late stage, that it is a shade awning only, secured at three places along the top so that the awning leaks between them. (David really doesn’t like using awnings if we don’t really need shade protection in hot weather as we don’t leave it out at night and he gets sick of putting it out and pulling it down.) One of the “between” spaces is right over the door! In wet weather, you are forced to close the door up tightly or see rain dripping into the van.

This seems like another design flaw in European campervans and caravans. We also dislike the windows they install here. You have to push them out fully to release them and they catch in only a few settings. So in heavy rain, this can be awkward. To open or close windows this way means you have to have rollup flyscreens. They use two way ones that incorporate flyscreens and pleated blinds but this means they are subjected to too much work for their design to sustain. We much prefer our design at home where the flyscreen remain in place and you have a winder to wind the windows in or out to any setting you wish. This means you need curtains but I much prefer the look of curtains to plain blinds anyway.

The caravan over the road must be strangely designed too. The man comes outside with his kettle of water and plugs it into the electricity cable on its hose reel outside the van! The van must not have any power points. Another van opposite us has two large, removable water containers, not a inbuilt water tank. The son drove them to the amenities block about 25m to fill them up and take them back to the van. Yet these vans are new, modern and virtually indistinguishable from the style we have at home.

This park has the oldest and most dilapidated “motorhome” we have seen. It is on a three-wheeler vehicle and the roof has disintegrated to the extent that sheets of corrugated iron are placed on top and held there by rocks. The floor is starting to rot out and is held in place by concrete blocks and no inspection would ever allow that amount of rust in the body. Naturally, it doesn’t go anywhere and, frankly, I don’t see anyone living in it so it is just an eyesore despite the ladybirds and sunflower once proudly decorating its sides.

Like many camping grounds we have come across, this one once would have been quite good but neglect has rendered it overgrown with weeds and with poor roads. Tarting up the amenities inside with modern tiles and basins needs to be accompanied by improvements in the exterior and layout. But am I going to tell the rude man here that? Not likely! We are charged 3E a day for electricity here, which is a rip off although, overall, this site is cheaper than Nuremberg. (Nuremberg was a ridiculous 31E a night while here is under 26E a day.) Where we have had metered electricity it has cost us about 1E a day. Apparently, there are metered sites here but we haven’t seen any near us. Still, twice now I have had well over my 4 minutes of hot shower water. As I have said before, I can cope with a lot provided I get my hot shower!

We were going to have a basic dinner from the ‘restaurant’ (if you can call this outdoor collection of trestles and benches that) here tonight but it wasn’t open so we made do with the last of cheese, fruit and wine. After all, we had had afternoon tea. After breakfast tomorrow, the cupboards will be bare. I am pleased that there is not much wastage. I gave a little oil, dried herbs, half a clove of garlic and a tin of tomatoes to a Spanish woman in a van near ours. Besides that, we have left over sultanas, toilet paper and paper towels. I guess someone will take them in the morning. The remaining small amounts of salt, sugar and washing powder we discarded, as I needed to wash out the containers ready to return them.

The test tomorrow is whether we can fit all our stuff into our suitcases as get them back to the hotel via the train without our backs giving way. Neither of us has been able in the confines of the van to keep up our back exercises and David, in particular, is feeling it. We are hoping to be able to walk straight onto the correct platform at Friedberg, without the up and down stairs we were subjected to on our arrival there. Then we may just get a taxi to our hotel.

There is a distinct advantage in using the same hotel as we found in Vancouver in 2008 provided, I guess, that you are reasonably happy with the hotel. At the end of our travels the last thing I want is to cope with finding a new hotel and not knowing how it operates. After all, we have been doing that almost daily for 3 months with new towns, new camping grounds, new shops and new activities. It is comforting to know that the lovely “small breakfast” waits me in Frankfurt and I know where we can find a good roll of walnut bread etc.

Of course, we will be going to a new hotel in Singapore but that suits as I did not like our first hotel there and it will open up site seeing in a different part of Singapore but in an area we are vaguely familiar with from our travel through it on the bus. This time we will get a taxi there and back. That make sit easier too. Besides, I will be too excited about getting home to worry about a hotel.