Where's Bertie? He's at a Stellplatz at der Freistaat - a huge motorhome/caravan dealer and accessories shop just outside of Sulzemoos, about 30km NW of Munich. It's free to stay here with free wifi. Water and electricity are available for a fee. (Exact location: 48.28180, 11.26021)
Weather: Sunny and hot until mid-afternoon when it clouded over and cooled down. Brief thunder storm at 1830ish, then clearing back to sunshine.
We went for a final walk around Westpark last night between 8 & 8.30pm, finding the grass littered with people picnicking, the beer garden full (with a band in session) and the open-air cinema just filling up for the night's showing. The picnickers and beer-gardeners must have left in dribs and drabs sometime after we returned to Bertie, but we didn't notice them. The cinema ended a little after midnight, but whilst I was woken by the chattering of people and slamming of doors, I soon tuned it out enough to doze on.
The real disturbance started at 2am, when a gang of yoofs (thankfully over the other side of the car park) thought they would demonstrate how big/hard/clever/something they were by being as falsely loud as they could*. On and on they went, until finally we heard the noise enter the park, go past us and slowly fade away. That was the cue for a car of boy racers to start doing circuits of the car park. Around and around, their booming music fading in and out, until I wondered out loud how long they could possibly go on before they grew bored. Eventually we got out of bed to watch. They were filming the dashboard as they drove, presumably recording their max speed, which, due to the shape and size of the car park, can't have been more than 40mph. All such things must come to an end, and they eventually parked up and disappeared off into the park too, but it took a good while to then settle back to sleep.
My head was thoroughly groggy when I dragged my sleep-deprived self (and slightly hay-fevery - must be a very high pollen count as I'm not overly sensitive to the stuff) out of bed as the alarm went off at 0640, for breakfast a clear 2 hours before running. If we hadn't loitered around in Munich for the best part of a week purely for the Westpark parkrun, I would undoubtedly have abandoned any thought of running and gone back to sleep.
The run was good and livened me up no end, but even better was seeing (and going for coffee with) some of the same people we'd met at the inaugural Riemer parkrun (on the other side of the city) last weekend. Travelling around as we do, it's rare to encounter the same people more than once.
There had been tentative thoughts of staying one more night in Munich, to visit the 'New' (as opposted to the 'Old' or the 'Modern') art gallery, as entry only costs €1 on a Sunday. The plan was scuppered when I checked the website and found the New closed at the end of 2018 for extensive works (reopening 2025?!). Some of its collection is going on display in the Old, but not for three weeks yet.
So, at lunchtime today, we made our final departure from the city and headed up the motorway to Sulzemoos. The main puposes of coming here were to use the service point and to enquire at the Hymer workshop about a routine gas test*. As it was beyond lunchtime, we thought we'd pause here for some food too.
By this time, Mick was feeling decidedly under the weather, so plans to move on were cancelled. Mick spent the afternoon resting (he's feeling much better now), whilst I took a look around the dealership. It's huge! It's like being at a motorhome show, but without having to pay an entrance fee and with free accommodation thrown in!
The excitement of the afternoon came late on, when we found ourselves in a race: thunderstorm vs al-fresco hair cuts. With credit having been left on our nearest electric hook-up point, I plugged us in, got the shears out and we started lopping the locks. We'd not long started on my hair when rumbles of thunder were heard. By the time I had the clippers on Mick, great flashes were around us and the thunder was crashing. They're not the most precise haircuts we've ever had, but we did finish and get indoors about 90 seconds before the rain came, going from nothing to drumming in the blink of an eye. Ten minutes later, it had passed, but we're apparently in for more of the same tomorrow.
^^(*1 Chatting to some parkrunners this morning they expressed surprise that we'd encountered such nocturnal disturbance. Germany has such strict noise rules that they said this sort of behaviour is rare.
*2 Gas test: We weren't able to enquire about appointment availability today as the bookings person doesn't work on Saturdays, but they did advise that the gas test is €60 or, under a current offer, free if we agree to an advertising decal being put on Bertie's rear. Hmmm. Would it be worth the saving to then have to go to the trouble of unadhering it when we get home, as I wouldn't want such a thing marring Bertie's back end in the long run? Perhaps more pertinent a question: are we going to hang around here until Monday to enquire about an appointment, or try to find somewhere else further along our route?)**
Weather: Sunny and hot until mid-afternoon when it clouded over and cooled down. Brief thunder storm at 1830ish, then clearing back to sunshine.
We went for a final walk around Westpark last night between 8 & 8.30pm, finding the grass littered with people picnicking, the beer garden full (with a band in session) and the open-air cinema just filling up for the night's showing. The picnickers and beer-gardeners must have left in dribs and drabs sometime after we returned to Bertie, but we didn't notice them. The cinema ended a little after midnight, but whilst I was woken by the chattering of people and slamming of doors, I soon tuned it out enough to doze on.
The real disturbance started at 2am, when a gang of yoofs (thankfully over the other side of the car park) thought they would demonstrate how big/hard/clever/something they were by being as falsely loud as they could*. On and on they went, until finally we heard the noise enter the park, go past us and slowly fade away. That was the cue for a car of boy racers to start doing circuits of the car park. Around and around, their booming music fading in and out, until I wondered out loud how long they could possibly go on before they grew bored. Eventually we got out of bed to watch. They were filming the dashboard as they drove, presumably recording their max speed, which, due to the shape and size of the car park, can't have been more than 40mph. All such things must come to an end, and they eventually parked up and disappeared off into the park too, but it took a good while to then settle back to sleep.
My head was thoroughly groggy when I dragged my sleep-deprived self (and slightly hay-fevery - must be a very high pollen count as I'm not overly sensitive to the stuff) out of bed as the alarm went off at 0640, for breakfast a clear 2 hours before running. If we hadn't loitered around in Munich for the best part of a week purely for the Westpark parkrun, I would undoubtedly have abandoned any thought of running and gone back to sleep.
The run was good and livened me up no end, but even better was seeing (and going for coffee with) some of the same people we'd met at the inaugural Riemer parkrun (on the other side of the city) last weekend. Travelling around as we do, it's rare to encounter the same people more than once.
There had been tentative thoughts of staying one more night in Munich, to visit the 'New' (as opposted to the 'Old' or the 'Modern') art gallery, as entry only costs €1 on a Sunday. The plan was scuppered when I checked the website and found the New closed at the end of 2018 for extensive works (reopening 2025?!). Some of its collection is going on display in the Old, but not for three weeks yet.
So, at lunchtime today, we made our final departure from the city and headed up the motorway to Sulzemoos. The main puposes of coming here were to use the service point and to enquire at the Hymer workshop about a routine gas test*. As it was beyond lunchtime, we thought we'd pause here for some food too.
By this time, Mick was feeling decidedly under the weather, so plans to move on were cancelled. Mick spent the afternoon resting (he's feeling much better now), whilst I took a look around the dealership. It's huge! It's like being at a motorhome show, but without having to pay an entrance fee and with free accommodation thrown in!
The excitement of the afternoon came late on, when we found ourselves in a race: thunderstorm vs al-fresco hair cuts. With credit having been left on our nearest electric hook-up point, I plugged us in, got the shears out and we started lopping the locks. We'd not long started on my hair when rumbles of thunder were heard. By the time I had the clippers on Mick, great flashes were around us and the thunder was crashing. They're not the most precise haircuts we've ever had, but we did finish and get indoors about 90 seconds before the rain came, going from nothing to drumming in the blink of an eye. Ten minutes later, it had passed, but we're apparently in for more of the same tomorrow.
^^(*1 Chatting to some parkrunners this morning they expressed surprise that we'd encountered such nocturnal disturbance. Germany has such strict noise rules that they said this sort of behaviour is rare.
*2 Gas test: We weren't able to enquire about appointment availability today as the bookings person doesn't work on Saturdays, but they did advise that the gas test is €60 or, under a current offer, free if we agree to an advertising decal being put on Bertie's rear. Hmmm. Would it be worth the saving to then have to go to the trouble of unadhering it when we get home, as I wouldn't want such a thing marring Bertie's back end in the long run? Perhaps more pertinent a question: are we going to hang around here until Monday to enquire about an appointment, or try to find somewhere else further along our route?)**
That gas test at circa £54 sounds expensive. What do they do? How long does it take?
ReplyDeleteGerman registered vehicles are required by law to have this gas test every other year, so the inspection that would be carried out is as defined in the relevant regulation ("Technischen Regeln Flüssiggas (TRF) sowie dem DVGW-Arbeitsblatt G 607", apparently). I don't yet know how comprehensive it is, but it certainly involves a leak test and manual checking of all connections. I would guess, based on the price, that it takes about half an hour. Hopefully we'll know more after we've talked to the workshop tomorrow, on which basis we'll decide whether to go ahead or not. Based on some Googling, there are cheaper prices to be found elsewhere in Germany, but that has to be weighed against the time spent finding somehwere, making arrangements, and any necessary detours from the route to get there.
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