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Time flies! Suddenly I find that it's over a week since we travelled back to the UK. 

Our booked Chunnel crossing was at 0950 last Sunday. We left Bergues at 0700 and were checked in at Eurotunnel by 0750 having been offered (and accepted) a place on the 0850 shuttle. However, when we arrived at the queuing lanes for boarding a few minutes later we found the gate open and an arrow telling us to proceed, so we did. I'm pretty sure we found ourselves on the 0750 shuttle, which had been delayed by a coach having got wedged in a doorway. We watched as it inched back and forth seemingly endlessly, until it finally extracted itself, making room for us. A couple of minutes after we boarded, we were off. We were back in the UK about an hour and a half before we were due to leave France. 

If it hadn't been for the lunch date with younger son and grandchildren (and the small matter of the pesky Schengen rules), it would have been tempting, within half an hour of hitting UK soil, to turn around and head for Spain. This was not the weather we wanted:

Windscreen wipers on crazy speed, spray a-go-go and dark as if it was twenty minutes beyond sunset.

Lunch was expensive and disappointing and the service was awful. Two days later we went to Wetherspoons where we had better food for a third of the price and with good service.

It was late by the time we got home, so Bertie was left as he was, for unpacking on Monday. That we did, but nothing got put away. Tuesday morning came around and we were still in bed (because it was still early!), just about to get up and go for a run, when the phone rang. It was the central heating technician (our boiler broke again back in July and despite efforts, it wasn't fixed before we went away) asking if it would be okay if he came around forty-five minutes hence. Panic stations!

The kitchen was presentable by the time he arrived. The rest of the house was very much not. Five days on and the boiler is still broken. It's a good money saving situation, but not so great from the point of view of comfort. Still, at least we have two vehicles that are fitted with heating, and one with a shower. 

Other points from this week:

My first run back in the UK (something of a mud-fest), I had two dogs (separately) run at and around me, ignoring their owners' shouts. That was 100% of the dogs that I encountered. In the preceding two months in Germany (a country with perhaps even greater dog ownership than the UK) we had not one single dog approach us. I've commented before that the norm in most places in Germany is that dogs are kept on leads or under close control, and when the owner sees you coming, they will ensure the dog is on the opposite side of them, firmly to heel, or stopped. 

When in town on Wednesday, stood with one toe on the road at a zebra crossing, a car cut straight across us. In two months in Germany not once did we have to stop at a zebra crossing; every single time we approached one (and there are a lot of such crossings in Germany) the traffic would stop in anticipation. German drivers clearly have it well drummed into them that bikes and pedestrians have right of way, and they abide by that rule. They also stop at junctions with side roads where there are no crossings (as also became the requirement in the UK earlier this year), although as a Brit I couldn't bring myself to just walk across the road to claim the right of way, each time waiting until the vehicle had stopped for me.

Rose tinted glasses, of course. I'm sure there are lots of negative things about life in Germany of which we, as tourists, are blissfully unaware. 

I ran along the canal on Wednesday. Just one muddy wallow, but it has been allowed to grow rather more wild than is the norm. It was more like a trail run than a tow-path. A triumph that I only got nettled once.

From this morning, lots of mud around, but no water in the ford.

Saturday 22 October - Bergues (via Maastricht)

Where's Bertie? He's back in his usual spot at the Aire in Bergues, where he has been quite a few times before (including at the start of this trip).
Weather: Sunny start (14 degrees), overcast end (20 degrees).

There's a great benefit to travelling at 7am on a Saturday morning: the roads are empty. That meant that today, rather than recommending a 54km motorway route that would take 50 minutes (=at least an hour in Bertie) to get to Maastricht, Google told us to take a 40km cross-country route that would take us just under 40 minutes. The downside at this time of year is that it's dark, so we didn't get to see anything of the places we drove through.

Parking for the parkrun turned out to be easy at a quarter to eight too, as we were able to pull Bertie into a space within 250m from the start/finish area. It did cost us €4.50 for 3 hours, but that would have also been the case if we'd gone to the car park I'd originally intended to use, 1.2km away.

Curious sculpture on the parkrun course - a dead giraffe in a cage. Of the three snaps I took, all without breaking stride, this is the only one that didn't come out too blurry.

Yesterday I'd been unsure as to whether I would be able to parkrun today at all, even at a walk. Today I ran the whole course*, starting tentatively and getting faster as I went, without a single peep from the knee. How?!

Chatting to Joanna and Rob (who we met in Köln on 1 Oct) after we'd all finished, they recommended that, even though we were pushed for time, we should spend half an hour walking into the city for a quick look at the place. Thus we didn't hang around to see if anyone went for coffee after the run, but nipped back to Bertie, grabbed a coffee and followed Joanna's directions into the city.

It turns out for the second time in a week, I'd completely misjudged the size of a place by looking at it on Google Maps, and thus it was possible to get from where we were parked into the centre and back in the space of 40 minutes (which is what we had left on our parking ticket by the time we set out).

Definitely worthwhile. We'd be happy to run that parkrun again, and to spend more time ambling around the historic city.

The parkrun ran along the path to the left of the water, our route into town went through a gate in the wall to the right

Non-fountaining fountain, square, churches

Sculpture in square

At 11 we were on the road with a reasonably long drive ahead of us. The first stop was for LPG (easier to find in Belgium than in the UK), and as it was gone noon we took the opportunity to stop for lunch before proceeding to the fuel station. There we failed. We've had many failed attempts to fill up with LPG over the years, so it didn't occur to us that maybe pre-payment was required until I saw the machines as we were leaving. I reset the SatNav for another fuel station just off the motorway a distance hence, and three fuel stations later, we succeeded (there were four stations almost in a row; it took us three goes to find the one with LPG). Popped some diesel in too; we knew it would be cheaper in France, but weren't sure whether last week's shortages were still ongoing.

Arriving in Bergues the height barrier at Lidl was open, so it was an easier job than last time to pick up a few cases of wine. A nip across the road landed us in the Aire for our final night before an early Chunnel crossing back to the UK in the morning.

Managed to find the time to imitate art on our way into Maastricht. Without a separate camera operator, we had to take it in turns. 

^{(*I became a Cow in the process, achieving my Half-Cowell by having completed 50 different parkrun events. Twenty four of those have been outside of the UK.)}

Friday 21 October - Kelmis

Where's Bertie? He's still in the Aire at Kelmis.
Weather: Rain in the morning, with a bit of thunder, clearing to a sunny afternoon.

We did nothing today (more about which in the footnote - a tale probably not of much interest to anyone but my future self), as a result of which we decided that rather than going to Maastricht per plan, we may as well stay in Kelmis.

<sup>(*In September 2014, whilst walking the Wales Coast Path, I developed a sore knee. That knee hurt every day, particularly going up hill/stairs for the next seven months, and at times even the pressure of the lightest trousers on my kneecap was sore. It didn't seem to get any worse as a result of exercise, so in March 2015 I set out on another jaunt on the Welsh Coast. I think it was the day I walked into Port Talbot that I cut across a playing field, but found my way out on the other side blocked by a locked five-bar gate. Of course, I hopped over it, but I landed badly on my poorly knee. For the rest of that day, my knee was *really* painful and when I met Mick at the end of the day, I told him that I thought we'd be heading home the following morning. I also finally phoned the doctor's surgery to make an appointment. The next morning I got up and headed back out onto the coast path, thinking that I'd walk a mile or so and see how bad the pain was before calling the rest of the trip off. What do you know? The pain had completely gone. Whether it was the bad landing from the gate that finally jolted something out of the way/back into place, or the fact that after seven months I had finally made an appointment with the doctor, I know not. I didn't feel that pain again, not even once, until last Sunday afternoon.

My knee had been fine during my 'Fruit Route' run in Leichlingen, but sometime later in the day (I think; it may have been on Monday morning), it became sore again in the exact same way as in 2014. On Tuesday Mick and I ran together and it was fine; on Wednesday I did hill reps and it was fine; yesterday we did the 'Three Countries' route and it was very much not fine, with the soreness starting after the first significant downhill and lasting the rest of the day.

It was still sore when I got up this morning, and wanting to give it every chance to improve before tomorrow's parkrun, I declared that I was going to do absolutely nothing today, other than sit and ice it on a regular basis. There was no point in moving to Maastricht if I wasn't going to be able to walk around and see the place, hence in Kelmis we stayed. The 'doing nothing' resolve lasted until late afternoon when I decided that the potential harm I was doing to myself of sitting still for so long was greater than the risk to my knee of a gentle walk around the park, but that is all I did all day (other than reading, knitting, etc.))</sup>

Thursday 20 October - Kelmis (Belgium)

Where's Bertie? He's in a free Aire in the town of Kelmis which is just over the border in Belgium. Electricty and water are available for small fees. Exact location: 50.71554, 6.01002
Weather: Dry but overcast start, then rain for a few hours, then clearling to sunshine by mid-afternoon.

When we were in the Netherlands a few weeks ago (at the place with all the enclaves and counter-enclaves), I idly looked up the highest point in the country. Discovering that the high point is also the 'Three Countries Point' where Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany meet, and that it was no more than a 10km diversion from the route we would be taking between Düsseldorf and Maastricht a few weeks hence, it got added to our itinerary.

Until yesterday, the intention had been to leave Aachen this morning and drive there. It was only as we returned to Bertie in the late afternoon that, due to the number of Belgian registration numbers around, I looked to see how far we were from the border, and found that we were within easy running distance. And, clearly, a run taking in three countries and a national high point was always going to be much more pleasing than laps of a park!

The highest point in the Netherlands* sits at 322m, but I can't claim that we climbed a hill, as our car park in Aachen was at 250m (although we did amass just short of 300m of ascent in the undulating route we took). There also wasn't a view from the summit, although I'm sure there would have been a good one from the top of the viewing tower, had we arrived at a time of day when it was open.

Another on the list of viewing towers we haven't climbed on this trip

At the Three Countries Point

Mick with feet in two different countries and a hand in another. The strips of metal on the ground mark the borders as they leave the meeting point.

The nearby information sign told us that from 1816 until 1919, this was the 'Four Countries Point', as the border of Neutral Moresnet (a place of which I'd never heard) also came to this point.

Back through the forest

Route. Red pin = Bertie

The 12km circuit was almost entirely on good tracks and paths, with just a couple of short sections of 'is this really a path?'.

Back at Bertie we didn't hang around for long, being keen to get to Kelmis - not because there was anything we particularly wanted to do here, but because I expected the Aire to be full later in the day. It's a good job we hadn't come here for any real reason other than the presence of a free Aire with a service point, as the rain that had started approximately 3 minutes after we'd finished our run had followed us through the tediously slow drive (roadworks galore), such that on arrival the weather wasn't conducive to being outside.

With the weather clearing this afternoon, we have been out for a wander. Nowt of note to report. 

Sculpture of the Day. I feel there's a story behind it. 

The only other thing to mention today is the price of fuel. Over the last few days it's been around 220-225c/litre. During our quick trip to Belgium a few weeks ago, it was around 40c/litre cheaper here, but Google tells me that Belgium is now just as expensive as Germany. We gave Bertie (whose fuel light came on yesterday) a bit of a drink just before the border at the relative bargain price of 211, hoping that it won't be more than that in the Netherlands.

^{(*Do I need to clarify that I mean the 'European bit of the Netherlands, not other Dutch territories elsewhere in the world'? Surely no reader of this blog would pick me up on such a point?)}

Wednesday 19 October - Aachen

Where's Bertie? He's in a large, gently sloping, car park 2km from the centre of Aachen. Exact location: 50.76104, 6.06967
Weather: Sunny, after a murky start. Cooler.

I was a few minutes ahead of Mick as I stepped out into the forest for a run this morning, and almost immediately decided to try to capture the sun streaming through the mist with this shot:

I hadn't even looked back at Bertie as I left, unlike Mick, who a few minutes later took this shot of our 'heavenly' parking spot:

I was on my cool down, heading back towards Bertie, and was gaining on a chap walking ahead of me. I'd seen quite a few people out and about, but when I was just a few paces behind this particular chap the thing that struck me was that he was wearing Shokz bone conducting headphones. Bright yellow ones too - just like Mick's. Worrying that I came within two paces of my husband of nearly 20 years before I recognised him! I slowed for a brief chat before continuing on.

Next stop: Aachen. This may seem something of a contrary choice of place to visit, given that I've said so many times how bad we are at cities, and that earlier on this trip we went to various cities for parkruns without troubling ourselves to visit their centres. I have no answer for that, other than it looked logistically easy, and was directly on our route.

Even though parked within walking distance of the old town (2km to the nearest bit), we opted to hire e-scooters for the journey in and to start at the far side. That all went fine until a road closure caused us to divert into a side street that turned out to be cobbled. Scooters and cobbles are a deeply unpleasant combination. The scooters were abandoned (well, neatly parked and electronically returned) 450m before our destination. For the length of journey and the time it took, we really may as well just have walked.

It's a nice historic old town, with a centre that's much smaller than I'd appreciated from the map. A couple of days ago, in another uncharacteristic bout of planning, I'd perused the Tourist Info website and put pins in Google Maps at all the POIs. Unfortunately, after the passage of two days my memory had no longer retained the details of those POIs, and on a couple of occasions we arrived at a pin and had no idea what the significance was of the location. Yes, I could have revisited the Tourist Info website to try to find the information again, but I was doing enough staring at my phone just navigating us around.

I wasn't taken with the first side of the Rathaus that we visited

I preferred the other side

Across the square from the above, is the cathedral. With the position of the sun, I struggled to capture it. It looks a rather mismatched set of buildings from outside, and not overly cathedralesque.

Equally poor snap from the other side.

Montage of snaps of the inside. A unique cathedral in our experience (not sure if those photos even begin to capture its nature). Rather than a traditional nave, the bit between the entrance and the choir and altar is an octagonal building, topped with a cupola. Having been inside, the outside began to make more sense.

Outside the key POIs were multi-lingual information points, including short video presentations. The one about the cathedral was, I thought, particularly interesting, explaining the inspiration behind the design (which dates back to the turn of the 9th century).

After swinging by Fountain of the Day...

...we didn't take the waters at the spa, but read the history of the roman excavations contained within the same bit of parkland, before going in hunt of a late lunch.

Conrad: Does currywurst mit pommen look more appealing to you when it's got a bit of green on top, as Mick's does in this snap?

We didn't trouble ourselves with scooters on the way back, but came on foot.

Final snaps for today - current progress on the jumper I'm knitting:

A few days ago, when I was starting the orange, just after the green, I spotted this error way back at the top:

The correct pattern repeat on this band is as circled in orange. All that circled in yellow was wrong.

No way was I going to rip all that way back, but over the next few nights I managed to drop down one column of stitches at a time, correct the error and pick the stitches back up. Sometimes I manage to impress myself, and this was one of those occasions.

Must make sure to check each pattern band in future before moving on to the next!

Tuesday 18 October - Brander Wald

Where's Bertie? He's in a car park on the edge of Brander Wald - a forest next to the town (Aachen suburb?) of Brand. Exact location: 50.75508, 6.18977.
Weather: Rain overnight, then a murky, but warm, start, finally clearing to sunshine at lunchtime. High teens.

We stepped out of Bertie into a misty, murky morning. A blanket of warm dampness. It persisted as we ran out and back along the Ruhr, often enclosed in trees, but sometimes with a view of the water.

Along the river Ruhr

Back at Bertie it seemed sensible, as we had a service point freely available for emptying and filling, to have showers, and once we'd breakfasted and done that the morning was marching on towards 11am and it felt like we ought to leave the Stellplatz.

It was only as I was setting the SatNav post-Service Point visit that I realised that the place I'd identified last night for a visit today wasn't on our route to Aachen. Whilst I contemplated what to do about that issue, Mick drove us to Lidl and nipped in for the one item we needed (and only came out with three items!). By the time he emerged I'd decided that we would proceed with the visit, but would travel the direct (little roads) route, rather than the indirect motorway route favoured by both the SatNav and Google Maps.

Mick prefers motorway driving to unknown little roads, but with this route taking us through gloriously coloured forests and little towns and villages, where substantial stone buildings were plentiful, I was a happy passenger - much more interesting than being a passenger on a motorway.

Thanks to the continuted murkiness of the day, our destination car park was quiet on arrival (it's been busy the last couple of hours), so we slotted Bertie into an appropriate space and had lunch before heading out.

I had declined to tell Mick why we had come here, feeling that the objective would be better if it was a surprise. Setting out into the forest, Mick started guessing: dolmens; wood sculptures; or airplane crash site. I answered each in the negative.

Our approach to the site was indirect (mainly because I hadn't looked up exactly where we were heading before we set out), but the forest made for a pleasant walk even without an objective. A little way before reaching the site, we entered a military zone (fortunately no flags flying), and (apparently!) soon after this Mick wondered, but didn't ask, if our objective was abandoned tanks.

Nail on the head

We only visited three of the four, because I erroneously thought there were only three and thus we didn't look for another. A bit of Googling since we got back tells me they are American tanks from the 1950s that, when no longer required by the USA, were acquired by the German military to use as targets in training. I have no idea how true this is as I've not found what I would consider to be a reliable source of information. On the one hand, it would have been nice if there had been some information on site, but on the other hand it was good to go blind, giving us the chance to hypotethise based on what we could see.
Verdict: an interesting diversion during a walk through a forest.

A quick change of subject, but relevant to the late afternoon when this car park got busy:

When we registered Bertie, we bought 'GB' number plates for him, complete with the EU circle of stars. When the UK changed from 'GB' to 'UK' last year, I bought stickers to cover over and change the country identifiers on the plates. It turned out those stickers were of inadequate quality and by the end of our 2 months in Spain earlier this year they had faded. By summer, they were bleached white. Because we don't need to have number plate country identifiers, provided we have a 'UK' sticker on the back, we've left the number plates as they are. That means that: 1) our nationality is not obvious from the front of the vehicle; and 2) given that pretty well every vehicle you see in Europe has that blue section on their plates, it looks a bit dodgy that ours is semi-covered up. As a result, multiple times per day we will have people standing in front of Bertie staring at his number plate. If it's a couple or a group, a discussion will often ensue. Occasionally, someone is curious enough to walk around to the back to have a look at his rear. I cannot tell you how many people have done one or more of those things this afternoon. I'm a bit torn whether to leave the number plates as they are for our entertainment, or whether to splash out on new plates to put passers-by out of their misery. (There is, of course, a fair chance that many people, in seeing the UK sticker, but no Union Flag to assist them in identifying the country, assume we're from Ukraine. The fact that we're left hand drive will probably assist in that assumption.)

Monday 17 October - Düren

Where's Bertie? He's at a private Stellplatz at Düren at a cost of €8, including water and waste. Electricity is available for an extra €4 per day. Exact location: 50.80862, 6.46630
Weather: Much better than forecast a couple of days ago! Sunny start, soon clouding over, but still dry as I type this at gone 5pm. 21 degrees.

Being a day behind ourselves due to the extra night at Leichlingen, I thought we'd get up early this morning and move to Opladen (location of the laundrette) before breakfast. What that achieved was putting us in rush hour traffic, with one particular roundabout more than doubling what the journey time would have been at a quiet time of day (it was a 7km hop that took us over 20 minutes).

Finally in Opladen, whilst Mick put the kettle on, I nipped across the road to an empty laundrette, set a machine running, then returned to Bertie for breakfast.

With everything washed, dried and put away, onwards to Düren we came. This was arguably a mistake, and certainly made me realise that there was no reason for the early start.

I don't usually plan ahead, but before we left Düsseldorf I came up with a few places to stay between there and Maastricht, with the first one being Düren. That was over a week ago, as our late change of plan had us head east for a week before turning back west. Knowing that I'd already noted the places to stay, once we turned west I didn't review them again.

We'd parked and paid up in Düren before I came to realise that I must only have chosen to come here because we needed a service point. I suppose the same holds true this week too, but had I made a note that there was no other reason to come here, I would have found somewhere more interesting to visit on the way.

I'm not sure I can say that we've made the most of being here (as I'm not quite sure what that would entail), but we did walk into town, figuring that if nothing else we could go out for lunch.

There was little of note about the town centre itself, other than that it was as busy as we've seen a town, and that it appears to be home to the biggest concentration of immigrants that we've seen. Germany has welcomed a significant number of immigrants over the last few years, and it's apparent to see in most areas, but Düren seems to be winning (at least out of the places we've been) at cultural diversity. Judging by the shops and takeaways, the Turkish population seems to be particularly strong. (And as I type that I'm kicking myself that we didn't come back from town via out outward route and thus didn't visit the baklava shop we'd espied on our way in.)

It was another wok for us for lunch.

Whilst the town is a 20 minute walk from the Stellplatz, the river Ruhr is rather closer. I ambled down there this afternoon, but only to check how to access it ready for a run there in the morning.

I thought this may be the only contender for Sculpture of the Day...

...but then we found this, which would have been Fountain of the Day, had it been running.

Sunday 10 October - Leichlingen

Where's Bertie? He's still in the Stellplatz in Leichlingen
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine until late afternoon. 13 degrees overnight, rising to 20 this afternoon. Feels like we've returned to summer.

Just as I was about to head out for my run this morning, I quickly checked to see the 'how busy by time of day' profile for the laundrette on Google Maps, and that was when I discovered that the laundrette isn't open on a Sunday. On the one hand, why had this not occurred to me as a possibility, in a country where shops are closed, noise is prohibited and the hanging out of laundry is frowned upon on a Sunday? On the other hand, laundrettes don't require an on-site staff presence and when else are people who work all week going to get their washing done (clearly using a UK mentality with that question, given how town-centre shops here are closed for most of the weekend)?

Deferring further consideration of the issue until later, out I headed, not for two laps of the 'Fruit Route' as originally intended, but to do a 15km route I'd plotted that took in the first half of the fruit route before extending it into a much bigger circuit. Save for one short section alongside a noisy road, it was truly lovely. Mick would have enjoyed it. His calf would not, with three remarkably steep uphill sections (on the plus side, the related downs were long and runnable). Glad I hadn't opted to do it the other way around, as the ascent/descent profile in that direction would have involved much more walking.

No photos to illustrate the loveliness, I'm afraid (there was woodland, riverside and open field tracks). My phone has recently decided that it can't have three Apps running in the background, and thus if I take a photo whilst I have navigation, a podcast and Live Tracking running, then it will stop one of the other Apps (seemingly choosing at random). It has taken it upon itself to change my settings before in the interests of saving battery, but on this occasion I've not been able to track down the errant setting. As it happens, the Garmin server went down about 7km in, so Live Tracking (the thing that allows Mick to see where I am*) stopped working anyway.

Whilst I was out Mick walked along the river, and we arrived back at Bertie at almost the same time, whereupon I contemplated options: move on to our next stop as planned and find a different laundrette, or stay here and launder tomorrow. The latter won for being far the more convenient option.

The extra night caused us to feel obliged to go and spend a few more pennies locally, so we headed out after lunch for ice creams. There are two Eis Cafés in town, one in the main square, one just across the road, and both were positively bustling with people. It partially answers our question as to what people do with themselves on a Sunday: they go for a walk/run/ride, and/or they go out for ice cream.

My Bitter Schokolade was huge and very rich

Sitting on a bench in the square in the warm sunshine made me awfully soporific, but Mick eventually managed to chivvy me back into action to walk the long way around (via a riverside walk) back to Bertie.

^{(*A few weeks ago I encountered Wanking Man in a forest. My mind obviously slid over the possibility that Wanking Man could also turn out to be Sexual Assault Man, but at least I had the comfort that if my track did stop moving in the forest, Mick would be able to see where I was. I got back from that run to find that Live Tracking had failed on that occasion too - almost certainly because I'd taken a photo earlier on causing my phone to close the Garmin App.)}

Saturday 15 October - Lennep and Leichlingen

Where's Bertie? He's back at the Stellplatz at Leichlingen, where he spent 4/5 October.
Weather: A few sunny intervals, but mainly overcast, with some showers this afternoon. Milder.

The inaugural parkrun at Kemnader See was a success. Thirty-nine people, plus volunteers, took part, ten of whom were tourists from the parkrun in Bonn. Others had come from Rheinpark, where we ran on Unity Day. With a good smattering of first-ever parkrunners (presumably locals), even without tourists they are a base from which the event can grow.

The quantity of cake looked excessive for the number of people, but I was impressed at how little remained when we left.

Back at Bertie it was decision time: to stay where we were, have lunch at the Chinese next to our car park then run the whole way around the lake tomorrow; to go to Lennep; or to return to Leichlingen.

Staying put was rejected (reluctantly - it looks a lovely route) as Mick's right calf would prefer not to run tomorrow (and certainly not on a route that can't easily be cut short). It was almost a toss up between Lennep and Leichlingen, but Lennep was chosen as we'd not been there before and it was only a 2km detour from the motorway.

The most notable thing in pulling into the town car park in Lennep (in which the motorhome bays are located) was the constant rain of leaves falling from trees. It seems that in the last 24 hours someone has flipped the 'leaves fall' switch, taking us from just vaguely changing colours to a carpet of vibrant leaves.

With Bertie settled into a slot (in amongst trailers, caravans and motorhomes in storage), immediately into town we went, hankering after a lunch out. We came away disappointed in that respect - almost everywhere was closed. I knew that shops are generally closed on Saturday afternoons, but I'd never before noticed that the same applies to eateries.

Our walk around the town, Google Translating information signs as we went (key info: it's known for its cloth-making history and was the home town of the chap who discovered x-rays), showed it to be a picturesque place. So much so that it was like we had walked into an open air museum, or maybe a film set. Every building was prettily slate clad in various patterns, every set of shutters was the same shade of green, and all the streets were cobbled

Spot the complete lack of people. This was at 1315 on a Saturday.

We could have spent the night in Lennep, but having already seen the town it seemed advantageous to continue the half hour for a return to Leichlingen. I've got an easy (logistically so; actually quite hilly) running route that I already know here, and Mick has been able to get a pizza for tea (consolation prize for not getting lunch out), plus it positions us well to be able to do one final load of laundry on our way back to the motorway tomorrow* (a load of laundry that we probably wouldn't need to do if I hadn't forgotten to wash some things two weeks ago).

NOT Fountain of the Day. I can't give that status to one so factually incorrect.   

^{(*Hopefully. I'm wondering if the laundrette's going to be too busy on a Sunday.)}

Friday 14 October - Herbede and Kamnader See

Where's Bertie? He's in a car park at the north end of Kamnader See. Exact location: 51.43864, 7.27745
Weather: Overcast but dry until mid-afternoon. Mid-teens.

You may have noticed that when we move on from one place to another, we almost always go straight to our night stop and then see what there is around it. Today I knew that the only thing at our destination was a lake, and that didn't sound like enough entertainment for a day only forecast to be a little bit damp. So, I set about finding somewhere to go for an intermediate stop.

Feeling like I'd spent half the day trying to work out what to do with half a day, I finally made a decision*: we were going to Herbede (10km away) to visit the castle ruins of Burg Hardenstein. The car park I'd identified didn't work out, but there was plenty of roadside parking, so we sat outside of a block of flats having lunch, before setting out on foot.

From Google Maps, I'd thought we would be walking roads to the castle, so it was a pleasant surprise, having walked fifty metres back along the road to head off onto a lane that soon became a track. Then we entered some woodland...

Autumn is definitely upon us

... I looked at the map again and realised that the 'castle on a hill' was actually 'a castle on the river'. Having parked at a high point, quite a bit of height was lost before we came upon this:

From which we had this view along the Ruhr:

The castle dates from the 1300s, but, as you can see, bits of it look like they were finished last week. To me, the preservation work didn't look sympathetic, but then I'm no expert and maybe after a few years it will have weathered in nicely and start looking old again.

There wasn't an awful lot of poking around to do, but it was a pleasant walk through the woodland in each direction. We learned from an information board en-route that, had we felt so inclined, we could have done a 6.5km circuit taking in a number of industrial points of interest in the woods. As it was, we stumbled across two of them, both related to coal mining.

Back at Bertie, we gave brief thought to visiting the mining museum a 1.5km walk away, but given the time of day opted to come straight to Kamnader See instead.

Not sure how well they're visible in this snap, but the 'stalks' sticking up out of the water have people on top - it's a sculpture. 

This See is a reservoir on the Ruhr and it's an attractive body of water, even in the light rain in which we found ourselves walking today. Given the number of huge car parks, and the fact that there are separate foot, rollerblade and bike paths running along it, I surmise that it's a popular place on a nice day.

Bertie's original parking spot here had him sitting looking at the start/end point of tomorrow's parkrun, but during our wanderings we espied this car park which, whilst a bit further away, offered us a more level pitch for the night. As usual on a weekend night, our fingers are crossed that it proves to be quiet.

^{(*A chunk of time was also spent contemplating an art museum in Bochum, next to a large park, but it was a not inconsiderable detour, would have involved driving across a city, and the parking availability nearby was too uncertain.)}

Thursday 13 October - Hattingen

Where's Bertie? Still at the Stellplatz in Hattingen.
Weather: Lightly overcast, milder morning; turning a bit damp later in the afternoon. Low teens.

There was something of an exodus from the Stellplatz this morning, starting with our 14-odd-metre long neighbour (9.5-metre motorhome, plus a trailer containing a motorbike). With it being 0630 when he left, and as he needed to do a multi-part reversing manoeuvre in a very tight space, I'm sure we weren't the only people unimpressed by the disturbance. Others left at a more reasonable time, and more quietly.

On the plus side, he left 1kWh of electricity on his connection, so we plugged into that, and tried paying for another 2kWh, but the meter kept spitting our coin back out. Already running an hour and a half behind in getting out for a run (I was close to the end of my book and couldn't put it down until I'd finished), I abandoned the attempt. I got back to learn that Mick had another go in my absence and managed to dislodge the stuck coin in the process - bonus, we ended up with 5kWh for our €1.

A gloriously hot, powerful shower in a swing-a-cat-if-you-want-to cubicle, coffee and a crossword, then lunchtime was upon us. We'd earmarked today for currywurst mit pommen from the eatery that's about 50 paces away from Bertie. We locked up, walked around the van that was blocking our view of the entrance...and found it to be closed. The sign hung on the gate translated as: "Unfortunately our facility is closed today. The weather forecast announced rain for today and we hope it's right. If not, we are sorry, but we can no longer change it."

Boo hiss!

A quick lunch back at Bertie, and with no hint of rain approaching we set out for the 600m walk to the 'Industrial Museum of Iron and Steel', located at the old steelworks.

Had there been more information in English, we probably could have spent the best part of a day there. As it was, many of the indoor displays were interactive or electronic and not of a format that we could Google Translate.

Huge machinery! (All the info boards about the machines were bilingual)

As we emerged back outside (into the relative warmth; it had been cold in the old machine hall) to walk around the rest of the site, we realised that, with a forecast of rain, we should have left the indoor bit for last and made the most of the dry conditions in which we arrived. It rained throughout the rest of our visit, but never heavily enough to make us rush.

Looking right from in front of the machine hall

Looking left from the same spot.

View from the top floor of the conveyor belt interchange building

Same view but with an orange circle marking the highest point that's accessible on the blast furnace

View from just left of the orange circle in the photo above.

I'd read a review of the museum on Google that said those with vertigo may struggle with using the stairs to ascend the blast furnace. I can see why. Even if taking the lift to the top, the platforms are all mesh.

Even without being able to understand many of the exhibits, just walking around the site and ascending the blast furnace was well worth the €5 entrance fee.

With yesterday's town tour and today's museum, I'm rating Hattingen highly as a place to visit.

Photo surreptitiously taken through our rain spattered windscreen. Got to respect the determination, sitting out having afternoon tea in the rain. Note that they don't just have a table cloth, but a floral display too, that they bring out for every meal. These aren't the neighbours we mentioned a couple of days ago.