Thursday 25 August - Update (Werne)

Where's Bertie? to everyone's surprise, he didn't spend the night at Waltrop, per my main post for the day, but did a late flit to the Stellplatz at Werne, where it costs €5 for 24 hours.

Just as the light was fading out of the day, we had a 'stay vs go' discussion, which came down on the side of 'stay'. During the late afternoon three gatherings of people had appeared in* the car park. Two of those groups were causing us no disturbance at all. The third group, sitting in deckchairs between two cars, were also initially unobtrusive. Then they started playing music.

The initial stay vs go assessment was perhaps swayed by the fact that we were enjoying watching the cricket (The Hundred), but also employed the sound logic that as there were two small children present, it was unlikely they'd be partying until the small hours.

The reversal of our initial stay vs go decision, at 2115, was based on three occurrences during the previous 15 minutes:
1) both cars with children had left (the two cars between which everyone had been sitting) but the music hadn't stopped (I'd thought one of the cars was the source of the music);
2) the occupants of three more cars plus one scooter had arrived to join the fun;
3) the music was gradually being turned up, notch by notch.

On the one hand, the party may have broken up an hour later (and, to be clear, the only issue was one of the music disturbing us; there was no hint of rowdy behaviour), on the other hand, past experience has shown that these gatherings often go on until the early hours. We weren't in the market for being kept awake that late, so we pulled ourselves away from the cricket (Trent Rockets were setting such an easy target for Southern Brave that it looked like a forgone conclusion anyway), made Bertie ready for travel, and hit the road.

Our destination was only 18km along the road, but was reached by a succession of 50 and 30km/h speed limits, so it took the best part of half an hour.

Arriving at an unknown Stellplatz in the pitch dark isn't ideal, but it didn't take us long to see that all of the official motorhome spaces were in use. The reason we'd chosen to come here was that the motorhome spaces are within a huge car park, so even if they're full, there's plenty of other space available, and with Bertie being so small, we can fit him into a car space. The problem in the dark is being able to see any restrictions that apply. We thus took what appeared to be a safe option, by popping Bertie in between two motorhomes that were already parked (yep, in a huge and largely empty car park, we parked right next to two people, but I think it was acceptable in the context). Mick then went out to pay, but returned with our wallet intact, unable to find a ticket machine. So, we both went out and scoured the car park, but still to no avail. Payment was going to have to wait until morning. We returned to the cricket.

What a match! At the point we rejoined the action, it seemed certain that Southern Brave was going to fail spectacularly to meet the modest run target that had been set for them - so much so that it was questionable as to why we were bothering to watch. Then the Rockets had a bowling nightmare for a couple of sets, giving away free balls and wides. Add in a couple of spectacular boundaries, and suddenly Southern Brave was back in the game. They ended up winning with 5 balls to spare - at which point we declared it to be bedtime, confident of a quiet night.

Innocuous-looking gathering, before the numbers swelled and the music got louder. 

^{(*actually, one group wasn't in the car park. They were using a low wall on the other side of the road as a picnic table, which resulted in two deckchairs being sited on the road, immediately opposite the car park's entrance/exit. Bizarre choice of location for a social gathering, we thought, but then we choose to kip in car parks, so who are we to judge these things?)}

Thursday 25 August - Waltrop

Where's Bertie? He's in a car park at the site of the former colliery in Waltrop (N of Dortmund). Exact location: 51.61825, 7.42003.
Weather: Hot and sunny

Our trip to Norway in 2017 was marred by wet weather that prevented us from doing much of what we wanted to do. The start of this one is being marred by heat, although I'm sure in a few days' time we'll be wishing for a bit more of it. For the moment, however, daytime highs in the mid thirties and overnight lows of 20 aren't conducive to either sleeping or sightseeing.

That said, considering the conditions, I don't think we've done too bad a job of sightseeing today. We did an awful job of sleeping last night, with an overnight low temperature in Bertie, reached at 7am today, of 26 degrees. I'm sure that, had it been cooler, neither the noise of the motorway, the barges nor the group of youngsters chatting nearby into the small hours would have kept us awake.

Even so, we were up at 0630 so as to get out for a little jogette before the temperature graph climbed its hockey stick curve for the day.

Even though it was 23 degrees in the shade (not that there was much shade), the jogette was okay.

Bertie was still nicely shaded when we got back to him

After cold showers that weren't really cold, it was time to contemplate today's destination. I'd come up with no fewer than four options, with the possibility of visiting one of them during the day then moving on to another for the night. The final decision was made based on scouring the photos and going for the one that looked to offer the best shade.

Nicely shaded, although I reckon Bertie's nose will start being toasted by the sun at around 1830.

It was an hour's drive to get here, during which we revelled in aircon, then promptly on arrival I undid the good work of the aircon by lighting the stove to make coffee. There's a lesson to be learnt: on a hot day, make the coffee before travelling and put it in a flask for consumption on arrival.

Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, but it was gone noon when we headed out for a look around. Our initial walk around a pond/lake was gloriously cool in the shade of trees:

This is only a small segment of the water. Other bits, being semi-covered in film of pollen, weren't showing themselves at their best.

Having made our way back through the colliery buildings, our walk up to the viewing tower atop the spoil heap behind Bertie was a rather warmer affair.

Made entirely from wood recovered from the mine's structure.

Alas, the access to the top of the tower was barred. What a disappointment!

View down to a couple of the colliery buildings from in front of the tower

The mine here operated from 1903 until 1979, during which time it suffered a few setbacks, and at its peak, in 1958, it employed over 2800. By the time it closed the mining field covered an area of 27km². (You'd not believe how many signs I Googled translated only to condense the information down into those few facts!)

Efforts to turn the land over to leisure use started in 1988 and, based on what we've seen today, have been vastly more successful than a UK equivalent site that I happened to visit earlier in the month.

I couldn't find a vantage point to get a good representation of the buildings, but here's a sidelong glimpse of the three that Bertie's looking straight at. My Google Translate exploits told me that the wars hampered operations due to all of the local bridges being destroyed, but didn't suggest that any of the buildings here had suffered damage.

Wednesday 24 August - Baerl

Where's Bertie? He's in a car park on the edge of the Rhein just outside of Baerl. (Exact Location: 51.48563, 6.67925)
Weather: Sunny, hot and humid (low thirties)

There was a disturbance in the night. A mosquito. The worst nights we've ever had in Bertie have all involved mosquitoes. Fortunately, during the first lockdown in 2020, one of the things I did to occupy myself was to make a mosquito-net-tent for Bertie's bed, so when Mick turned the light on again to try to find the little blighter (that had already bitten him repeatedly) at 5am, I got up and retrieved said net from its storage place.

Unfortunately, the last time I deployed that net was the day I made it and with my eyes barely open at 5am, I couldn't work out which end was which (nor indeed what was an end and what a side). Fortunately, whilst faffing trying to work it out, the mosquito landed right in front of me and almost immediately died. Once I'd got back out of bed to get a wet cloth to wipe Mick's mosquito-ingested blood off Bertie's fabric ceiling, the light went back out and I left the fathoming of the net until this morning.

A quick flick back to my photos from 2020...

...told me everything I needed to know and in future we should have more success with an emergency nighttime deployment.

After that it was a struggle to get out of bed at 0730, but I knew that if I delayed getting out for a run any longer, I would suffer in the heat. Thanks to the warm weather in the UK during July and August, the temperature whilst I was out was perfectly tolerable. What wasn't tolerable was my mapping situation. The App I thought would do the job (the only one on which I can get OCM for free) has its shortcomings and I'm almost resigned to having to throw money (far more than I would like - $40 per year) at the issue. Given how much I use OCM when abroad (and sometimes at home too) it's probably a worthwhile expenditure.

View from this morning's run, which featured far too much navigational faffing and one wrong turn

The bit of the route that looked, on the map, like the highlight - a cycle path alongside a lake. What the map didn't tell me was that I would be on a road (albeit dedicated to bicycles and residents), unable to see the lake for the fence and trees. Hey ho. Can't win them all.

Breakfast, showers and use of the service point, and we were away, to drive half an hour along the road to this place. We followed another motorhome into the car park (as it's turned out, the only other motorhome we've seen all day), who parked in the only remaining shaded spot. A few minutes later we got all excited as he decided not to stay, but before we could even get a key into Bertie's ignition, a car nabbed the space. Disappointing for a few moments, until we realised quite how big is the tree under which Bertie is parked. Whilst it's given us less shade at any one time, it's given us partial shade for almost all of the day.

Even so, the coolest place to be today has been on a bench under an avenue of trees lining the cycle path alongside the Rhein, also giving the benefit of a front row view of the constant stream of commercial barges moving goods up and down the waterway. I'm not sure why I enjoy watching the barges so much; I'd never consider sitting alongside a motorway and commenting on the passing lorries to be a good way to while away an afternoon.

At 'rush hour' there was a constant stream of vessels coming from the left, with at least six in view at any one time.

I didn't get a snap of the one with containers stacked three high, but this one gives the gist of quite how massive these vessels are.

Our afternoon was rounded off with the appearance of an ice cream van on the river bank, just outside the car park. A waffle cone with one scoop of incredibly rich ice cream for €1.50. Bargain!

Tuesday 23 August - Wachtendonk, Germany

Where's Bertie? He's in a Stellplatz in the old town of Wachtendonk. It's €7 per night, including waste and wifi. Water and electricity are available for small extra fees. (Exact location: 51.40651, 6.33082)
Weather: Hot, sunny and humid. Thirty-three degrees on arrival.

A slightly painful early alarm allowed a run around the outside of the ramparts at Bergues before we hit the road. A worthwhile outing, not just for the exercise, as the scenery on the north side of the town is prettier than the woodland on the east side, where I'd explored on our last visit.

Unfortunately the heron flew off a moment before I took the bottom snap.

A quick breakfast and off we headed, with our first stop being Dunkirk for LPG (75c/litre; had a bit of a fight with the pump but it eventually obliged) and diesel (183c/litre = £1.54 - feels like a bargain!).

The itinerary then was to drive across Beglium and the Netherlands, into Germany. By luck we hit Antwerp at a time when there wasn't a massive traffic jam heading east. There were miles and miles of traffic heading west.

Once in Germany, a small detour took us to an Aldi, so that we would have something in for tea, then a short backtrack brought us to Bertie's home for the night. That last 2km wasn't entirely plain sailing when we completely missed the 'road closed' indication (it was subtle; there were no barriers) and Bertie found himself driving straight into the site of some roadworks. A workman waved frantically, Bertie made a retreat and the Stellplatz was reached.

Knowing there to be a charge to stay here, I expected there to be a Pay & Display sort of a machine. It's not that high tech: there's a metal cupboard, inside of which is a strongbox with a letter box slit, and a pile of envelopes asking for name, registration number and date.

We didn't immediately dash out to look at the town, as it was still a bit too warm for walking around to be enticing. The exploration then got delayed further when I confirmed that it's no longer possible to use OpenCycleMaps* via the ViewRanger App and fell down a rabbit hole trying to find an alternative. Some Googling and four downloaded Apps later and hopefully I have a solution that will work for this trip.

With that sorted(ish-maybe), I then looked at where we might go tomorrow. When I chose this location for tonight, I clicked on the first Stellplatz past the NL/German border that was near to our route, saw it had good reviews and was only a few Euro, and thought "That will do". If I'd just spent a few more minutes, there are a couple of better-looking (and free) places only 30km-ish further on. We may find ourselves going to one of those tomorrow, as we now only have 199km to drive to Bielefeld for their parkrun on Saturday morning, so can be quite leisurely over the next 3 days.

With tea time then upon us (salads rule in this weather), it was well into evening by the time we headed out for a little look around. Wachtendonk is an interesting enough old town, but not as visually striking as others we've visited.

Old Town, cobbled streets and plenty of half-timbered buildings, but only evident if you look down the alleys between them, as most had brick facades added in the 1800s.

Church (not wonky; made that way by my phone's camera in order to fit it in one snap)

A treadmill-powered scooter. Why?!

38.4mpg achieved over the 300km between Dunkirk and the German border. Not bad for a vehicle with the aerodynamics of a brick, that's lugging a whole house around.


(*I almost never cycle anywhere, but OpenCycleMaps is an excellent resource for not just finding cycle paths (handy for running and walking), but also for footpaths, toilets, and cafes. I use it daily when abroad.)

Sunday 21 August - Bergues, France

Where's Bertie? He's in the municipal Aire at Bergues, where he's been quite a few times before.
Weather: Few spots of rain during the 45-minute drive here from the Chunnel, but warm.

I'm not sure whether to despair of our procrastination and last-minute behaviour, or just accept it. You'd think, on recent performance, that I was the sort of person who would do homework on the bus on the way to school, whereas the reality was that I'd be the one handing it in the day after it was given. I seem to have lost that trait somewhere over the years.

Despite knowing since last summer that Bertie needed a new leisure battery and it having become an increasingly pressing issue since then, it was the first week in August before I ordered it*. I had it wired in by lunchtime the following day, but found that despite the footprint being on paper within millimetres of the old battery, the tie-down points weren't compatible. It was thus last Wednesday (T-3) by the time I had it ready to travel.

Then there was the renewal of my photo driving licence. I finally applied for my new one on Wednesday, not learning until the end of the process that my old one legally ceased to be valid immediately and that I was obligated to return it. That's not compatible with a European trip, where I may be required to produce it on the spot, as I was on the Spanish/French border in March this year, and law-breaking was looking like the best option, until on Saturday&* my new licence arrived with with 16 hours to spare (T-0.75).

This was not the end of cutting things fine (and I'll gloss over the multi-tasking of gluing the water diverter back onto Bertie's bathroom door whilst cooking tea on Saturday evening (T-0.4) - a job that's needed doing for at least six months). The mobile phone issue took the biscuit. I'd ordered a new SIM mid-week, to give us more data to use than is available on our capped-roaming mobile phones, but it wasn't until Friday that it occurred to me that the old phone I'd intending using as a router is a 3G model, and the world has moved on quite a bit since then. Options were considered, stock levels nearly thwarted us, and a quick change of plan on the hoof saw us loitering for half an hour outside of a Tesco, on our way to Folkestone, waiting for it to open, so that we could buy their cheapest 4G smartphone (T+1hr. I swear I have never been so disorganised before in my life).

With the phone sorted (kinda; I didn't have it fully up and running until around 9.30pm), we pootled merrily down to the M25, where we crawled slowly along pondering where ALL the people were going, visited friends in Crawley, then went onwards to the Eurotunnel terminal.

Traffic a-go-go 

When I booked our Chunnel last month, I went for the 2230 crossing (because it was the least expensive of the options; this is not a cheap time of year to be travelling), knowing we would use our usual tactic of arriving early and likely being offered an earlier crossing. Last time we Chunnelled (what do you mean, that's not a verb?!), in June, the check-in window was 1-4 hours in advance, so we timed ourselves to arrive on the dot of 1830. It was only when we were a good way through the journey that I saw that the check-in window had reduced back to the old 1-2 hours. We decided to chance the earlier arrival; worst case - we would be sent away.

We weren't sent away, but only crossings within 2 hours of our booked one were being offered at no cost (to bring it forward to 1930 they wanted £93). It worked out well: we parked up, cooked and scoffed tea and had barely got the last mouthful down when our shuttle was called. So efficient was it getting through the two borders and customs, that we got into the queue for the crossing before ours, and were on a moving train at 2015.

It was, of course, dark by the time we arrived in France and our fingers were crossed that there would be space in the Aire at Bergues, a 45-minute drive away. Initial indications weren't good, when we passed a motorhome parked just outside the entrance, but those indications were misleading - there were at least two spaces remaining, plus a bit of room in the middle, had we been desperate.

After a busy few days (Saturday had involved volunteering at parkrun followed by a quick day-trip up to see Ma-in-Law in Halifax), we took a bit of winding down time before we crawled into bed after the clock had struck midnight, but still earlier than we would have even arrived in France, had we been on our booked crossing.

^{(*In my defence, I did a lot of research on batteries in January and I would have sorted it before we went to Spain if it hadn't been for the chosen model being out of stock. I redid the research in July and decided that rather than spending £1200 on a new lithium system, we would go down the route of least resistance, not need to replace all of Bertie's chargers, and only spend #200 on a replacement AGM, but with 50% more capacity.
**The photo driving licence renewal system is fully automated for those holding a valid passport. This can be ridiculous in some circumstances. When Mick had to renew his licence in 2020 his photo was duly taken from his passport. His passport was 2 weeks younger than his old driving licence, and used a photo taken at the same time as his driving licence one. The reason one has to have a new photo card every ten years is because appearances change, yet DVLA was happy to issue a new licence carrying the same photo as the old one.)}

Monday 22 August - Bergues

Where's Bertie? He's still at the Aire in Bergues.
Weather: Mainly sunny (cloud building this afternoon) and hot.

I formed our plan (using the term loosely) for this trip a few months ago. The main objective was to visit a few places in Germany where Mick lived and visited as a child. The sub-theme was another parkrun tour, taking in 8 different events.

The route of the trip was to be based on being in the numerically marked locations each Saturday. As with previous tours, mid-weeks would be spent anywhere that looks interesting/has somewhere good to park on a sensible route between those locations.

The spanner that was thrown into this plan is that Bertie is still leaking and needs to go and visit his dealer again (turns out he had more than one leak; the one in the wardrobe has gone but we still have water in the garage). The appointment they've given us is in week 5 of our trip, and will require us to drive back to Belgium. It probably doesn't make sense then to go back to Germany, but it's not a decision we'll make until we've attended that appointment and have a plan to get Bertie fixed.

That gives us only four weekends in Germany, so a revised 'plan' has been hatched.

The intention as we drove up to Bergues in the dark last night was that we would drive through France, Belgium and the Netherlands today, into Germany. Then, at bedtime, Mick put forward the idea of just staying put today and recovering from a busy week before hitting the road tomorrow. Hence, we're still here.

A looooong lie-in, a lazy breakfast, a visit to Lidl on foot for a small shop (1 - a height barrier prevents us taking Bertie; 2 - groceries are cheaper in Germany, so may as well wait until we get there to stock up properly), lunch, and a walk around the town and some of its walls has filled most of the day, plus a chat with one of our neighbours who came over to say hello.

The only other news is that we discovered on the way here last night that Bertie's fridge is currently only 2-way as the option to run it from his engine has died again. I poked around in its electronics this morning, and concluded a new circuit board is going to be required (it already had one replacement, under warranty in 2018). We'll probably take the easy route of turning the fridge off when driving and sorting it when we get home. I doubt we'll be doing any journeys long enough for food to spoil.

---------
Later: I usually write these blog posts just before teatime. It's seldom that anything of interest happens after that. Today was an exception. There we were just starting on the mountain of dish washing when the French chap in the motorhome opposite (who has been sitting outside all day barbecuing, eating, drinking or a mixture of all three), popped over to tell us that we have a very nice motorhome and to give Mick a half-bottle of wine. This surely is the motorhoming equivalent of Conrad getting unsolicited cups of tea when out walking?!

A completely random gift from a chap who didn't stop to chat, but it gets Mick's seal of approval.

We've been to Bergues a few times, but sometimes only as a quick night-stop. Today we walked into the main square of the town and I remembered none of it (my blog archive proves that I have been there before), until we came across this chap. The snap on the left was taken on 5 June 2017; on the right was taken today.

Notable buildings of which I have no recollection.

24-Hour Race Photos

I don't think it would be a misrepresentation to say that it's a common occurrence for people to smile and/or wave at the official photographer's camera during a race. What I like about my Thunder Run photos is that, whilst I couldn't help but notice the photographer well in advance of reaching him, at no point did I acknowledge his presence. What I thus have is a set of photos that show me exactly as I was at that point in the race (which, in most cases, turned out to be walking; my splits confirm that there was running involved, even though it's not captured here!). Here are the snaps, supplemented by a few taken by Mick:

1156 - Posing with Michelle (a stranger until 2 hours prior) in the start pen, positioned at the back of the field

1156 - Not posing, and burning off the nerves by gesticulating wildly

1200 - And they're off...

1220 - Lap 1 - Mick's attempt to catch me as I approached but instead got a good action snap of Solo Female 164 who, by coincidence, I met and ran with  many hours later (see the 1916 photo below) 

1435 - Lap 2 - On my least favourite part of the course, a little 'loop' between Campsite A and the finish area. Around 100m (maybe less) of track, but steep and the surface loose enough to slip backwards.
 

1540 - Lap 3 - Love this set! Most photos came in bursts of 4, but this set, taken during my second 'picnic' chat with Spencer, was made up of 7 (even though I've only included 4 of them). If you didn't know they were taken over the course of a couple of seconds, it looks like I'm chewing the ear off Spencer and he'd like me to shut up. 

1743 - Lap 4 at 9km marker - The least natural of all the official photographer shots, as I studiously avoid looking at the camera  

 

1916 - Lap 5 - With Claire at 8.5km. Pity it's once again me who's in mid-flow. I swear, these conversations were two way. I could tell you quite a bit about all of the people I chatted with!

 

0803 (a big jump forward in time as no photos were taken at night) - Nearing the end of Lap 11 - looking focused and feeling happier than I looked

 0931 - Two-thirds of the way through Lap 12 - Feeling good. Incidentally, I used the poles overnight to save me a fall if I tripped over a route or stump. I intended to ditch them again come daylight, but Mick convinced me to keep hold of them. Probably the right decision as they didn't hamper the running bits and were useful on the uphills.

1040 - twenty minutes through Lap 13 - my second favourite set - I wonder what it was I was looking at over there? Looking surprisingly good considering how horrific I felt at this point.  

 

1213 - In spite of the lack of a smile, very happy to have finished with 13 laps under my belt.