DAY 05: Brummen, Holland to Borken, Germany.
First lesson learned of the trip so far… don’t park under a tree! A restless night is of course to be had when twigs, leaves, and all sorts hit the roof and roll down the van towards where you’re sleeping. Fortunately no one sprinting outside our van tonight. Which still baffles us as to what that noise actually was.
(Click here if you don’t know what that noise was from yesterday)
This mornings agenda was to get over to Nijmegen. Seems as it got called off yesterday with the rain. We got up early, showered, had a light breakfast and got the bikes out ready for a 6.5 mile cycle into the city.
Nijmegen is the oldest city in The Netherlands and has some wonderful buildings. The cycle in was of course flat, we’re in holland remember! We made light work of the miles and then pottered around the city which seemed to still be sleeping at just after 10AM. Saint Stephen’s church was the obvious highlight of the architecture. With the building itself dating back to the thirteenth century. Basically, it’s really old.
Unfortunately the church was badly bombed during the second world war as it was one of the first Dutch cities to be taken over by the Germans. Nijmegen was eventually liberated by British soldiers (G’wan the lads). The castle has since been rebuilt and stands tall in the city centre.
After a morning cycle of around 15 miles we decided a double dutch pastry was in order so a quick pit stop on the way home had our bags full and our bellies fuller.
Doris isn’t feeling too well at the moment and when we got back from the mornings ride I wanted to see if I could address a few of her issues. She’s leaking water basically, we’re not sure how much but we’ve had some evidence each morning we’ve woken up. Fortunately no oil has been spilt and it does just seem to be a hose that needs tightening or something similar. Fortunately Germany is the home of the Hymer, so we’ll see if we can find a man who can tend to her old age.
The drive today was from The Netherlands and into Germany. That’ll be Doris’ 4th country under our guidance and nearly 750km of driving the old girl.
Some house chores were on the cards as the toilet was, umm, let’s just say a little full! We’d managed to find a service point for our waste but unfortunately the water was switched off which was annoying but hey ho, it can’t all be pretty!
We haven’t really decided what we want to do in Germany just yet. We’ve pencilled in somethings we’d like to see and visit, so we’ll just roughly plan a route and go from there. But our first stop was a little place called Borken. Was within our mileage for the day and meant we could spend our first night here in Germany.
On the agenda for the coming week whilst we’re here in Germany are:
Castles, national parks (Barvaria), bridges and some cycling around forests and woodlands.
Doris made it to her rest spot for the night and we left her whilst we went in search for food. I wanted that to sound primal, but in reality we used google and walked to the nearest Aldi. Everything is cheap here and if you’re not a pig you can eat well for under €5/per person per day. Stocked up and back at Doris we seemed to have gained company…
…5 motorhomes all with about 3 kids each and making one hell of a racket. We cursed, closed our blinds, cursed some more, made tea and wondered how we’d get through the night with these noisy bunch right next to us.
There is a god! About 45 minutes of none stop noise, the noise we’d been waiting for… engines starting! They packed up and left us, finally some peace.
For all of about 8 minutes. We could hear a loud drum in the background and couldn’t figure out what is was. Was there an early evening warehouse rave close by? A chav in his car listening to awful music? What could it have been?
Oh yeah, that’s right. A close to 100 man marching band coming right for us! Genuinely couldn’t believe what we were seeing or hearing. But it was cool! They walked through behind us, stopped to a halt, did some ceremony-esque thing and then walked right in front of Doris.
WELCOME TO GERMANY!
Tonight will be more of the same as usual, we’ll go out for a little walk. Then head back just before the sun sets for a cuppa tea and an episode of The Last Kingdom. Which by the way, I’m enjoying so far. It’s no vikings, but it’s enough of a viking fix for me!
Tonights camping location: Borken, Germany. (CamperContact: 760)