Day 04: Sittensen, Germany.
Remember me saying that we were coming back out into Europe to do what we do best, and that was napping until noon? Well today we nearly put that into practice.
A mixture of heavy rain battering down on the top of Doris and the inconsiderate Italian dicks next door that were awake and VERY loud till 1AM in the morning. That meant we didn’t really get much sleep, so without an alarm we were up and at ’em around 11AM.
Something magical happened this morning. Nope, not that fact I was out of bed before Nat for once. Not that Doris woke up 20 years younger. Nope. Even more magical…
… Nat emptied our toilet! I took photographic evidence just to capture the moment.
With the forecast for most of the day looking doom and gloom, I fancied driving through most of it. We’re about 5 hours from Denmark with us only being a couple of hours away from the German border.
Doris feeling good, and fortunately she’s comfy enough to sit in, we set our sights on Northern Germany and a good 200+ mile drive before pitching for the night.
A relatively uneventful drive through The Netherlands and across the Germany border. A small traffic jam and a McDonalds later and we were just beneath Hamburg and well on our way to the Danish border.
The only problem was that the sat nav was showing over an hour of traffic en route so we took an unexpected detour and headed to the closest campsite to stop for the night and tackle the last bit of Germany tomorrow morning.
Here’s where the interrogation began…
We were driving through the charming village of Sittensen, when we spotted a small build up of traffic. Thinking nothing of it we carried on and came to a set of lights. In front of us was a police man with a ‘Kontrolle’ sign and post. Odd, I thought, and carried on.
Just as we got close to him, low and behold he flagged us down and told us to follow the lights and pull in where he’d pointed too.
Having no idea what was about to happen, I pulled in and was greeted by a tall German police man wielding a gun.
Thankfully he spoke English and thankfully he only wanted my driving license, so I thought…
As I stepped out the vehicle he rugby tackled me to the ground…
…he didn’t.
But he asked if I was heading to Hurricane.
(It turns out Hurricane is a big music festival that’s on this weekend around where we’re staying).
Obviously I had absolutely no idea what hurricane was and responded with a good old British, “No.”
He then proceeded to interrogate me and Nat for drugs. Asking us questions about weed, cocaine, pills and all manner of stuff. Peering inside Doris and having a little look he kept asking questions.
When answered truthfully he ALWAYS replied:
“Really? You don’t do drugs?”
“You don’t have drugs on you?”
“If I did a test right now, you’d not show signs of drugs?”
I kept my cool, mainly because he was about 6 inches taller than me, and the obvious of him being a German Police officer. But I answered truthfully and was willing to take any test and/or let him search Doris for us to be on our way.
Thankfully he believed my words, was satisfied I wasn’t smuggling drugs into this Hurricane festival and that if I swore on the football player Gareth Bale, he’d let us go.
A very odd encounter, but I guess it could have been much worse.
The Town of Sittensen
Even though we’d been here 3 minutes and we were close to being cavity search for drugs, this place is rather nice. With an active high street, lots of shops, supermarkets and some beautiful buildings.
We’re parked right night to an old water mill, with a beautiful flowing river and some incredibly cute old buildings scattered around the park which is close by.
After a small walk into town for some supplies. Nat made tea and we sat outside by the river, eating and drinking cider. Oh the life.
Tomorrow we’re planning on getting up relatively early to get through the last bit of Germany and take Doris to her SIXTH country! From Denmark we’re heading into Sweden and up North. I’m excited because if you haven’t read the About page, you’ll not know but I love Vikings!
Tonights camping location: Sittensen, Germany. (CamperContact: Click Here)