Tales From The Road

We arrived in Munich on the Sunday after a fairly uneventful drive. When we arrived it was packed - people everywhere, campervans everywhere, I really thought we weren't going to get a pitch. I qued up anyway in the enourmous que but it seemed to be that everyone was leaving - 'bonus' I thought. I asked if it was ok for us to camp and the girl behind the desk said yes and gave me a look of 'like of course it's ok to camp - why wouldnt it be?' we pitched up next to yet more Aussies who were also travelling through Europe in a VW. They came and chatted as soon as I put the Ben Harper on the stereo as they were mutal fans. We were going to have some beers with them but we were going into the festival & they were leaving the next day so unfortunately it didnt happen. We headed out into Munich at about three for the festival.

Munich...Oktoberfest....what can I say? its absoloutely crazy, i've never experienced anything quite like it in all my life. For those people who've been to the Pompey beer festival - imagine that - then multiply it by a thousand then you're close to how massive this thing really is. We went on the Sunday and it was absolutley rammed, I cant imagine what it would be like on a Friday or Saturday. The place has stalls everywhere selling every kind of souvenir you could ever want, stall selling all sorts of foods, stalls selling spirits and hundreds of fairground rides from walzters to rollercoasters. We grabbed a shot each, tequila for me, cherry schnapps for Chloe. We decided before we would kick off the proper boozong we'd go on the ferris wheel to get a decent view. The view at the top was amazing it really gave you a bit of perspective of how massive the place was. After that we headed into the first tent and I got a beer and Chloe got a wine. A wine that cost eight bloody Euros! After that it was beer for her! we went out for some food, Chloe got a pretzl and chips and I had two different types of wurst. We qued for a bit and went back into a tent. Thats when the fun began and the memory gets a bit hazy.

To be honest I didnt really expect to get that drunk going with chloe. I thought it would be a few drinks, get a bit merry then go home. When we got inside the atmosphere was amazing and the litre glasses started flowing and we were drinking with Aussies, Italians, Spanish and Germans! it was crazy and I got very very drunk. Apparently I was being a bit of twat on the way home but I can hardly remember anything.....all I can remember is throwing up several times in the night and feeling very very rough the next day.....

We left Munich the following day after a very sobering visit to Dachau. The first Nazi Concentration camp. The whloe day was very interesting and utterly moving. The place would be like a ghost town if it weren't for all the tourists. You can still imagine and picture the horror of what went on there when you stand in the cells or in the crematorium where they burned all the bodies. I wont linger on that for to long but it was definitely a highlight for me so far.

After that we drove to Passau on the Austrian border for a nights stopover before heading into the Czech Republic. The next morning we headed off early for the next country on our tour!

Right then! thats us almost up to speed. Hopefully i'll get some Czech entries up soon. Maybe when we get to Prague.

By Matt

We left Holland on Thursday 22nd Sept & headed into Germany. We drove through the border without really noticing, there was no border control at all. The only difference was in the signs on the motorway. We started to notice that we were in Germany when we headed towards the Rhine Valley - the scenery was amazing. Masses of mountains and green trees. The river itself wasn't that great and was very dirty & busy with boats going down it all day. We stayed at a campsite up in the vineyards which surrounded the river. It was nice & quiet.

After a rest we took a walk down to the local town of Lorch, which turned out to be further than it had seemed. It was 8km up and down hills in the hot sun (It was still like summer in the Rhine Valley) and when we got to the town everything was shut for lunch between 1 and 3.30! not that there was that mcuh to see anyway. We left this campsite after 2 or 3 days and spent one night under a bridge by the side of the road which was very noisy. We stopped in a very touristy village called St Goar which had some castle ruins.

Next we moved on the Freiburg which Matthew told me was in the Black Forest. It turns out it was on the edge so we didn't get to see much of it whilst on that campsite. We got the bus to the town and it was ok. It had a nice church and lots of lovely shops but you get bored of looking round shops with no money quite quickly. After we left this site we saw more of the Black Forest whilst we started driving towards Schwangau.

We got to see more scenery than we expected though as one of our tyres had a blowout on the way. This turned into more of a problem that it should have been though as when we tried to put the spare on we discovered that the nuts for our normal wheels (which are mercedes alloys) did not fit the spare volkswagon wheel so we could not fix it on! We called our insurance company and they arranged rescue & said it would be approx an hour. After about 2 hours we called to check the progress & were told that they couldn't find us but they hadn't called to tell us this! I had a difficult conference call with the lady from CIS & a german lady who said they had been down the road we were on & couldn't see Scooby. I am not sure how as it isn't exactly hard to miss a camper with orange flowers down the side blocking one lane of a dual carriage way!

After several more conversations with the German office on the ADAC (RAC equivelant) the man arrived. He didn't speak a word of English & tried to put the tyre on before he realised the problem. He called his English speaking colleague who proceeded to argue with Matthew about whether or not I had said we were missing the nuts or not! The man went to get the nuts in the end & we were on our way after about 4 and a half hours & just before it got dark.

We didn't have time to get to our intended campsite so we stayed in one in Markdorf near Lake Constance. We had to stop there for 2 nights whilst waiting for a replacement tyre. The incident cost us about 60 pounds for a new tyre & 25 pounds on phone calls! We moved on to the next campsite in Schwangau near Fussen & the scenery there was amazing. We stayed at this campsite for a couple of nights. We went to Schloss Neuschwanstein which is the castle that Walt Disney based the Disneyland castle on apparantly!

We then walked from the castle to the top of the Tegelberg which is part of the Bavarian Alps & is 1700 metres high.

We got the cable car back down & then had to walk back to the campsite as there was no bus! We also went to an evening of traditional German music & comedy at the campsite but we couldn't understand a word of what was being said! We would have liked to have stayed in this area a lot longer as it was the nicest place so far but we had to move on to get to Munich before Oktoberfest ended!

By Chloe