After our tramp down
Mount Jenner yesterday we both slept very soundly. Getting out of bed was a
struggle though, our calves and quads were very tight. We really have to do
something about our fitness.
A heavy mist hung over
the camping ground at first light. It looked like being another fine day.
Jane walked down to the
laundry with the remainder of our washing. She returned saying no-one else was
there but the machine had a load of dry washing in it. It appeared the German
habit of putting towels on the best loungers by the swimming pool extends to
washing machines.
With nothing set up
outside Mabel was ready for the road by 9:00. But first we wanted to visit
McDonalds to use the wi-fi hotspot. Jane hadn’t caught up with the world
yesterday and was anxious to fire up her iPad. She took off in Smarty while I
finished getting ready and walked down a few minutes later. When I got there
Jane wasn’t at all happy. McDonald’s coffee machine was kaput and their hot
spot worked on the basis of sending an access code to your mobile – Jane’s
mobile phone battery was flat! She headed back to Mabel in a huff while I tried
to log on to wi-fi – twice! I couldn’t get an access code. On my way back to
the camping ground I met Jane in Smarty. She had got some charge into her phone
and was heading back. I gave her the bad news about the access code. She got
into even more of a huff.
Before leaving, we needed
to pay, dump our grey waste and fill with water. There was no-one in the
camping ground’s office so we drove on to the motorhome service point. We were
still struggling with the concept of having to pay for fresh water and not at
all impressed when the machine failed to deliver not a single drop in exchange
for our €1.
I walked back to pay, my
mood wasn’t helped when I saw the bill included €25.40 for electricity and the
total of €193.40 equated to more than NZ$53 per day. That was one of our most
expensive camping grounds, but we did get a small piece of white chocolate as a
thank you. There was a British registered motorhome parked outside the office
with a car attached via a very heavy A-Frame. The owner told me he had made the
A-frame from a caravan draw bar and it was very heavy, also the brakes on the
car worked just twice off the vacuum reservoir, after that he had to pump the
motorhome brake pedal to apply the car’s brakes. Interestingly, they are
changing the law in the UK later in the year such that the only A-frames that
will be legal are the lightweight versions like ours with proper vacuum systems
mounted in the car.
The drive to Starnbergersee
was uneventful although we were surprised to find satnav took us north east back
into Austria to pick up the E10 motorway near Salzburg from where we headed
west and back into Germany.
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| Back Into Austria |
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| Then Germany Again |
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| Austrian Toll Charges (Looks as though we should have been paying toll charges for Mabel) |
We almost reached the ring road south of Munich before leaving the motorway and travelling cross-country to Starnbergersee and Camping Beim Fischer. A young woman with very good English that she attributed to ‘the German education system’ showed me around the camping ground. It was very pleasant with lots of grass and trees and very quiet. The downside was the only wi-fi was near the owner’s house and electricity was controlled by slot meters! About 3km before reaching
Camping Beim Fischer we had passed another camping ground on the shores of the
lake. We decided to backtrack and see what that had to offer. It turned out to
be not a lot, pitches were very cramped and there was no wi-fi. Worse, in order
to leave we had to unhitch Smarty so we could do a three point turn in Mabel.
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| Church At Anger We Passed En Route |
Back at Camping Beim
Fischer the young woman had left. It turned out she had been holding the fort
for her grandmother, the owner. Unlike her grand daughter she had no English
but we got by very well in German. She was lovely and couldn’t have been more
helpful.
We found ourselves a good
pitch, albeit a long way from the facilities. Once established we walked back
to the house and sat on a bench outside using the wi-fi. Inter-alia, I emailed
BNZ asking them to trace the deposit I had paid for our stay in Goa which still
hadn’t arrived there.
For our evening meal Jane
cooked a very tasty lamb with fruit on cous cous.
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| Today's Trip (186km) |
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