The Mega in Hessen, Germany (geocaching event) - 1

Friday, 17 July 2015

As I have stayed the night in Houten I have to leave early to be back in Vreeland in time to help pack the camper and leave at at least mid-morning for our trip to Hessen in Germany.

Although we have taken the camper for a drive and looked it over so we knew what we needed to do, when it comes to the nitty gritty you still have surprises.  We needed to fill the water tank and couldn't find the connectors anywhere.  After I discovered one in the shed Dianne came up with the goods.  The were in the cabin where we'd never thought to search for them.  A box in the back, which contained diverse items would have made more sense to us.  Ah well, have to make up for lost time!

We couldn't get the tank out for the grey water, so decided that we would solve that problem when the time came.  Coolant and oil needed to be checked, but how to open the bonnet?  Didn't I see a manual somewhere? Okay, that solved the problem.  Never seen a bonnet that needed to be opened with a key, but there is a first for everything. :-)

Finally we could leave after our pre-departure checklist was taken care of and on the road we went...

We were still early, but as it was, not early enough.  We ran into a traffic jam way before Koln (Cologne) and since a road sign told us that there was some sort of obstruction near Leverkussen we decided to leave the highway and find a detour.  No luck there.  When we finally were back on the highway, way down south of Koln and way past Leverkussen, the traffic was still not going anywhere in a hurry.  It appeared later that this is very normal in Europe during the school holidays.  Everyone travels down south to Switzerland, Italy, Spain, etc.  After a stop for coffee, and later for dinner as well, we arrived at the campground at 9 pm.  This was 2 1/2 hours after the meet had started, but we were welcomed by kind people and were told to find a campsite that suited us, after which we could return to pay our dues.

The camper, decorated with Australian flags (confusing the Germans, because of our Dutch registration number)

View of the campsite

We mingled a bit with the locals and later even got to meet the organiser of the event.  We had corresponded via email as I had problems registering for the event.  Australia didn't appear on the form and there was no way around it to get ourselves registered.  He had not thought of including Australia on the list as he'd never expected people to come from so far.  That's why he asked after us and we even got a picture with him.

FLTR: ..., Patricia, Marion, Christian, Dianne

As we (and I, the driver, in particular) were pretty tired after the long trip in heavy traffic we had an early night.  Dianne put up her tent, since the camper slept only two, and after a heavy rain storm, during which we had to retract the awning in a hurry, we finally went to sleep.