2018-10-15 Day 34 Mon

A group of 5 women walked by along one of the many well used and sign posted tracks for walking in these countries.

Arrived at the border, our good yellow road was blocked so we were forced to run parallel with it through the farms and past farm houses we were still on a sealed road even if only just wide enough for us!

The border went past unnoticed no signs at all! Into Czech Republic and a new country for us. We again traveled off the high ways and stuck to orange yellow or white. We have not encountered a gravel road yet.

We traveled north-east following just south of the German border. We stopped for a short while but could not do much with the edge connection.

Lots of different buildings belonging to an era past, but most are well cared for with lots of flowers, generally geraniums, hanging out the windows and well tended gardens. For the last 4 days we have been traveling through lots of forested areas, some fir, oak, elm and birch. The autumn colors are fantastic.

The roads are narrow windy sealed and covered in yellow leaves….

Drove up another little track and found a cleared area for a camp. There was a bull?? up the hill that kept grumbling at us. A nice quiet night (except for the grumbling).

264km

2018-10-14 Day 33 Sun

Nothing is open on Sundays! Another day wending our way across the German country side. Filled with fuel and washed the car to get the storage grime off of her. The auxiliary tank is leaking slightly at the filler so need to go under and try to tighten it…….

The autumn colors are fantastic and the further we travel East the brighter they get. We left early as we had no internet and found a lake to stop by. There were a few people wondering and cycling around but as the afternoon progressed more and more people were out enjoying the wonderful autumn weather. We applied the New South American map to the right side of the vehicle. This took about one hour as 3 groups of people stopped by for a chat!! We then pulled the Australian tourist map off the back Port locker and transferred it to the starboard hand locker.

In hind site we should of put it on the house door……. Now we just have to remove the old south American map and put the large Europe / Middle East / Asia map on. But we need a warm still day.

We drove away from the lake about 3pm and finally found a camp up in the forest right beside the Czech border near a Czech fish farm just on dusk about 19:30hrs

208km

2018-10-13 Day 32 Sat

Happy Birthday to me! 54 today.

I drove for a while until John found a castle and coffee shop on the shores of the Rhine river. The castle was first built in 13th century and was enlarged and fortified as the years passed until finally in 18th century it was given to the French without a fight. The French then blew it up! So after all it’s sieges and fights throughout 500 years it was just blown up. I felt a little sad at that!

Anyway we had a walk around then lunch in the restaurant overlooking the Rhine river. Quite a busy river lots of barges and tourist boats passing bye.

We continued easterly with John driving. There are no roads heading east so we have to zigzag our way in that general direction. We as usual are staying off the highways.

The front right wheel is very unbalanced at 80-85kph so trying to stay around 75kph. The going is slow as about every 2 to 7km there is another small village to navigate narrow streets of. But we are getting to see more of the country than we would on the highway. We did notice today an absence of coffee shops, maybe because it is Saturday or maybe because this is the first day we looked for one!! Or because we are in Germany.

274km

2018-10-12 Day 31 Fri

We were not moved on during the night which was great. We caught up on a bit of paperwork and decided on a walk.

John did some research and we drove for ten minutes and stopped. A 7km walk turned into 10km’s but with very varied surface and circumstances. Sometimes little paths among the acorn trees, on roads, on paths between two fields, or wider paths following river beds. A lovely walk but just a few km’s too long.

When reaching the car we had a sandwich then drove back into Echternach to buy diesel as it is the cheapest country in the EU

Across the river and into Germany. We decided on back roads rather than the highway and although slower are much more interesting.

We drove down a steep road into a town with a very narrow street, only 2m wide at the bottom. We noticed a vineyard where each vine was by itself growing vertically up a stick, not on a trellis per se, this then expanded out along all hills facing south over the river. John asked if the river was called Mosel - and yes it was so this is the German region for growing sweet Riesling. The hills were steep and un-terraced with small railway tracks going up with little trolleys and trailers to carry the grapes down the hill.

We also noticed motor-homes by the hundreds all lined up in their campgrounds with their TV dishes deployed.


As we crept through one of the small towns we saw tours in progress so I guess visitors are here having tours while picking and vintage are in progress.

On up out of the river valley to a camp down a logging track. Not exactly like an Australian logging track but some logs were piled at the entrance and the track seemed to improve as we went in so maybe a house here as well. Turned off onto a grass track and hid in the trees. Tonight we can not be spotted from the main road and probably not from the logging track either. No internet tonight

118km