Week 1 UK to Hungary

JOURNEY TO TURKEY

Back as far as 2007 when I first rented my house out in order for me to travel to pastures new, I had wanted to go to Greece to visit my cousin who lived on the island of Andros. I then owned a car and caravan, planned the journey through Italy, found that I was financially compromised for a while, delayed departure, until thoughts entered my head again in 2010. I'd looked at many sites on the internet by travellers writing about their experiences, MagBaz Travels, Wildcamping UK and Europe, and The Motorhome Diaries I knew there were lone travellers out there, but only knew of one other female adventurer. The positive comments about Eastern European countries being safe and how lovely and helpful the people had been really made me want to go this time. So with many deep breaths, and starting out from England at the end of December 2010, down through France into Spain with a couple of friends I started the adventure, only to be stopped mid-stream by my tenant wanting to vacate by end of March, 2011. Back home, new tenant, another few deep breaths, rerouted, through France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece – back home! 11,000 miles later. (Including the ferry journeys!)

Monday 2nd May 2011 Left Sandy Bedfordshire, saying goodbye to my family. Although late I decided to drive down to Sittingbourne where I had arranged to pick up some light Calor gas bottles from the Depot. Found a suitable lay by for an overnight stop. Sandy, Beds Mileage 30381.

Tuesday, 3rd May 2011 Slept until 0630; leisurely had breakfast; looked at the rush hour traffic fortunately heading in the opposite direction towards the M2 and started off just after 0900. Managing to get the CCC discount, paid and stowed the bottles away in the back of the van and headed off towards Dover. 30549 miles

As I came down the hill towards the Docks, the sea looked somewhat rough. Having boarded I quickly found a leather sofa, and promptly napped for a while. Looking up there was the French coastline and in another 20 minutes we had docked and I was on my way to Carrefour for some yellow indicator lights, nearly £5 a set in UK, but only 2.45€ here. Towards 3 pm although it was getting late I decided to hit the road to see how far I got. The first destination was about 200 km away and I didn't know what the traffic would be like. Time was passing and I didn't feel tired, about 4 hours driving, and then TT directing me to turn off for the last 10 kms to Eupen (N50.62180 E6.09148 Reisemobil) where I planned to stop for the night. It was a reservoir and there in front of me were about 5 NL vans, their passengers having a picnic dinner until dusk. Intrepid Motorhomers these Dutch, find them everywhere. (Calais 30549; Eupen 30766) Just 187 miles for the day, but enough. A good first day.

Eupen

Wednesday 4th May 2011  Was woken at 0645 to the sound of garden maintenance machines! Right behind the van. Thought I might have to move, checked the van and I wasn't overlapping the grass, but the grass cutter came perilously close! Within 15 minutes they'd trimmed the grass, blown the cut grass off the pavements and gone. Then along came a large crane lorry, what are they going to do now? There were some loose bricks on the pavement, covering a large steel contraption; it was this that the crane started to attack. Also minutes later it was out, bricks shoved unceremoniously back in the pile and barrier replaced. All before 0730! Breakfast over, spurred on by the industrious Belgians I decided to do something about my nearside mirror, already walloped twice, but still intact, wide Cello-tape to the rescue. No I'm not buying a replacement at €340 for someone else to damage. The wind kept pushing it towards the van yesterday, making it rather dangerous when overtaking. Solved that problem and cleaned the windscreen for the next part of the journey. Just by chance I moved my CD player which was on the floor behind the passenger seat. A mark on the floor made me upend the player. Oh dear, the batteries had leaked. Extra operation to clean player and discard old batteries, yuk!

On to a very large motorhome stopover. Hymerring (N49.77368 E9.58034 Reisemobil) near Weitheim (Spellplatz). Over into Germany before I knew it, did these Germans drive fast! The lorries were in abundance too! German mainly, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian and Austrian. Have only seen about 4 UK vehicles so far, not a lot! Diesel at the Shell garage gosh 149.4€ put in €70 worth and vowed not to do it again on an autobahn! Didn't see too much of countryside as these roads were quite old and the surrounding forests very mature, when it started to get hilly then you saw a bit more scenery and castles. The one outstanding building still being completed was a KPMG building which looked like a large bulbous high speed train. It was huge, had large struts every 25 mtrs extending down to the ground with an escape staircase inside. Couldn't take a photo, traffic going too fast to stop! Must look it up on www later. Kept driving, didn't stop for lunch because I was nearly there. This Spellplatz is huge supplied by the large motorhome dealer network, Eurocamp.  

Hymerring   

Had lunch, had sleep, woke to find myself surrounded by vans and caravans, no time to look inside the shop tonight, decided to type instead. Mileage 30995 Total 229 miles. About right mileage and time. There is electric here if you want it, 1€ for 4 hours; services at the far end. A few people have been here a while. All the satellite dishes up, mainly the diamond shaped ones.

Thursday 5th May 2011 Woke up to a bright start, some people had left early. Drove along the motorway and needed diesel, TT said I could get it cheaper just 8km away, so trusted it and yes, 1€459, cheaper than the others! Eventually got going, started out one way and then turned past Munich to a place called Altotting/Altoetting (N48.22953 E12.67449 Reisemobil) where you can stay for free for three days. Perfect place for a few days. Having had enough of motorway driving for a while and thought it would be good for a rest.

Friday 6th May 2011/Saturday 7th May 2011 Visited the various churches and watched many young people coming in with sore feet, sun burnt bodies having walked from various places on a pilgrimage to Altotting. The First Aid tents did a roaring trade. Didn't know where they all came from, but the square was full to the brim, many picked up their bags from the baggage pile, see picture. Also lots of bikers, many my age, that is, over 60 years of age, didn't think religion and motorbikes went together, obviously they do. There was a open air service Saturday evening, I was waiting for the candle lit procession, but I got too cold to watch.

Sunday 8th May 2011 Saw sunshine again and a few early coaches, but nothing like yesterday. I tried to empty my grey water, but the road surface didn't slope towards the drain!!! Oops! I couldn't even wash it away, a waterless tap! Not good. Had a good night so decided to take the non-motorway route straight across Austria to Orth/Donau. (Orth on the Danube) (Camperstop N48.14523 E16.70383) Had a few minor glitches when the sun messed up my navigation with TT, but the road, although single lanes was a good surface and scenery flat with some lowland hills, until I reached the banks of the Danube. This was marvellous, a wide expanse of river, not many parking spaces until you reached a town; you were constantly going from 50 kph to 70 kph and back again. It was quite a winding road, not much space to overtake, except for motorbikes. If you like to ride your bicycle there was a cycle path from where I hit the river for a good 100+ kms. Haven't looked to see if there were any nearby aires or camp sites because I was making for Orth/Donau. Eventually I had to stop for lunch, found an open spot next to the river and the sun came out after a few spatters of rain a while back. A bridge came in sight and I crossed that, the signs now signalling Wien (Vienna). I had been here before in '78, beautiful city, majestic, cultured and very clean. On approaching the city the skyline had changed, no sky scrappers before, but that's all you could see now. Slight navigation problem at one point, but picked up again and only had about 50 kms to go. Saw one police car in a small village, but nothing else along the road. Fortunately no accidents today, it was lovely that there were no lorries on the road starting off on B12, B3 most of the way, B14 and others to destination. Managed to find Diesel at €1.309, cheap, so pounced. Will fill up again tomorrow before going into Hungary, could be cheaper, but If I don't like the atmosphere, I can shoot straight through with a full tank. So finally, at about 1700, arrived at Orth/Donau which was actually a car park at the end of the town; journey took a bit longer than expected and would only stay one night. Must try to cut down mileage a bit, too long to drive. So today I drove 235.3 miles, 31483. €50 ltrs Diesel at 31348 drove 6 hrs 48 mins too long!

Monday, 9th May 2011 Good night, decided to go to Deutsch Jahrndorf (Camperstop N48.00777 E17.11073) looked a good place for relaxation, and put my feet up for a while. Got there quite early and was intrigued by the man who came round with his envelope for me to make a voluntary donation, which I did €6 I thought that was about right. It was a lovely day, cuckoos doing their thing quite close in fact, but couldn't see them. Several ladies came along and did the gardening. It seemed that this was a co-operative affair to keep the spellplatz tidy and looking good for visitors, and it certainly did. Had a good night but got woken up fairly early by the inhabitants of a house opposite when they both left, in separate cars, for work at 0530. I think I did go back to sleep for a while. Just 33 miles today.