Germany

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The day of picking up our van is here! We were so excited that we woke up and was packed ready to go before 6am, so we went back to bed for a few hours, because we weren't expected till 10. we trammed and then train it to the major airport of Amsterdam and then rang the fella to come pick us up. We got to encounter our first driving experience on the right side of the road and then it dawns on us that we will be doing a lot of this in a few minutes..... We arrive at this auto hotel which is for long term vehicle stays for the airport and are greeted by a chubby bloke who looks like a used car salesman and are told that our van has a flat tyre and is just getting the tyre changed. 15 minutes later we are introduced to our new vehicle/home. It is a purplish old school Toyota van which has two owls on the side. We have named her The Hoot.  We checked the van over and was told that it's ok to do costemic damage but no dings. 

We left the salesman and attempted to use our iPad as the gps system. This was an unhappy experience with driving in a huge circle for 20 minutes and ending up where we began (we are talented). Our first stop which we wanted to do was head down south towards the delta works with hoping to find a store to buy some pillows and food for The Hoot. After an our of using google maps instead of the gps we found an awesome little supermarket and a place to have lunch.after lunch we attempted to start hoot and she had a flat battery. 

Luke got annoyed and Lee thought it was a great laugh. We decided to get wicked campers number and find a pay phone. Hot tip in the Netherlands, there are barely any public pay phones. 

We walked a km and found a larger shopping center than the one which we had stopped at and found pillows (yay) and a pub which said ok to ring the uk. Wicked campers were great. Told us to ring road side assistance or go buy a new battery and they will reimburse us when we hand hoot back. 

The publican shows the directions to a garage and soon enough we are back on the road with help from our friendly little mechanic a new battery and 122€ later.

We have decided to use mainly scenic roads so we avoided the freeway and headed to all these little towns. We stopped for the evening in this town which has a huge nature reserve and beach right beside it. When we arrived their was a Height limitation thing to stop vehicles over 1.8m tall from entering but we found out soon enough that we are 1.79! big score. Once we started preparing dinner we realized it's the common thing to come to this nature reserve and go for an evening run with roughly 100 people throughout the evening come and go for their evening jog. Bit crazy how fitness fanatic these people are but good on them. We got to people watch. 

The following day we made it to the delta works which are huge. It's amazing how they have managed to manipulate the coast line and gain more land. They have installed dykes separating the sea from the land creating dams. The dams have slowly become completely fresh water. They also have guards against flooding. We couldn't stay long, so we continued traveling west, hoping to get as close to the Germany boarder as possible. 

At 9.00 we decided to start looking for some where to park the van for the night. This is the hardest part of the job. You don't want to get into trouble and moved on, but you don't want to be constantly paying camping fees either. We were both bothered, and tired, so after an hour of searching for a park, we decided to find a caravan place. After an other half hour of searching we finally stumbled across a car van park. Luckily they had room and the owner was estatic about having some Australians stay at his caravan place. We were excited about being able to have a shower. Although, we were by far at least 50 years younger than all the other guests.

The next day we were off, crossing the boarder (which we didn't quite realize that we had done) and into germany. We found a little town for lunch, and decided to ring to jäger factory to organize our tour. After several attempts we succeeded at finding out that the only available tour was the following day. So we jumped back in the car and started to leg it towards wolfenbuttel.  we ended up staying in a little country town about 90km off our target. 

It was our first night in Germany, so we wanted to do some of the stereotypical things, so we parked up and went to find a pub, after bratwurts and steins. we went through a cute little beer garden thinking that we were sorted and entered a pub. After walking through several large dinning rooms which were empty we eventually located the bar. Luke went directly up and asked for 2 steins of beer. To lukes great disappointment, he received two wine glasses of beer, half of which was head. We sat along the bar, in an empty pub drinking bad beer. When we were finished we decided to try another pub. We walked quite a way and found one. This time we decided to just ask for a beer, and we got the same served to us, and unfortunaley they did not serve food. We were slightly disappointed with our stereotypical German night, so we ended up at the local Chinese restraint drinking water and eating sweet and sour pork.

The next day we got up early, very excited about our tour, and jumped In The van. Over here it takes us forever to drive anywhere. We don't like pushing the hoot over 90kms and whenever you think you are on a good run, you either hit traffic, a town or we get lost. We managed to drive the last 90km in 2.5 hours, arriving just in time for the tour. 

The jäger tour was fantastic. It was just the two of us, and went for two hours. It is amazing how someone managed to mix 56 herbs and spices together to create jäger. Once the tour ended, they gave little jäger bottles to take home with us. Luke thinks it the second best tour which we have been on all holiday. On top of thatbit was completely free. We truely recommend doing it if you find yourself in wolfenbuttel in the future.

We were going to stay in wolfenbuttel for the night, but after having a look around the town we decided to travel further south towards the hars mountains and a town called glosar. that night we got our first move on notice from a night watchmen, how effectively asked us to park 10 bays further down the car park.

The following day we headed on towards Berlin. By this tome we thought that we were getting really smart with our gps system, and typed car van parks in, and it directed us to one 4km out of the centre of Berlin. We were estatic at our luck and followed the gsp instructions through peak hour into the heart of Berlin. We ended up driving through a town park, where cars are not allowed. By this time a few alarms bells were ringing in our heads so we decided to ask some one, who informed us that it is a mix up with gsp and there is no camp site there and never has been and that cars are not allowed in the park. Feeling a little sheepish we started to do a very slow u turn, when we saw the cops coming towards us. The u turn got a lot faster and legged it out of there. But we were still stuck in the. Idle of Berlin, with no place to sleep. The next time we did our research and rang the location prior to driving. We ended up staying in a caravan park about a 20minute train ride from Berlin.

Berlin was amazing, but very touristy. We managed to arrive on a long weekend. Therefore people where ever where. We went on a walking tour of the city, and then our plan was to go to the holoucast museum. However, we managed to get lost, and it started raining. By the time we arrived, we were dripping wet. We still went in, but only stayed for about an hour. 
As it turns out, nothing is open in Germany on a sunday nor public holidays. So the following day we went to a flea market. In the afternoon the nearby hill turned into mass karaoke. There would of been over a thousand people attending, a dj sits in the middle and organizes it. It creates the best atmosphere. It heaps that public drinking is aloud (or at least tolerated by the cops).
We also bought a bike for Luke. It is the newest addition to our van home. It is blue, sporty and comes complete with a flat tire. We tired to find a bike for me too, but no luck. 

Because nothing was open on the Monday we decided to move onto Potsdam. It is a town about 30km outside of Berlin and has a massive garden containing palaces, fountains, waterfall, a Chinese tea house and other hidden gems. While driving through the town the hoot almost had a collision with a pyscho-list, it had nothing to do with Luke how happened to be driving at the time. All was good, the hoot decided to stop just in time, and everyone was safe. 

We've got to go.
We will write more soon

Ed, what are the details of where you used to live? Luke and i are planning on going to Munich in the next week or so. If you let us know, we will call in for you.

We love hearing from every one, keep them coming.
Hugs and kisses 

Luke and lee

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