5 countries, 5 nights – and disaster strikes!

We are in currently in Austria, in the ski resort of Altenmarkt im Pongau (N47.37043 E13.42903).  It's our first paying Aire, €12 a night plus €3 if you want electric.  It has all the facilities, including a toilet block and washing/drying facilities.  Plus a heated ski and boot rack.  Weather in Austria – raining and cold, 14°C with snow forecast on the tops tonight brrrr!  We might be using that heated boot rack!  It's a lovely setting though, surrounded by the mountains, although as you can see from the photo below the rain clouds today are very low. We had planned to stop off in Saltzburg, a place we last visited in 1987 and have fond memories but it was rain, rain and more rain as we approached so we just kept going.

Sonny, nestled below the mountains

It's our 5^th day and 5^th country - France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and now Austria!  So far, we have travelled a distance of 1,106 miles (1769.6 Kms) and averaged a whopping 32 mpg.  It’s surprising how economical Sonny, the motorhome is when we travel long distances, and tootle along between 90/95 kms p/hour.  We have had a couple of disasters though, but I will get to that later!  We are skipping our way through most of Europe and using motorways, something we would not normally do but we have planned to be in Sunny Beach, Bulgaria by 8 September and Greece by 28/29 September to meet up with friends on both occasions.

We left the UK on Tuesday 21 August 2018 and took the Ferry to France.  We had booked on the DFDS ferry Dover to Dunkirk, or so we thought!  We knew this crossing was a bit longer (2 hours) but we would be closer to crossing into Belgium, our chosen route out of France.  It wasn’t until the ferry announcement of ‘Welcome to the Port of Calais’ that we realised we had booked on the wrong ferry!  The trouble with the DFDS website is that when you search ferries Dover to Dunkirk it brings in all the crossings they do on your chosen day (Dunkirk and Calais) and we had just clicked on the time we wanted without noticing it was to Calais and not Dunkirk!!  It didn’t matter too much though, as it's only a driving distance of about 30 kms between the 2 ports. 

As we had been up since 6am, we were feeling tired when we got off the boat, which was now 10am French time - so it was a quick fill up with fuel, some fresh bread bought and a short journey into Belgium.  We found a quiet, free Aire at Bellem, by the side of a canal (N51.09883 E3.49463), a few kms off the A10, between Bruges and Gent. There are no facilities here, it’s just a stopover place for motorhomes.  We parked up alongside 4 other Belgium motorhomes and were later joined by a German one.  This area is very popular with cyclists, but we were content to just sit and watch the boats go up and down the canal.

Aire at Bellem, with the barges going up and down the canal.

The roads around this part of Belgium are very narrow, road markings non-existent and plenty of corn growing in the fields.  We lived in Belgium for 2 years 1986-1988 and remember how bad the roads were having to dodge the potholes, but they have improved a lot, although the bumpy motorways are still a bit like a fairground ride in places!

Day 2, leaving Bellem we did a long motorway drive through Belgium (around Gent and Brussels), into Holland (at Maastricht), across into Germany (at Aachen) on the A4/A3 to another free Aire at Villmar, on the River Lahn, a couple of kms from the A3 not far from Frankfurt (N50.39077 E8.18532). We had travelled a distance of 264.4 miles, averaging 33.3 mpg - good old Sonny!  It was only a short walk from the Aire into the little town, where we enjoyed a meal at a German/Greek restaurant, but we played safe with Pilsner and Jaeger schnitzels, frites and salad.  Well, when in Germany….!

The old gate into the town, Mel looks like he's about to fall over and this is before he has had a drink!

Day 3 was another long stretch (177kms) to Cadolzburg, just outside Nürnburg.

The traffic on the German roads and motorways are so busy – worse than the UK.  Lorries and trucks seem to take up all of lane one of the motorway.  For a lot of the time they aren’t allowed to overtake, so must stay in this lane.  Meaning that cars tend to stay in lane 2 and 3 most of the time as there isn’t a gap to pull in on lane 1 due to the number of lorries. And, in Germany cars can go as fast as they like!

Temperatures were reaching a scorching 33°C when we pulled up to the Aire (N49.46111 E10.85196).  A free Aire with all the facilities, and €1 for water.  We were joined for the night by 6 Spanish motorhomes and 3 Germans.

Up by the castle

The castle was destroyed by fire in 1945 and such was the lengthy task of restoring, relying on a lot of donations, it that is was only finished last year.

Giant Maypole in the centre of town

Old tower, which Mel climbed to the top for the view.  My vertigo got the better of me so gave it a miss!

View from the top of the tower

Day 4 - leaving Cadolzburg we got back on the motorway and headed towards Munich, not really knowing how far we would travel or where we would stop for the night. The only trouble was the stupid Satnav took us through the centre of Munich, which wouldn’t have been a problem for Mel if he had been driving but unfortunately I was in the driving seat.  The traffic was manic as we worked our way through the large city and although, my blood pressure rose a bit I managed to stay calm until we got back on the motorway again, phew! And it wasn't long before the Austrian Alps come into view.

We stopped off on another free Aire at Neubeuern (N47.77573 E12.14298).  There are no facilities here but it is popular stop for motorhomes, before crossing the border.

The little Bavarian town of Neubeuern, with the castle on the hill.

So, disaster strikes! Last night we had a bit of a meltdown, the rain started to come down heavily and Sonny started to take on water – our first major disaster! For those who follow my blog know that we had an accident in our motorhome last September in Croatia in September, causing quite a bit of damage to the awning at the rear.  We are still waiting on parts to come from Adria – that’s another story!  So, it would appear that where the awning is damaged next to our shower room, water is managing to seep in.  Mel did what he could to stop it but we are going to have to try and get some sealant in the hope that it won’t get worse until we get back to the UK in January and have repairs done.

Day 5 - Leaving Germany heading for Austria this morning disaster number 2 struck!  Our oil warning light came on indicating that we needed an oil change.  We last had one in December and Mel had checked all the oil and filled up before we left so we were a bit baffled.  We stopped at the next service station and checked the oil which seemed fine. Mel went in to buy some oil just in case but walked straight back out again when he saw the price was €40 for one litre – wow, Austria you are one expensive country!  Hopefully, we will find somewhere in Slovenia (our next country) to get it done and for a lot less!

Before crossing the border in Austria we bought a vignette - €9 for 10 days, you have to have one of these to travel on the motorways in Austria.  It’s a hefty fine if you use the motorways and don’t have one, so it’s not worth taking the risk.  We also bought one for Slovenia, as the same applies only the cost for that one is €15 for only 7 days.

So, from here we head into Slovenia and to Lake Bled, fingers crossed nothing else goes wrong.  We're staying positive though, as on Monday it will be our 30th wedding anniversary - woo-hoo!

Sally x