Well, that was one heck of a ride today. 395 miles to be exact and my nether regions were starting to feel the strain. I was so glad when the journey finished – despite the custom seat on the V-Strom.
I was up early this morning – more excitement again – after a very comfortable sleep in a great bed. I love being at sea as the rocking motion really does make you sleep well. After a quick shower I went on to the upper deck to catch a lovely sunrise before we entered Rotterdam. Surprisingly there were dozens and dozens of ships anchored-off, and I’ve never seen so many ships in one place. I tried counting them but kept getting lost after 20…
After watching the glorious golden sunrise I went below to have my breakfast and queued up behind dozens of hungry pensioners all baying for their brekkie. Can you remember what the seven deadly sins are? Well gluttony is one of them and if you want to see it in action, just sit back and watch people at an all you can eat breakfast bar displaying their gluttony with sheer abandon…
Getting off the ship was easy enough, but passport control was slow. Very slow. Hundreds of cars and bikes and only three customs men checking passports, with two lines for vehicles and one for bikes. I was off the ship at 8.30 and didn’t hit the road till about 9.15.
The journey to Lubeck was long and boring. The motorways in Holland are superb. Well signposted, quick, efficient and wide. The ones in Germany less so…. The three-laner’s were okay but the two-laner’s a bit of a disappointment. Between Bremen and Hamburg there was a lot of roadworks and congestion on the two-laner’s which made the journey miserable because it was hot and boring. The temperature gauge showed 29 degrees at one point going past Hannover.
I finally got to the campsite at around 6pm. The site is located at Buchholz, which is about ten miles south of Lubeck. It should have been much earlier but the roadworks and congestion between Bremen and Hamburg really messed with the journey time. The motorways in Holland were absolutely superb.
The site is adjacent to a lake and situated in woodland and although the site is huge, you only think it’s small because there’s lots of little enclaves hidden in the woodland. It was 56 euros for three nights, which also included my tourist tax. I fund the site when I stopped for a break just after Hamburg. I’m using a combination of iOverlander and Google to find my campsites and I think I could have found a slightly cheaper site but after a day on the motorway I’d lost the will to live and just wanted to get my tent up, have a mug of tea, have some food and then rest-up. That’s the hard part done.
Now the fun stuff..
