Category Archives: Gear

Day 1 – Electrifying

This – this was my bloody dream ever since one of those enchanting nights in Portugal. This was the thing we had mulled over, planned and made many a decision based upon. We chose to push the last two months of parental leave as far out as possible – for the chance of good weather and for the glimmer of hope of outlasting the lockdowns and limitations.

We chose our car with this in mind – had to have certified roof rack carrying capacity and be big enough for four and our stuff. We lined up friends, options, mulled over potential routes.

So the 26^th of April came – and went, with us firmly in lockdown grounded at home. No way to move the dates, no point in fussing over anything. Just hunker down and suffer through this – one more month to add to all the ones added up already.

May a half-dead rat’s feces hit all of those sharing the blame for spreading and failing to contain this bloody thing. Cursed be every super spreader! We HATE the novel corona virus! [/old man yelling at cloud]

But then, as always, things get better eventually (at least for us cis white European whities, that is). One by one, we managed to snatch up our first doses of the vaccines (after the boomers were finished and immediately demanded everything go back to normal for them, of course). European countries started to loosen travel restrictions and we finally allowed ourselves to think about actually doing it.

So, what is “this”? Well, it is our meager attempt at doing what is unfortunately very unsustainable (long distance travel) in the least harmful way we can think of. And to embrace our continent of origin and what the most dense and top tier level of infrastructure can support: Camping with an EV and our well proven iCamper SkyCamp roof tent.

The thought that struck me on our last trip: We stick to campgrounds anyway, because in such densely populated parts of the world there is not much room for wild camping (plus the fact that it is illegal most anywhere). So why not use that time to fuel the vehicle that we are using? With the kids, we would not travel more than maybe 300km in a day and, if we needed to, the charging infrastructure is good enough to just top up during a normal rest stop.

So here we are, 250 km from home on a campground in the black forest. The car is charging, number 3 and the Agent of Entropy are sleeping peacefully in the roof tent and I get to be really electrified about traveling again.

We are doing it … be a naysayer if you want – yes this is not edge of the unknown adventure travel. But it is the road.

My kids will experience that. They will meet cool people, friends we have across Europe and they will breathe fresh air and see the open sky.

And no virus could stop us from doing that …

Smart move to start at lunchtime – both were 90 out

Day 56 – Slow paced

Today, the weather seemed to be okay. No more tent attacks were anticipated.

We got up and somehow, breakfast just went on and on while we decided if we have enough energy to move. Or just to make plans for today, really. It was very nice just to sit and watch the kids.

Around 11 am, we’d decided to go on a short walk through the nature park today. However, with lunch and kids’ naps coming up, we pushed it to the afternoon.

Both kids were fascinated by the horses next to our campsite

Flo made another round of his silky scrambled eggs for lunch and then, it was bedtime for a few of us. Number 3’s nap was rather short with 45min but Mini van Bartang slept well over an hour and a half.

Afterwards, it took two cars to transport four adults and two toddlers to the sand dunes in the natural park near Harskamp. The landscape was surprisingly similar to the Schwanheimer Dünen back home, probably as they are both relics from the ice age.

There is a restaurant close by where we headed for a drink after the walk. Well, a “drink” turned into a piece of cake for me. XD We spent a good hour there just chatting while the kids explored or munched on some raisins. And from here, we also went straight to our restaurant for dinner. 🙂

The kids were really quite hungry so we opted for this early dinner. Flo and Peter both chose the three course menu so we enjoyed dinner and I even got a dessert that I didn’t order…ice cream with stroopwaffel.

Back at the tent, when both kids were asleep, we still sat and talked until the sun had gone down. What a great relaxed Sunday full of food and friends. 🙂

It’s a good way to spend some time 🙂
Both kids were fascinated by the horses next to our campsite
Horse with foal
Seats with a view
…keeps the hunger away
Waiting to be picked up for a walk
Thirsty Number 3
“What could this be? Looks like a small one could ride it!”
My drink after the walk turned into something more solid…
Going for the prawn cocktail
And then, Number 3 found a steed
Once the kids were in bed, we talked until the sun was down

Day 32 – „Baby first!“

Flo didn’t catch on to my cliffhanger there. The spare part arrived safe and sound in the morning of our rest day so that we were relaxed and free to make more plans from thereon out.

Unfortunately, the night brought rather disrupted sleep for us. More crying because of teeth and more applying pain relief gel in the middle of the night.

templar church based on jerusalem temples

Thus, we were rather tired in the morning…and unmotivated to pack. Since we had two options today, we chose the lazy one: Just pack the tent so we have a car to explore Tomar and then come back to the lovely camp ground for one more night. If you like it somewhere, just stay longer. 🙂

We were in Tomar at about 11 o’clock. The sight to see here is the Convento de Cristo, the headquarters of the knights Templar. On the way in, it didn’t seem too busy but there still was a queue for tickets. In sunshine, making it rather hot. Flo decided that we wouldn’t try the “cut the line because of baby” card here as it would be maybe half an hour until we got tickets anyway. I grumbled a bit but ok.

Just when I thought that we might get into trouble with our timing “we will be too late for lunch”, “did we put enough money into our parking ticket, this might take a while”, a member of staff put his head out of the window and yelled “Baby first!” when he saw Flo, followed by a wave of the hand that we should come to the front desk and get tickets. It was quite funny actually. And while my thoughts were still in the queue, we were actually already in the headquarters.

I thoroughly enjoyed our visit there. However, my knowledge about the knights Templar is limited and it felt a bit like visiting a pirate ship. The knights are so prominent in media (movies, games) that I had trouble not imagining it as a set. XD

A bit more than an hour later, we moved on into the city to find a place for lunch. Tomar is a pretty small town and Number 3 enjoyed walking along the cobblestone lanes, charming everyone we passed. He had a “courage upgrade” some time ago and would now roam further away from us and around corners and out of line of sight. Despite being great, it is exhausting as it means, we now have to follow our baby rather than the other way around.

Lunch was lovely. We had a great waiter who entertained Number 3 quite a bit as well as fellow patrons who waved and smiled and played hide and seek with him.

A short stroll through the park later, we went back to the camp ground. A little bit more rest for us before we had another evening of games via skype with our German friends.

maybe I’ll catch this one?
Better chance with twooooo …
cool arrow slits
the incline below the wall is a muslim import
templar church based on jerusalem temples
all about the detail
no sign unread
blue tiles, a 17th century addition
temple in front of monastery
some parts lay in ruin
keen observer
cool decorum
orignal painting in the temple church
upgrades over time pushed this to quite impressive
another austentatiatory
16th century part of the monastery
money buys cool things
movie set decoration
hall of the dormatory
famous window to the churches extension
more love for details
more of the newer part
Nomnom … love chocolate!
light strolls
such a lovely little town
even I like it!
thanks, it was quite pleasant

Day 18 – A different scenery

The next morning didn’t start much better. We were unsure about where to go and what to do next. This part of Portugal is all about the beaches. Here, between Tavira, Olhão and Faro, there is a National Park just off the coast, full of sandbanks. Taking a boat to see parts of it is a thing according to the guide book. So I thought that’s a plan.

After breakfast, we headed towards the reception area to get information about tours through the park. The lady gave us one that looked promising, having an eco tour in it. She couldn’t give us any more information though or sell us tickets so we packed up (not really sorry to leave this camp ground) and drove to the marina of Olhão to make a final decision.

While I still entertained the thought of a boat ride, Flo was having serious doubt. None of the boats had any roofs or cloths to create a bit of shade. Going on a 1 ½ hour tour with Number 3 in full sunshine seemed like a bad idea. And a tour would already be the exotic thing to do: Most people opted for a ferry to the “desert island” sandbank to tan for up to 5 hours and then take the ferry back. That seemed even less of a thing that we would enjoy, least of all Number 3.

When we saw all those people at the docks, prepared to worship the sun for one day, even I changed my mind. Maybe we’re just not beach people. Or maybe we got snobby through all our travels…I just couldn’t see the appeal of sand with no shade anymore. Maybe the rugged west coast will be more our thing.

Thus, we changed course and drove inland, exchanging the ocean for the hills. Flo immediately felt better. And Number 3 was asleep in the car again. 🙂 So our first stop was to get more groceries, because food makes you feel better as well.

We stopped briefly in Salir as the Lonely Planet said, it is a lovely little village but we were still not feeling it. The tourist info was closed and none of the cafes looked too inviting. We had a quick ice cream and coffee intake and then continued.

Only about 8km further, the loop walk of Rocha da Pena started. We arrived, had a quick sandwich lunch with our groceries and prepared for the walk. The estimated time to complete the loop is between 2.5 and 3 hours. It was already past midday when we started and the sun burned down quite mercilessly. Right at the start, two walkers came back down so we asked them about shade on the path and were told, it practically didn’t exist. It would wind up to the cliffs, become a walk along the cliff edge and then get back down. Nothing big, about 160 meters in height but all in sunshine.

Now I had doubts. So Flo and I settled on going up for 30min and then coming back down again. And this is what we did. It was a scorcher. Even for me and I wasn’t carrying Number 3 on my back. The views were great, wild sage and thyme bloomed and made it smell delicious everywhere but there just was neither shade nor wind. All of what we saw would probably turn brown in summer, given the heat we experienced. But…we both enjoyed the walk. Finally, we were back on track with how we felt about Portugal and what we are doing.

Our next, and last stop before the camp ground for today was Alte. Agua Mel was a cosy little café with a small balcony-like outside seating area. All of the cakes and treats looked delicious. So we had another round of Portugese Gao, black tea and treats. Baby seemed quite hungry as he was really tugging into the sweets.

Alte itself was a picturesque little village. We wandered through a couple of roads on our way to the “Fontes”, walled in springs next to a small stream. The village used to come here for the washing, nowadays it’s a picnic area where you can look at the stream and count the fish. 😉

Feeling amazing, we headed towards our camp ground. When the road turned into a gravel road two kilometres before we arrived, we got excited. These camp ground out in the sticks are usually the best. As was correct again in this case. The camp ground was small, tucked away and just overall lovely.

There was a bit of a frenzy at the end. First to get back to the petrol station nearby to buy ice for our cooler and then to set everything up in time for another Skype date with our German friends. But all was well. It was warm, sunny and just the kind of quiet place we love. So a little rush does nothing to phase us on this night.

Daily ritual …
… for the faint of melanin
Just a little help … tall stairs …
Only 150m up, but steep and hot
For our kiwi readers: This is were gorse belongs
Daddy got out the big boots fror this
cool view, worth the hot hike in our books
Final bit up under the cliff
this would be less chill with a white landship
cracker still in hand, was a good walk
walking makes hungry
portugese coustardy treats – worth it
new skill: climb steps up to the bellybutton
walk through Alte
brave fountain defender
Checking out Fonte de Alte
perfect day to walk the hat
Number 3 mesmerised by all the …
… fishies!!!
Blue George felt like a rally car 🙂
making sure dad goes past the post
base set up in record time
combine x with dirt = entertainment
georgeous spot
first sunset picture of the trip

Day 16 – Last day in Spain

We managed to get moving quite early for us, by 9.45am we were on the road. Tomorrow is a holiday though so we ended to stock up before going into Sevilla.

Another gigantic Carrefour, even bigger than the last one, didn’t make for a quick stop. Instead, it took us a while to get the few things that we needed. Then, we were good to go! Well, almost, we needed fuel. After that, we were good to go! Well, yeah, but somehow the wrong sight was selected in the satnav which Flo realized halfway there. So it took us until lunchtime to get into Sevilla.

Sevilla is not really a car-friendly city. That’s good. Trying to find parking when you’re already running “late” is bad. We ended up queuing for a spot on a parking deck for about 30 min. By now, it was most definitely lunchtime for us. Spanish people still think 1pm is early for lunch. It took us a bit to find a place to eat. The first one was more of a super traditional tapas bar than a sit in restaurant which would have been cool…without a baby. Number 3 would have been trampled as no one was paying the floor any attention.

On the way to the next possible place, I stopped at a pharmacy. No one is ill, but Number 3 is fighting hard with his molars. And of course we left the dental gel for pain relief at home. 😉

We arrived at the tapas bar I had picked in the Lonely Planet, only to find out that it would open in 15-20min. I was hungry, the baby was hungry. We couldn’t wait that long anymore. So we went to the place a few doors down and had a good meal including strawberry gazpacho. It looked more like a drink than food to be honest. And it tasted like a dessert.

Finally, we were ready to tackle Sevilla. The main thing to do is visit Real Alcazar, the royal palazzo. We had a brief look at the queue winding three times around the whole thing and decided we couldn’t be bothered. Yes, same day tickets would have been available after an hour or a bit more in the queue but no. Just no. Instead, we queued shortly for the cathedral and had a look around in there. All of the churches here were mosques at one point, some even for several centuries. You can still tell from the floorplan in most cases.

In Sevilla, Christopher Columbus is buried. The 19^th century monument is overblown but it was still cool to see. At the end of our visit we climbed up the Giraldo, or bell tower. Great views over the city…and onto all those rooftop pools people seem to have.

We left and were tired of sightseeing. It’s time for us to get into Portugal and a slower pace of traveling.

Speaking of the slow kind: By absolute chance we stumbled into what is the coolest campground yet. Super quiet in the forested National park of Donana. We just needed a place to stay for one night that was closer to Portugal than Sevilla so we took a random camp ground on the way, not expecting anything. The setting in the forest with lots of shade was lovely. It was not too busy and filled with other campers with small kids. It even had a whole array of “toys” in the kiddie pool which we tried again with Number 3. He still isn’t too sure about it.

Once Baby was in bed, we even had time to exchange travel stories with Lu and Eike, who travel around with twins in their Volkswagen Bully (T4).

On shady spots like this, we save the time and leave the awning off
Dirt – interesting as gravel but twice the cleanup!
Old school bodega – cool, but not kid friendly
I HAZ the food!
Another Minarett-gone-bell tower
a lady to keep you company
The wait was reasonable, but super sunny
For a church, there was an awful lot of fencing going on … something to keep the peasants in line i guess
oh, we had som silver lying aroud …
The main room only barely higher than the sides. Never seen that in a gothic church
The icons wear better crowns than some kings of the time …
Rosetta opposite the main altar
“I have an idea, let’s put it all up there!”
another window
34 ramps up and down makes wee one drowsy
great views all around
View one
Bishops cant rest in anguish, can they?
Fancy retcon of Cristobal Colon’s last rest. He died impoverished …
view two
One can still make out the prior mosques footprint
Is this a trick?
Ok, now I am certain it’s a trick
Ok, really? It feels warm …
oh, might be actually warm!
Swapping travel and baby tales

Day 11 – Drizzle, dragons and disappointment

Wow – I think we have to seriously slow down our pace. There is a certain flow while traveling that seems like it can be maintained, but in fact slowly drains your reserves. Even though we already had two double stays – that is still only about half of the rest days we did on Home to Home. We were not really resting either, but packing these extra days full of sightseeing. Within a week, we need a proper rest day – just hanging around the camp and doing not much of anything. Or more likely, doing whatever we feel like. But not today …

Today started great, with a solid breakfast and a kind fellow camper offering to pick up a fresh bread for us from the bakery. But catastrophe is never far away. In this case, it came with the very last touch of breaking camp for us: the last clasp of the roof tent. It is sort of a normal leaver lock thingy, with a latch affixed to the base hooking into the lock and then leveraged shut to keep it all good and tight. Too tight this time, as it appeared. We had issues with closing the tent before, but we thought were past it. Right when the lock shut, the latch, which is a riveted band of steel, broke at the point where it is was attached to the base plate. One lock is not enough for safe travel, obviously. One again, the kindness of strangers helped to soften the blow immensely. The Dutch travellers next to us had his motorbike with him and carried a bunch of spare tie downs. With a colour matched botch job in place of a front lock. We called the distributor in Germany and they promised to find out what they can do for us, but in the meantime ensured us the tie down will do.

It did not really quite show yesterday, but the village and the national park surrounding us was absolutely stunning. Sierra Espuña is the first of a bunch of these alpine national parks that seem almost too inviting to just pass through. On a longer trip, we would definitively want to spend 2-4 days on some hikes in the area. But not this time. It would immediately go against the bare bones of a plan that we have started to formulate.

Our idea now is to travel just slow enough to get a taste of southern Spain but fast enough to be in Portugal before May. That should give us four weeks to really take our time and do exactly these things we are now skimping on a bit and leave us with two weeks to get back via the Netherlands at a reasonable pace.

That meant skipping a whole bunch of national parks now, and even just cruising past the Sierra Nevada in a single day. We did, for the most part. Even though, we still managed to have a great lunch break in a romantically drizzly national park called Sierra de Baza.

We had a very specific goal in mind: We needed a camp ground within striking distance of Granada with good WiFi and at a reasonable price. We managed the first, but the mobile data speeds were at least good enough to save our plan a bit. The thing is: We are not as untethered as on our last trip. We did not want to leave our weekly gaming group hanging, so we agreed to try out playing online via web and skype. It actually worked out reasonably well, with some minor hiccups that were to be expected.

The only thing that we did not fully take into consideration for the choice of camp was altitude. And so we ended up at almost 1000 m, with a cold evening turning into an even colder, since cleare night. The thermometer dropped all the way down to 1° C for the second time on out trip …

I wonder how those pebbles feel on my hair …
… or how they sound
improvised tent lock … grumble
Views from the …
… Sierra Espuna
the road down the hill
first look
of more mountains
park road where …
… we stopped for lunch
excited, but very cold
first glimps at the snowy Sierra Nevada peaks
all sorts of dramatic views
even in the rain, a monster appeared
another shortcut to a campoground
and a final quick foto stop
road ahead, far on the right is Granada
note the professional tent power line …
continued obsession with gravel
There is always another level, as with this french couple on a fiat panda
beautifully set up, they are starting a 6 month trip … maybe

Day 3 – What do we want?

This is probably the least planned trip we have ever taken. One reason was obviously that we were somewhat busy in the last year or so. The other is that we, frankly, have become pretty road hardened. It just does not worry us to not know what tomorrow will bring like it used to.

The downside to all of this is that we have not had the long planning conversations to alingn our expectations and get exited about places. Neither the long days researching our destinations. So it is day 3 now, and we are getting more and more a hang of our setup. That brings the issue even more into focus. What do we want?

I mean to get to Portugal, first of all. But that is a bit of a useless thing to know. If we just wanted to get there, we could have flown, or taken the train. Good weather and beautiful nature then? Well, why not stop at the first opportunity then, like southern France? Should we push south; rest a bit; go to Spain and start exploring then? Quite frankly, we haven’t figured it out yet.

But we know that today was a good day. Smooth start. The sun came out (but not too hot). We like the campsites we are finding through iOverlander. Traditional sites, but a bit off the beaten track. And empty anyway, so early in the season.

To top it all off, Number 3 slept a lot during our 2.5 hrs of driving. Worth taking the motorway for a bit from Dijon just past Lyon to get to camp nice and early. 4 pm was a perfect time to catch up on the blog, cook dinner and even get a shower for all of us in time.

We will have to figure out what we want from this trip, though. Maybe tomorrow …

Day 0.2 – Hard to get going …

Since this is a relatively short trip for us, only two month for what will roughly be around 10,000 km, we had initially planned to make the most of our time and start on the first real day off. That would be today.

To cut right to the chase though, we will not start today. We could, if we really wanted to, but there are a few threads left hanging that we want to finish up before heading off. It proves true once more that anything takes just that bit longer when you add a child into the mix. So what are we waiting for?

Go Vote!

First of all, given the political climate at the moment, we really want to make sure to be able to vote in the European parliamentary elections. Few things count as much as casting your vote when you are as worried about some current trends as we are. Unfortunately, ballot papers for early mail-in voting are only made available 6 weeks ahead of time, which will be on Monday, 8 am, in our case.

Health

We timed it just right for Number 3 to get his final round of vaccination shots before we had to leave, but it seems he might have developed a mild reaction. Nothing to worry yet, but better to have an eye on it at home with our family doctor close by, just in case.

It is probably a good idea as well to take a minute or two to take a breather at home and see how the two of us are holding up. In all the hustle and bustle of everyday madness, certain things get overlooked. Now is a good time to get checked out and just relax a day or two more.

Loose ends

As any traveler would know, there is always another thing that you could do before getting off. A few audio books to decide upon, fine tuning the sleeping and blogging arragements and the like.

Finally, we might take the time to take care of some long neglected little bits. Seeing that exibition that we wanted to go to for months now, sorting some stuff in the house and so on.

So Monday seems like the day now. One cannot leave these things for too long, there will alway be reasons. Time to get moving …

Day 300 bonus – Stats 109 United Arab Emirates

This kind of did not fit in well with the day’s post, so I decided to celebrate day 300 with an add on! Hope you like it. The stats are not too relevant, since we did not really spend time in Dubai and had a lot of “special” stuff to sort out.

Country data #9: United Arab Emirates

Full screen version of the map

481 km in total (470 km of GPS tracked)
2 travel days, 4 days total
$35.56 Average cost per night (3x room, 1x ferry)
44.14l of standard fuel for $ 25.46 (6.5 l / 100km – all Arabia)
~$10.25 for food every day, always eating out with two invitations
~$2,309 in total – $1100 for shipping and spare parts and $460 for visa

All $ values are converted to NZD.

Day 299 – Moving on (and on …)

Hotels in towns have become a luxury for us by now, so after two nights in Trabzon with patchy weather, it was nonetheless time to move on. We used all the time to sleep in and get ourselves organized though. This included changing the brake pads around, taking the dodgy pair I got gifted way back in Pattaya, Thailand and swapping it for the most worn one. The Transalp uses CBS, which means that the foot brake also operates one of the two front calipers, which in turn wears faster.

Finally a shot of the main building without a school class

On our way out, we did a brief stop at Trabzon’s version of the Aya Sofia. This one is a 10th century church, build on the same site as a roman temple that got converted into a mosque, ammunition depot, museum and now mosque again over the last 10 centuries. We mostly learned how to squeeze through endless high school classes armed with selfie sticks.

Then, we were back on the coastal highway. Riding is really smooth, even through the regular little showers coming from the grey sky. Soon enough it was time for lunch. We bought some supplies and found a really nice picnic spot right at the sea. We sat down, enjoyed our lunch and amused ourselves with the innocent romancing of high-school-aged teenagers.

No break without a hot cuppa 🙂

We had no real goal until Cappadocia, 660 km down the road. So soon enough, we were faced with a decision: Take the shortest route now, or follow the fast coastal highway for another 100 km, adding 50 km to the trip. We made the call as the rain started back up and turned inland. The particular pass we chose turned out to be a bit annoying, because it was in the process of being upgraded to two lanes per direction. To make matters worse, it really started hammering down about half way in.

Flo decided to wear plastic bags over his shoes to stop the water from leaking in

Thoroughly soaked (the Compañeros held true, but summer gloves and old boots not so much), we made it to the high point of the pass at 2200m. We had passed through the rain by then and at least up here, the sun was out. Not too much consolation, though, as it was pretty cold.

We still stopped for a bit right after the pass to have a chat with two huffing and puffing pushbikers on a snack break. Tristan and Francesco from Switzerland are on their own epic journey from Europe to central Asia (and beyond for one of them). We swapped some anecdotes, snack food and tips for our respective roads ahead before going our way to secure a camp spot. In parting, we heard they will be looking for a guidebook for Iran, so we quickly dug up our Lonely Planet and donated it to their cause. Definitively a much better use than collecting dust in our future home. Godspeed guys!

Lovely guys (just) starting on their journey: Tristan and Francesco

As we got lower, it got warmer again, but so did the clouds return. In the first town after the pass, we stocked up on rations again and soon after were in full camp spot hunting mode. The rain made it tempting to look at the hotels, but the idea of spending another $50 did not appeal to me at all. We got lucky anyway – off the main road, then a side road and into a dirt track we found the perfect little ditch in the pastures that could not be seen even from the little track.

We set up our tent in the light drizzle and soon gobbled up our dinner. Risini noodles and instant sauce made for a surprisingly good and hearty meal and a nice change from bread and cheese. Time to keel over, exhausted. 440 km to go till Göreme …