Tag Archives: lunch

Day 18 – To Loop or Not to Loop

One thing was clear, I wanted off this campground asap. All sympathy to non-neurotypical folks, but maybe running a hospitality business is not the right calling for yous. I don’t care if I can eat of the toilet seat if all your quirks and utter inflexibility make the stay annoying at every step. “Can we charge the car?” “No, we don’t do this, electricity is too expensive”. “Can I pay for it?” “No, we generally don’t allow it …” -.-

The big question was to head straight for Limerick City or take the 2hrs to go west first to do the loop head to the tip of the loop head peninsula (creative naming, I know). The weather forecast looked like the former, but when we hit the road at 9am, the look at the sky made us fancy our chances. It was the right choice, for sure. Lone single track roads with wild and exciting vistas all the way. A quick stop at the lighthouse at the westernmost point was all we needed. For once, we opted against the tour to go up and moved on. In we came on the southern route to come out again along the northern cliff-side road. Such spectacular views greeted us all along that last stretch that we really had to wonder why we were almost alone here, while fighting for bad vistas with busloads of day-trippers yesterday. This was preferable to us any day of the week!

After this great morning, it was about a 1.5 hr dive to Limerick. As we could not charge the car yesterday and won’t be able to tonight (or so we though) I headed for a 15 minute top up on a fast charger before going to town to park conveniently at a 22kw AC charger in downtown. The kids slept through the drive and woke back up with enough drowsiness to excuse this slight delay of lunch. Including another short hunt for a free AC charger it took us until 1.15pm to get to the designated lunch place. There was a short queue to get seated when we arrived at the Hook & Ladder as it was still very busy.

up there we must go – for views and fun points

It turned out it was well worth the wait with excellent food all around. Even the kids were great and did not make a scene due to the delayed lunch. Service was nothing short of exemplary, even though the house was packed. A very welcomed change to our last lunch experience. We ended up staying to transition seamlessly into tea time as well.

After that success, Number 3 got his wish as well. Of the few options to go for, we decided the King John’s Castle was our best pick. It was a bit on the pricy side, but that was made up for by an excellent exhibition part. More interactive than Galway City museum, both kids were occupied long enough for me to dive into the meat of the history part. Win-win, I’d say.

After that, all there was left was a slightly late trip to the camp for the night, delayed even further by the fact that I had not realised that it was actually “in” the gated forest park it was named after. So with a final 15 minute detour, we got there, set up and were pretty much ready to collapse after a quick muesli dinner for the kids. No internet or cell phone reception anyway … 😀

Day 5 – History Nerds

In an attempt to make the absolute most of an annoying situation, I found a place to drop off Nina and Number 3 while I would hang out at the world’s most uninteresting petrol station waiting for Puru Hiko to get her buzz on. Emporia megamall – glitzy new addition to Malmö’s outskirts! We made it off the campground in record time at 9.15 am and 15 minutes later, the Agent of Entropy was fast asleep and the other two got dropped off in search for a replacement camping chair and some groceries.

The view from the tower, with the Longhouse, and dwellings in the center and gardens to the left.

The Ionity charger worked fine (there are tons of them, as they have partnered with a large petrol brand and outfitted many a K-station with 350 ampere HPCs), so I had at least only 40 minutes to kill. I did some trip research and planning while a very strange and peculiar story unfolded via WhatsApp with Nina. Turns out, almost everything in the mall, with the exception of the supermarket, would only open at 10am. So there were no visible signs, no people and even the electronic info panels would only show “open” shops – so Nina had no idea where to go. They decided on the sensible thing and headed for the only lit place: the ICA supermarket …

I outfitted myself with incredibly bad Burger King coffee and we met up just about an hour after leaving the camp. No good chairs had been found, but we had bread and milk to be prepared for eventual free camping …

But first – south to the small town of Höllviken to visit real Vikings of Fotevikens! Well, at least a neatly reconstructed village with a sort of re-enactment group of living there full-time while doubling as guides at the museum. Let’s get right to it – it was pretty awesome. I am a big history nerd and both of us have been to medieval style fairs in Germany before. The guides were really open and friendly – my sincere respect for pulling this off, living there full-time. I got into a few really cool conversations. It was quite delightful to see how they lit when it was clear we could skip the basic stuff about when Christianity arrived and that Viking helmets had no horns (Romanticists invention) and dig into the weird stuff. Talking to them, I could not shake the thoughts of comparison with other lower tech cultures we encountered in our travels. The village had the same vibe as one on Flores, Indonesia and the culture reminded me a lot of another seafaring warrior culture we have learned to love …

Number 3 had a blast, too. Going into houses, checking out stuff and trying to find the chickens belonging to the empty coop of the merchant’s household.

Southern Sweden still has a very central European landscape, just with fewer people.

Rather than getting back in the car to look for a good lunch spot or getting our whole kit out, we decided to take the easy route and drop into the resident bar “Smokies” for some fast food. The burger, fries and baked potato were pretty decent and I learned to like the low alcohol cider that apparently is a thing around here.

After all that sun and excitement, and well and truly stuffed, there was only one more hour of driving on the menu. I found a nature reserve from one of the local councils with marked tenting spots. Now, we do have a tent, but it is also bolted to our car – so I was a bit apprehensive about the rules and if they applied to us. The good thing was that we were both early and there would be an alternative proper campsite close by. I just really hoped that we could escape the wall of white whales for at least one night.

That pure joy – so infectious. Forrest was his highlight of the day.

As it turned out, this was the jackpot. A beautiful grassy area, with parking areas big and close enough that we could pop the tent without annoying everyone and it even had proper toilets and drinkable water just around the corner (in a converted farm now serving as a rentable venue for “nights in the countryside” for the locals). Everything was very beautiful, quiet and all in all amazing. Number 3 immediately took off into the forest and had the biggest, most joyous laughter ready for us as he paced through the pines and over logs.

We arrived at 3.30 pm. Enough time to soak in the sight and really feel like we made it to Sweden for the first time. This right here is what we were looking for. Let’s just really hope for more to come! I even got a bit of campfire company for a good chat arriving later that evening. A family of four in a two-roof-tent Jeep and trailer combination. Good times!

She slept through the whole re-charge. Oh, and she loves the Dragon. We named it Roary …

Day 21 – Low Energy

The usual reaction to any city we visit is: “Wow, that was fun. We can imagine coming here again.” Sometimes there may be a thought of: “Ok, we have seen this now.” But only a very few places manage to disappoint us so completely that they get added to the TIHI category. Bozen, well done, you became memorable to us in the worst possible way 😀

At least the day started well – the sun was in our backs now, so breaking camp was a much more relaxed and cooler affair than the setup last night.

diligent application of sunscreen – at least until BionTech has that skin-cancer vaccine fully figured out …

The plan is straightforward – we need to be in the Netherlands in four days. Well, we want to be – since long before we decided that Italy would be our best shot we made plans to visit old traveling friends at the end of this parental leave – same as we had done last time with Number 3. As the astute observer might notice: The Netherlands are not, strictly speaking, along the way to Frankfurt. But we were committed, felt we had done northern Italy enough justice and strapped in for some decent long distance travel (for European standards).

To avoid even more Covid-related paperwork and hassle, we would stop once right before the Austrian border still in Italy (well, the autonomous province of South Tyrol) and then pass through Austria in one day to avoid some hassle. That meant today was the first of four consecutive road trip days, and the shortest distance. With the EV, each of them should look roughly the same – first leg, quick charge lunch break, second leg, camp. We opted for the fastest route via the motorways rather than the scenic roads – we would probably need 2 more days to avoid pushing the little ones too much going scenic.

A roadside castle using a hill as an excellent defensible position

So, I planned ahead and saw that Italy did not really have fast chargers along the motorway, at rest stops like the rest of Europe, at least not here. If we needed to come off the toll road anyway, might as well add one more city, right? Bozen, the capital of the German speaking autonomous province of “Südtirol” was on our way, reached roughly at lunchtime. It had six public chargers marked within walking distance of the two recommended eateries on the Lonely Planet app – perfect, or so we thought.

With growing disbelief, I had to realise that every single public charger on the otherwise excellent app I am using has been removed. It seems, there are only three charge points left in Bozen, and they were A: in a paid parking garage and B: all in use, obviously. I have nothing against paying for parking if the chargers are available, but this was for me a clear indicator that we had made it back to fat old German-speaking climate-denier country.

It was late, we gave up – I mean our car has plenty of range – and settled on at least finding something to eat. We did, and again it was a beautiful reminder of what we hate about our own culture. All that was to say about the food at Gasthof Fink was that the portions are too big and they despise vegetarians. Would you like a triple layer Schnitzel, or two sad slices of undercooked eggplant for the same price, mam? Let’s leave it at that – we will not be back.

Our camp in Brixen without our car which was charging

Brixen, and the hotel / campground we chose as our stop for the day, turned out to be the light at the end of the tunnel, on the other hand. We arrived to excellent service, a really well-kept campground attached to the hotel and a nice pool. The reception offered that I could use the free guest chargers to top up the car before moving to our camp and then top it up with the 6A overnight. It was perfect, even though we looked a bit funny relaxing and cooking on our site amidst all our stuff but without the car.

Day 52 – A bit more of France, vive le déjeuner!

Number 3 didn’t ruin yet another set of clothes while we packed. 😉 Luckily, the morning weather was fine again so that we didn’t have to pack our things wet.

Today was another short day, as in only 200km to the next camp ground. Flo had found another rustiek kamperen close to the Belgian border where we will spend our rest day if it is nice. I’ve decided against camping in Belgium for one night…somehow I wasn’t mentally prepared for yet another country (and thus another post card to Aaron. It’s important to keep one’s promises) and I really wanted to take advantage of French patissieries and boulangeries longer.

The road was much less pleasant than yesterday, way more like a regular motorway. However, Number 3 had troubles staying asleep so we stopped at a rest stop after just an hour on the road. Given how he’s walking around with the zipper of his jacket in his mouth, the new tooth can’t be that far off anymore. Flo wasn’t so sure what to do with today, as we would arrive on the camp ground at lunch time if we kept going now. So we looked at the map and realized there was at least one more town called Abbeville we’d go to (well, mostly around) so I suggested eating out for lunch. French food is almost always a good idea.

Flo checked online for an eatery and found “Chez Mel” which was added as a destination. We arrived about 10 minutes before it opened so I got to go to a bakery and buy sweet treats for the afternoon tea that we planned to have on the camp ground. French bakeries are heaven. Or really close most of the time. Even Flo found treats to his liking and he doesn’t even have a sweet tooth. So we left with a bag of four treats and a hungry toddler who had pointed on almost every treat in the shop, making chewing sounds.

“Chez Mel” turned out to be a creperie. I went for a savoury one with goat’s cheese, honey and walnuts while Flo chose the decadent meaty version that was rolled up, dunked in creamy sauce and then put back into the oven with cheese on top.

We all enjoyed the meal and being somewhere dry when the rain returned. Now we just needed another short stop to pick up fresh bread before heading right to the camp ground. We arrived there before 3pm. It’s a tiny camp ground with maybe 15 spots all in all. The owners, a lovely French couple, were like “oh non, la pluie” and “le bébé” and just really a bit flustered that we wanted to camp in the rain. They spoke literally no English. But, they gave us the prettiest camp spot we could have asked for. With a little pause in the rain, we set up everything dry and then cuddled up in the tent for a bit. But Number 3’s mind of an explorer couldn’t be contained for long so he was dressed in his rain coat and wandered around in the rain however much he liked.

Oh, we even had time to tuck into those treats … the French, they got pastries right down …

So hard to choose…
Pretty despite the rain
Our own lawn
Looking towards the village

Day 210 – On top of things

A joy to ride

If the map was any indicator, we were about to embark into the real mountainous North today. We heard from other travelers that there was a new road going over a mountain pass instead of following the Mekong and that it would not be used by buses for the steep incline. Obviously we were quite excited about this.

Before we could find out however, there were a bunch of minor annoyances in our way. First, the drive chain was covered in a thick sandy layer of grit and had to be cleaned. Before packing, I fixed up our luggage racks a bit and when we finally were ready to leave, Nina’s headset finally gave out after playing up for a while. This is the forth or fifth one to break on the trip – and the final spare. As much as we love the cheaper wired intercom, it is getting a bit ridiculous. Later that night I went over all the old (and broken ones) again – and at least found one where only one of the earpieces is dead. That will have to do until we can get our hands on replacements later on, probably Oman. Continue reading →

Day 166 – Wear and tear

These were the kindest, loveliest, most heart-warming people we met in a while

There is no doubt about it, this day started way better than it would eventually conclude. We remembered from yesterday that the lovely place we had lunch at also serves breakfast. Since the breakfast at our hotel was underwhelming to say the least, we were more than keen to go there. The owners actually remembered us from yesterday and were super kind once more. We had delicious strawberry pancakes and our usual coffee and tea setup. It’s these encounters that keep us going, honestly.

Rocinante between the two GS DownUnder bikes.

Only 200m after packing the bike and hitting the road, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye that had us stop again right away. A pair of overlander bikes, with the unmistakable Touratech panniers were parked on the main street of Tanah Rata. We stopped and had a look around until we found Bjorn and Willemien in the same Indian restaurant we had dinner last night. They have come down overland from the Netherlands. Since we already had breakfast, we kept it to a brief chat, exchanged some contacts and went back on the road.

It was not too far though, and the first disaster of the day was about to strike. We refueled a couple of kilometers north before we intended to tackle Gunung Brinchang (highest public road in mainland Malaysia). But then, Rocinante would not start with what looked like a flat battery. Only that it should not have been flat. A suspicion started to creep up on me while we push started the bike down the hill.

The stupid fall last night when I tried to lubricate the chain on my own? Well, instead of just falling flat on her side, Rocinante hit a massive flower pot that went right into the left rear cover. That panel covers all the really important electronic parts of the bike: Regulator, ABS computer, ECM (Engine management) and fuse box. It did not look too damaged from the outside, though …

Sure enough though, right after the push start the next issue arose. The ABS light was blinking, warning about an issue with the break system. So we stopped on the roadside 100m on and I had a look under the cover with the engine kept running. Luckily, this issue was sorted by forcing the plug of the ABS unit back in properly.

A little boulder had come down a while ago…

The road up to Gunung Brinchang was sealed all the way, all though a bit worse for wear. The only mild worry were all the big land-cruisers zipping about with loads of tourists on board. With the road pretty steep and narrow, Nina got a bit worried that one of these cattle haulers might come flying and knock us off the road. Gladly, none of the sort happened. Only that reaching the top was a bit of a let down in the end. The clouds were hanging so low that there was nothing to see here. Oh well, at least Rocinante started without issues or warning lights this time …

And then, the world disappeared

Next stop, Ipoh! The mountain road was nice, until the clouds drew darker and darker. This time, we missed our 30 second window to stop and decided to put on wet weather gear, and so we got drenched through when the first bit of rain hit. The rain here is really an all or nothing affair.

We decided against another detour with minor sights around Ipoh and headed for the center of town instead for some lunch. At first we could not find the restaurant from the Lonely Planet we wanted, then found another recorded one which would turn us away again at the mention of Nina’s vegetarianism. Hot and frustrated we got back onto the bike, when real disaster struck. A push of the starter button did not produce the reliable humm of the starter motor but instead “crashed” the electronics of the bike. Rocinante would not start, and for the first time ever I did not know the cause right there and then.

We pushed her one street over to where the restaurant was that we were initially looking for, only to find out that it was closed. Defeated we dropped into the first forgettable eatery we saw and considered our options. Just in case I checked in with one of our contacts for workshops in Ipoh.

I was able to get the bike started again, after some tinkering with the electronics under the side cowl. Less exciting was the fact that the issue seemed to be related to the Engine Control Module, a prohibitively expensive black box type computer controlling engine operation. Well, once started, she seemed to be running fine …

The 150 km to Penang flew by in no time on the motorway. For no particular reason, we took the “old” bridge over onto the Island. Impressive as it is, the new 27 km long motorway over the sea seems impressive to say the least. This is the only time that even motorbikes need to pay the toll in Malaysia. We could not find any place to pay our RM1.40 in cash. Just when we were about to fork over RM20 for a toll card, someone handed us his wave & go card and payed for us to get through. Since toll is only payed getting onto the island, we were sorted! Nice.

In town, the day wound down with another minor series of catastrophes. The road to our intended hotel was closed for a movie shoot, the hotel was full and a fat white man got randomly prissy with us. Then we got ping ponged between three of the many Red Inns of George Town’s Love Lane.

Night food market near our hostel

As often, the day concluded in a great positive encounter with a local contact. Through Tony from Touratech we got hooked up with BK. He has just come back from a 6 month trip on Honda Waves to London and is somewhat of a local legend. We went out to an amazing food court, talked about traveling and everything else and went home with a contact number for Jonathan, the local motorcycle electronics wizard!