Tin Can Travelling starts again: Wigan, Beverley, a ferry, Düsseldorf & Hannover.

6th May – 11th May 2024

Davide had spent a few months parked up, winterized and under a cover at my parents’ place in Shropshire, all of us waiting for spring and the next trip. He was made ready again and before we packed him up we had to have a quick overnight trip to Nottingham. This was for his first service and to have our snag list addressed, namely that the alarm and tracker kept setting each other off as they were installed too close together and the fact that the whole central screen unit had stopped working. We had a night at the on-site rally field by the motorhome/caravan dealers and apart from an hour’s walk at noon we spent the whole of the next day (plus 2 cups of coffee, a spectacular plate of bacon and scrambled eggs, a cup of tea and much screen time)) sitting in the dealer cafe whilst he was dealt to. All was fixed by 5pm and we headed back to Shropshire where we had a few days to get loaded up before the off. We now had the paperwork to support being 4000kg on the road, rather than the standard 3500kg, so now we were a) legally not overweight and b) had weight allowance for a few extras – like our paddleboards. We had fresh haircuts, six months plus of prescriptions, clothes for three seasons, 480 decaf Tetley teabags and three jars of Marmite. We were ready. We bade our farewells to my folks and departed. First stop on the grand adventure…Wigan, where Nick’s brothers live. Of note here is that I was driving Davide for only the second time, and all by myself. Nick was driving his brother’s car that he had very kindly loaned us for the past 7 weeks and which we were returning. We were both a bit nervous but my driving was magnificent and I managed just fine without his ‘help’.

With Davide just fitting on Rick and Catherine’s driveway and blocking it from either of them parking on it, we had a great evening with the brothers and sisters-in-law and it gave me a 24 hour window to get my paddleboard repaired at the very nearby inflatable boat repair centre. Two years ago, in a French heatwave, some of its glue had failed and it needed remedial work, with time for the glue to cure before it was rolled up again. Job done, we scooped it up in the morning and headed off to our next port of call, Beverley, Yorkshire. Here we were guests at a weekend of birthday merriment for our friends Jon and Sally. We had secured a spot at a small campsite in town a mere 1.5km from their house and spent the weekend cycling to and fro for the various well catered, well lubricated, house-based celebrations with a great bunch of people. Some of us even managed Beverley ParkRun

Bringing your whole home to a house party and sleeping in your own bed is really the way to go. It also means that when you stay for 3 days and are the last to leave, your hosts don’t go off you. On bank holiday Monday, after sneaking in a quick load of laundry in our host’s machine- when on the road never look a gift washing machine in the mouth – we had a trip out to the beach with Jon and Sally and their girls which included a frisbee lost in the sea (Oops, Nick….) and the obligatory icecreams.

Then it was time to head to Hull and get our ferry. Our embarkation was possibly one of the most relaxed we have had yet. This Hull-Rotterdam route mostly carries freight and only sails overnight, thus they have all day to clean, restock and load up all the commercial vehicles and trailers. On this trip we were accompanied by about 20-30 new static caravans because, little did we know, that this area in Yorshire is a major manufacturer of mobile dwellings. Who knew? We were on the ferry by 5pm, had found our cabin, settled in, had 3 trips back to the van to collect forgotten items and deactivate the alarm, had a drink in the sun on the outside deck, been to the bistro for our dinner and had arrived in the bar for a digestif all before we set sail ahead of schedule at 8pm. We did not make the most of the ferry’s extensive entertainment offerings (quiz, cinema, casino, nightclub) as the battery levels were low from the weekend of excess and we retired to our cabin early.

We were blessed with a flat crossing but slept poorly besides and were rudley woken by the Captain’s announcement over the tannoy at 7am. This was essentially “Time to get up and buy a hearty breakfast-even though you are not hungry-before we arrive in an hour and three quarters”. After a shower we found a coffee and a toastie and found a window out of which to watch our arrival into the Port of Rotterdam. This was unexpectedly huge, and is, according to extensive (Wikipedia) research, apparently the only one of the ‘ten largest ports in the world’ that is not in Asia. Unfortunately our early alarm call turned out to be unecessary as, due to a gas leak somewhere in the port, our arrival was delayed by an hour. Major incident not forthcoming, we finally docked, disembarked and once we had smiled sweetly at the the nice Dutch border officer and assured him that of course we were only staying for 90 days, we were off!

In America we have have spent a whole week driving across a state. We were across the whole of The Netherlands and into Germany within two hours. Our feet did touch Dutch soil/tarmac once as we had a brief pitstop in a rest area, but otherwise this was going to be the limit of our time in this small country. Instead we were off to Düsseldorf for our first stop. Here we were seeing our new friend Anke who we had met with her sister, Meike, on a campsite in Lyon last September when we were all there for the Rugby World Cup. The fledgling friendship had been sealed by them gifting us a coveted collapsible washing up bowl, which we had named in their honour. Our farewells had included them uttering those foolish words “If you ever come to Düsseldorf, get in touch and we shall show you around”, and now, like it or not, we were on our way. Unfortunately Meike wasn’t in town during our visit, but we had arranged to meet Anke for dinner.

Our roost for the next two nights was a car park right on the banks of the Rhine/Rhein, only a ten minute walk from the Alt Stadt, the old town. After a very wet start to the year the river was in full flow and was busy with barge traffic going in both directions. Boats travelling up river made very slow progress, laboriously pushing against the raging torrent, down river they were flying and it was a miracle they had any control at all. We passed several hours just watching them.

It was great to catch up with Anke again. She speaks excellent English and is great company. Despite having a sore knee she stoically gave us a guided tour around the Alt Stadt. This took in the market, a local mustard shop and a quintiscential Düsseldorf bar, Uerige. Here they sell mostly the local brew, Alt, a copper beer neither an ale or lager. It is a hybrid. It is made with the pale malts and Saaz hops of a classic German Pilsner, plus some darker roasted grains. Then it employs an aggressive, top-fermenting ale yeast that attenuates the wort completely to reduce the sweetness. (Beer Geek 1001). Anyway, the beer is served in small 200ml servings by waiters walking around with trays laden with the pre-poured, froth-topped glasses. Empty glasses are continually and automatically replaced by full ones, unless you indicate for them to stop being delivered, with a running tally being marked with a felt-tip pen onto one of the beer mats on the table. So simple and tickled Nick enormously. There is a similar tradition in Cologne/Köln, the nearby, rival, up-river city. Their local beer is lighter in colour although apparently tastes very similar. Dinner was in an Argentinian steak restaurant where Anke’s family are well known, which is her explanation for hugging the manager on our arrival! We forgave her the non-German choice of fayre as the tapas-style starters were delicious and the steak was divine. After dinner she insisted that we sample another local delicacy – Killepitsch. This is a full strength herbal liqueur served in red plastic souvenir shot glasses from a ‘hole-in-the-wall’ window on the side of a bar. It is dark brown, sweet and will put hairs on your chest -and possibly on the inside of your stomach too. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, we all opted out of a late night as we were still in recovery mode and Anke was working the next day, and we made plans to meet for brunch on Thursday, which was to be a public holiday.

The next day we did our usual thing of ‘walking around a lot’ We had no real agenda or hit list of things to see. It was misty and cool and we found ourselves exploring the docks and their industrial area. It wasn’t the most scenic of perambulations but it is always interesting to see the parts of a place that explain what makes it tick and what it is founded on. We finally found our way back to the Alt Stadt and refuelled in the market with some very delicious Bao buns. So far our food choices had been fairly un-German. We continued to explore the city centre, which included many designer stores that we bypassed. There is obviously some money in Düsseldorf judging by the shopping and the cars that we saw. On the topic of money, one very unexpected thing that we discovered about Germany is that is is being very slow to embrace contactless payments. In many places they do not even accept card payments at all and cash remains king. This is disconcerting as I have finally started to use ApplePay regularly and really am not used to having to scrabble around for real-life money. Our trips to ATMs will need to be much more regular.

Back at Davide we did some more boat watching and had a 6 o’clock beer sat on a low wall on the promenade. The sun was shining by now and it had warmed up considerably. There was an air of ‘Friday night’ as people were heading home, or coming into town on the eve of the public holiday. This had been a great start to the trip. The next morning we drove about 7km to a suburb village down river of the city called Kaiserswerth. We met Anke again, walked through a lovely riverside park, saw some castle ruins and the old town, and had an enormous plate each of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for brunch. Very lovely. It was then unfortunately time to say our goodbyes to Anke again, but we have a vague plan to meet up again later in the summer down in the south somewhere.

Our next destination was Hannover. Reached easily by thumping along one of the huge network of very well maintained and free autobahns. The Germans mostly drive very well and there was not much swearing from my driver at all. As many of you will know, large parts of the autobahn network has unrestricted speed limits and there is only a problem with driving fast if you stuff it up. On a practical note, this means that when performing a slightly lumbering overtaking manouvre in a laden van cars can appear suddenly in your rearview mirror – when only a split second earlier there whad been empty space. Another curiosity of Germany is that heavy commercial trucks cannot drive between midnight and 10pm on Sundays or public holidays, such as today. This meant that the roads were clearer but that all the rest stops and service stations were all chock-a-block with trucks which were parked up and waiting to get back on the road, often partially blocking fuel pumps and thoroughfares. It was chaos.

In Hannover, selected purely because it was equidistant between Düsseldorf and our next stop, Berlin, on the A2 autobahn, we stopped in one of the Northern districts which had a dedicated motorhome stop – a Stellplatz. Here we could plug in, get water and dispose of waste. Important to do every few days. There was a tram stop right outside the campsite but as there was also a fabulous network of bike lanes and bike paths we decided to break out the bikes instead and explore under our own steam. Our day of exploration took in the Royal Gardens of the Herrenhausen Palace, the 17th C summer residence of The House of Hanover. The palace itself was destroyed by a bombing raid by the RAF in 1943 and was modestly rebuilt between 2009 and 2013. The formal and informal gardens rival those of Versailles and were well worth a visit.

A bike path down a long avenue through the nearby Georgengarten Park took us to Hannover’s Alt Stadt and we spent some time wandering the streets and squares looking at the old buildings and churches. Our meanderings were significantly influenced by hunger pangs and we found ourself in the covered market which was a temple to food and drink. We just couldn’t resist sharing a plate of bratwurst and chips with mustard and mayonaise, accompanied by some Pilsner. Finally! German food!

In the middle of town they have, slightly randomly, created a surf wave on the river and there was a constant supply of hardy souls who took their 10-30 second turns (depending on ability) to do a few tight turns on the 15ft wide wave, under the gaze of many tourists and passers by. The last surfers we watched were in Nazaré, Portugal.

A hop and a skip from the centre of the city is the 190 acre Maschee Lake, an artificial lake created by the digging out a river and surrounding marshlands in the 1930s. It is used for countless recreational watersports and has separate cycling and walking tracks around its perimeter. It looks like an amazing facility to have in the middle of the city. We cruised a lap and then headed home.

The next morning was Saturday and that can only mean one thing to a small section of society…..ParkRun! This trip was not to revolve around finding ParkRuns to do, my non-runner husband informed me, but if we happened to be in the vicinity of one on a Saturday morning, that was ok. I was in luck, Hannover had a ParkRun and it was in Georgengarten Park, where we had cycled through the day before. I think that Nick is a secret ParkRun fanboy, although he hides it well, so he insisted on coming with me. We headed off on the bikes in the morning and found the start with tons of time to spare. This was on that long avenue which was a rather grand setting. The briefing was helpfully in English as well as German and the field a modest 120, despite such a prestigious setting. I had a PB of just over 32 minutes and so, as Sally from Beverley declared, my ‘European ParkRun Adventure begins’. Sorry Nick!!

The morning’s fun was slightly marred by a flat tyre on one of the bikes. Luckily we had some of that foam stuff to do a temporary repair and fortuitously there was a bike shop on the way home which could do an inner tube change for us on the spot. The shop was co-located with a Seat car dealer and we sipped complimentary coffees and teas in the showroom lounge whilst we waited, which was a bit surreal. The bike shop, which was very new, then said that our repair would be free in exchange for a five star Google review. Yes. We can be bought.

We arrived home finally, had breakfast and a shower, then headed off back up the A2 towards Berlin.