Homeward Bound!

Thursday November 20, 2014

The time finally arrived when we have to leave the Adriatic and Croatia and head "home" – home being where Kate, Paul and Amelia live, rather than our home which is currently the caravan which is with us wherever we might be!

There has been a change in the weather this week, with some heavy rain and thunder and lightning, particularly at night. It's quite frightening within the thin walls of a caravan. Not only can you hear it louder, but you can physically feel it!

But we had one day when the weather was really good, and we sat outside and had a very enjoyable lunch in the sun in Split. Typically the day we planned to leave was forecast to be sunny all day, with temperatures rising to 20 degrees by midday. Never mind, I was thinking it would be better to have a long drive in good weather, although as it happened this didn't last as long as I had hoped, once we headed inland.

Having set the alarm (for 6) which doesn't happen very often nowadays, I didn't feel I slept much until the alarm started when it was difficult to wake up! We left the site at 8 and joined the morning traffic. The first 20 minutes was on a slow road and involved driving a route which climbed from sea level to about 1000 feet, and joined the A1 motorway. This toll road runs parallel to the coast, some 10 miles inland, for 80 miles northwest from where we joined it, before turning towards Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.

As forecast, between the mountains and the coast the sky was completely clear of any cloud for the first few hours, and with the road so quiet in both directions it was a very enjoyable start to the day, and we were able to enjoy the scenery of rolling, green hills, and very few buildings of any sort.



The A1 motorway near the coast at this time of year is very quiet, but I doubt it would be the same in the height of summer.

If you see a crocodile bear or wolf, don't forget to scream!

We had seen a service area overlooking a lake on the journey south to Split, and had decided to stop on the way back for a look.




This has to be one of the most scenic stops on any motorway we have ever driven on.







The views are amazing.
The service area has clearly been designed to allow travelers to appreciate it. With a planned 8 hour drive, a 30 minute stop so early in the day was a bit of a delay but well worth it.





I've found out since that it's not a lake but the Krka Ria, created by the submergence of the riverbed after the rise of the Adriatic sea level after the last ice age.

Just before the A1 turns inland, it descends back down to just above sea level near Zadar, and the exit to Pag Island where we had stayed a few weeks before, with the start of a very steep climb, from just above sea level to 2000 feet in 14 miles and 15 minutes at our towing speed. This was via two long sweeping hairpin bends and a series of tunnels, the last of which was 3.6 miles long.

The motorway there was steeper than any motorway we had driven on with the caravan in Austria, where the climbs are over much longer distances, even at the highest point of 5000 feet.

The other remarkable thing about the tunnel on the Croatian A1 was that we went into it with blue skies and an outside temperature of 17 centigrade, and came out of it into thick fog with a temperature of 4 centigrade. In fact the frost warning on the car "dinged" and within 10 miles we had passed a truck salting the road.

The fog and cold stayed with us for most of the day in varying thickness, although later on we did drive through another long tunnel where at the end the temperature had risen to 12 centigrade, but this "warmth" lasted less than an hour. I guess this is because the motorway continues at a highish level to Zagreb, and onwards towards Slovenia and Austria.

The fog was disappointing as we obviously couldn't see much after the first few hours. It was nearly dark by 4, as we approached our destination of Dovje near the border between Austria and Slovenia, but suddenly the fog disappeared and the sky was clear, allowing the last 20 minutes of the journey to be completed with views of snow-capped mountains.

It is many years since we have had any car journey that long in one day, and we always knew that this would be the longest drive with the caravan we had ever done at 603 kilometres – 375 miles – taking 9 hours. It was not to race back to the UK, but at this time of year there are not many sites open. There is a clear advantage for our friends and family with motor homes who can pull into service stations and rest up. Not quite so easy with a caravan. But with roads so quiet in Croatia and Slovenia it was a really enjoyable drive.

But having got that journey out of the way we are now nearly a third of the way to Calais, with 4 more planned stops of at least 2 nights, and the longest day just 260 miles. It's been a great trip but we are now homeward bound.

So what’s the plan now?

Thursday November 6th, 2014

In the last week or so, I have had a few email exchanges with people I worked with up until I retired last year. I don't miss work, but I do miss the social aspects that working allowed, and friendships that went beyond the workplace.

I'm sure Richard won't mind me using most of the email I recently sent him as the basis of this particular blog post. He was telling me that his young boys keep him busy, and the boys' granddad gets quite tired after a visit to them in Derby. That is something we always find with Amelia - after a day or even a few hours with her, physically and mentally, it's very demanding!

As a 24 hour job I am sure the parents of young children think so even more!

But we are not complaining - what we would give to have her with us for a few hours so far away in Croatia! We had thought about flying back from Stuttgart or Munich for a short visit, but we would have had to go to Gatwick or Heathrow, and then hire a car to get to Southampton, so we reluctantly decided against it. 

I have found out since we've been here, that there is a Ryanair flight twice a week from Stanstead to Zadar, which is about 50 kms from where we are at the moment. I looked at prices in May 2015 and you can get a return flight for £75. Makes us wonder why we dragged 2 tonnes of caravan through Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia to get here! Of course we really know the answer to that - we love the flexibility and independence we have in what we are doing! Married life has its moments in a confined space, but we are generally enjoying it. 

It's great to get up and open the blinds to see the sea just 15 metres away. The site is in a sheltered bay, and the water has been flat calm in the 10 days we have been there but right now a storm is building up and it's great to hear waves breaking on the beach. And we have had some great sightseeing. I haven't really kept up with this blog. We have done a lot more than the blog reflects!

 

Richard asked what Croatia is like. I am a bit like him – I wasn't too sure other than what I had seen on television. I said to Gail while driving through Slovenia and Croatia, along a very nice motorway with very little traffic, and no roadworks, that unlike Germany and Austria, other than the capital cities, the city and town names on signs - Trebnje, Jastrebarsko, Karlovac, Zadar, meant absolutely nothing to us. 

Obviously people think about the war that happened here and in Serbia and Bosnia, and the terrible things that happened during those difficult years. 

Although it was not really that long ago, it seems to be a period in their history that is now well in the past. Like Slovenia, Croatia is now a member state of the EU, with Serbia waiting for entry.

The locals are friendly, and certainly in tourist areas eager to make you welcome.

We took a trip inland last week to see some really beautiful lakes and waterfalls - Plitvice Lakes National Park - and stayed in a nice hotel for the night. That was clearly a popular tourist area with loads of hotels, guest houses, and campsites which in the summer are probably packed with locals, Slovenians, Austrians, Germans. . . 

Even this type of year, there are coach loads of Asians with their cameras taking selfies who. . . - no - leave it there Mike!

 

When we were driving back from Plitvice Lakes to the coast and the caravan, we noticed a big area with barbed wire around and 2 tanks beside the road, just a dozen miles from the Bosnian border. There was also a graveyard with maybe a hundred headstones. 

We didn't stop, but when we got back I looked the area up – Udbina - and found that the local airport was under the control of the Serbian forces during the Croatian War of Independence. 

The local airport was used as an airbase for offensive operations against Croatia and Bosnia, in direct defiance of NATO's "Operation Deny Flight". The airstrip was eventually disabled by a 39 aircraft strike on 21 November 1994.

(Udbina. (September 9, 2014). In Wikipedia. 
Retrieved November 6, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Udbina&oldid=624828037 )

Before the war, and while the region was still Yugoslavia it was becoming a popular place to visit, particularly the coastal resorts and places like Dubrovnik. The war put an abrupt hold on that, and I don't think the Brits have quite caught up with the area again in the same way the Germans certainly have! Although I may be contradicting myself having said Ryanair fly to several airports in Croatia from the UK, but of course a lot of Germany is reachable in a long day's drive from here at least. The area we are in now, Pag Island, is very remote, but there are villas with pools being built as well as hotels and new bars etc. It is very much a summer resort, although we are enjoying having a massive site more or less to ourselves. There are several bars and restaurants on site - all shut for winter. But the next big villages – 10 miles North and 8 miles South - have a few bars and restaurants still open for the locals as well as the few tourists like us still braving it. Most of the locals seem wrapped up for winter, but yesterday was sunny and 19 centigrade which was good for a bit of sunbathing in the middle of the day at least. At night the temperature stays at 18. The beaches around here are gravelly but while it was calm the water was so clear. Not that I have been in more than once - bit cold for me! Bet it was warmer a month or so ago.

It's quite cheap to stay here with beer at £2 pint and diesel a pound a litre. We were a bit hesitant at first but Croatia has its own wines! While we were in the nice hotel near the lakes and waterfalls, we had a good and inexpensive meal, and the waiter recommended the house Croatian red. It was good. We got the name - Plavac - and will probably put a few boxes of it (at £3 litre) on the roof of the caravan to bring back. . .

And this site is costing us just 120 euros for 14 days. We had thought about staying here longer but it is remote, and we have about done all there is to do at this time of year. So we have found another site open all year and will drive the 125 miles south to Split on Sunday.

The other advantage is that we are then half way to Dubrovnik where we plan to have a couple of nights in a hotel; and the other advantage is that we are closer to the motorway network before the first leg of 377 miles of our 1300 mile journey north on Thursday November 20.

We will drive more or less the same way we came with one or 2 nights in each site in North Slovenia, Bavaria, Black Forest, and then go North West to the Western end of the River Moselle instead of returning to Northern Germany which we did on the way down 
We are going to have five nights in the Bernkastel-Kues area to enjoy the Christmas markets; then back to Bruges and on to the Tunnel on December 3. 

We are then still in the caravan for a few weeks in the New Forest before putting it in storage for a while, and we are having a few weeks in the Premier Inn near Kate's over Christmas. Then we plan a "proper holiday" all of January, followed by a few more weeks in the New Forest in the caravan. After that we think we may go to Portugal – catching a ferry to Northern Spain to cut down on the driving. Since we left the UK in September, the car has done over 4000 miles, and we still have another couple of thousand to go before we are "home". It needs a rest.

I am reluctant to tempt fate – but the car has been going very well. . . A few bulbs failed– I had to get an indicator changed at a VW dealer in Koblenz. Although there is a tool in the boot to remove the headlamp fitting, I could not get it to work. Thought it was going to be yet another big bill. But only 4 euros 50 for the bulb – free fitting! 
Then in Bavaria a brake light failed – again an offer of free fitting but done that myself once before so no big deal there. 
And then while we were here in Croatia a headlight went! And headlights on all the time is compulsory here, which is a bit strange in a country with so much sun! So I had to get it done at the nearest VW dealer - in Zadar – 60 kilometres away. But cost wise pretty painless. So far so good on this trip . . .

We are beginning to look forward to the return. Only 4 weeks! We try and speak to Kate, Paul and Amelia on Facetime once a week, but understandably it is not always easy to keep Amelia's attention!

But still nice to be able to see them even if only digitally! We have been lucky to have had WiFi at every site, and this one is free with 4 Mbps which is brilliant with no other campers wanting it!

The site in Dovje, Slovenia was also free - and 14 Mbps. Fast!

 

Vorsprung Durch Technik, Herr Dyson.

Tuesday October 21st, 2014

We are coming to the end of a month in Germany. It originally started just as a short visit to where I lived as a child, but involved several diversions, and where we planned to stay in various places for just a few nights on our way South, we have ended up staying longer. 

We leave this site at Inzell, near the Germany / Austria border in a few days. We booked in for 2 nights, and we will have been here for 11 nights on the day we set off again
.
That probably summarises what a good time we have had in Germany!

Even after working with German colleagues for 12 years, my misconceptions and generalisations of Germany have changed even more for the better.

German manufacturers do make some of the best cars in the world!

The German autobahns are no better than our Motorways 

for road works and traffic jams and bad drivers.

German beer is nearly as good as British beer. 

 There are lots of beautiful castles in Germany. 

 

Great Britain clearly makes the best hand dryers in the world.
They are everywhere!

 Vorsprung Durch Technik, Herr Dyson.

 

Return to Hamelin, and the Eder and Möhne Dams (Part 2)

Part 2 has taken an effort to complete!
The caravan has been in the UK all year.
But we have still done our share of travelling around Europe and North America - without the caravan
- and around the UK, with the caravan.

And every new place seems to give us less free time.

But that’s not a bad thing.
It’s good to be busy without thinking about work.

As I wrote in Part 1 of this post, while we were in Germany, Gail and I also visited some of the destinations I remember from my childhood in Detmold.
Towns like Hamelin, and also the Möhne and Eder lakes and dams, were some of the places to go for a day trip.

Part 1 was all about Hamelin – Part 2 covers our visits to the Möhnesee and Edersee, and the famous dams.

The broad plan was to do as I had done as a child and, from Detmold, have a day trip to the Möhne dam and then a second day trip to the Eder dam.
But looking at the map, and thinking of the goal of getting South, and ultimately to Croatia, we firstly travelled with the caravan 50 miles South to Brilon.
From there the Möhnesee is 25 miles to the West, and the Edersee 40 miles to the South East.

Our first day trip from Brilon was to the Edersee.
It is a very pretty and large reservoir, surrounded by wooded hills.
It was this aspect that made the bombing of the dams in May 1943, such a challenge to the so-called Dambusters.
Although I remember visiting in the 60’s, the dam then was not such a visitor attraction.
I am thinking back 55 years.
Of course in 1960 it was just 15 years after the end of the Second World War, so it is easy to understand that wartime events associated with such constructions would rather be forgotten or avoided.

Today there is a gift shop and a museum,
and the lake is used for boating and boat trips.

We didn’t visit the museum,
but the advertising board clearly acknowledges the raid on the dam.

As we started to go away from the Eder dam to head back to Brilon, although stopping is prohibited, as it was quiet I quickly stopped to take a quick photo. 

Some weeks later back in the UK, I found an old photo mum must have taken of us all those years ago.
Parking restrictions must have been non-existent, and cars few enough to allow three young children to pose for the photo.
There are a few more trees around now!

This was just a mile away from Edersee – clearly an indication of modern day tourism!

Return to Hamelin, and the Eder and Mohne Dams (Part 1)

As I said in a previous post, while we were in Detmold, Gail and I also visited the some of the destinations I remember from my childhood. Towns like Hamelin, and also the Mohne and Eder dams, were some of the places to go for a day trip.

I remember Hamelin as a small town in the 1960’s, and don’t remember it as the sprawl that we saw on our visit. But certainly now, as then, the centre of the town has some beautiful traditional buildings. 

The town attracts nearly four million tourists a year mainly because of the world famous medieval legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. 

We bought a copy of the story in English thinking we could give this to Amelia when she gets older. I don't remember if I thought about it as a child, but reading the story again now, parental guidance is necessary! A story where all the children are led away by a strange man, never to be seen again, and nobody really knows where they went is really the stuff of nightmares. But the bit where the Pied Piper does what he promises, only for the politicians of the town to break their promise, still rings true.

Although the main visitor season had passed there were still a lot of people around, and we had a wander around looking at the traditional buildings, and spotting the brass rats in the pavement, 

and then waited, over a beer, for the twice daily ringing of the glockenspiel bells and the carousel of twirling Pied Piper figures at the Hochzeitshaus.

That was Hamelin – our visit to the Mohne and Eder dams next time.

The Browns, 18a Niedersachsen Strasse, Detmold

Thursday September 18^th, 2014

Just over 50 years ago, dad – Chief Petty Officer Bernard Edward George Brown – also known as Buster or Bomber - was posted from Lee-On-Solent, near Gosport, where the family were living at the time, to Detmold in Germany. 

Detmold is located just over an hour from Hannover, half an hour from Bielefeld, with Berlin 4 hours to the East, and Essen 2 hours to the West.

Although dad was Royal Navy – more precisely Fleet Air Arm – he and 2 other Chief Petty Officers were "on loan" to the Army Air Corps. I vaguely remember one was called Bill Sellars, and the other definitely Ernie Selwood. I went to school in Detmold with Ernie and Mary's daughters Yvonne, and Vivian. Both Ernie and dad were posted to Culdrose in Cornwall after Germany, and both generations all stayed friends. Vivian eventually married Keith in the year above me at Redruth Grammar school, and I worked with Yvonne in my first job at Lastonet in Redruth, Cornwall, and she had already married Tony. Everyone eventually moved away from Cornwall, but we all remained in contact for many years to follow.

Most Fleet Air Arm engineers had helicopter skills, whereas dad was "fixed wing". I am sure he had always said it was to train Army Air Corps engineers on small propeller planes like the Auster, but it could well have been the reverse. After a few months on his own, dad was able to arrange for the family to join him, and we all lived in a flat at the top of a German family's house in Horn, which is a village 10 minutes from Detmold. Soon after that we moved into a house on a married quarter estate in Detmold, on the edge of the Army/Army Air Corps base. 

The perimeter fence of the base (Hobart Barracks) was in front of where we lived, and there was a footpath which skirted the fence taking us to the gatehouse and then into the base where the school was located, as well as shops, and even a cinema. Of course there were lots of Conqueror, Chieftain and Challenger tanks, helicopters, and planes, as well as barracks for the soldiers and airmen who were among the tens of thousands of British, American and Canadian forces based throughout West Germany during the Cold War. The NATO forces were always seen as a possible delaying factor to an invasion by Russia and the Warsaw Pact countries, with 6000 NATO tanks heavily outnumbered by 50,000 Warsaw Pact tanks, although it was always debatable how many of these might have worked effectively! But there were enough to worry about. . .
 

Dad and Charlie Cable

As children we had little concerns about the Cold War, but I always remember the locals being a little concerned, especially when they saw dad in his Royal Navy uniform, which looked very much like a Russian uniform, and particularly when they were so used to khaki uniforms!

 
I also remember having concerns about dad's gas mask. This was always under the stairs with dad's kitbag, and we were allowed to try it on, but with dad saying "It is not a toy". I remember asking what is was for, and getting some sort of reassuring answer, but at the same time asking him that if he needed a gas mask why didn't mum and us children have one?

Like all the dads, our dad was often away for days at a time on military exercises. I remember one particular time when we were all woken up in the middle of the night with bright search lights at the front of the house, and soldiers loading up trucks to take all the military "back to base". Many times we would ask when dad was coming home, and many years after that realised mum really did not know, and looking more worried than usual. I also remember the night (Friday November 22, 1963) when Kennedy was assasinated, and mum and dad worrying how that would affect things in Western Europe, while trying not to worry us children.

Today I wish I had asked mum and dad more about those times. . . – and other times.

It was always on my list to revisit Germany. I have been to Cologne many times with work, and also to Hamburg, and Frankfurt, and although Detmold is not on the usual tourist trail of Brits in Germany, we headed in that direction from Bruges.

We parked the caravan at the only site we could find in the area, a town called Lemgo, and on our first full day set out to see what I could remember from my childhood. I could certainly remember we lived at 18a Niedersachsen Strasse in Detmold – some things you never forget. Maybe it was mum sewing our address into our school clothes that did the trick. . . Putting the address into the SatNav we were amazed that it accepted it!

As we drove closer, I expected the area to be cleared and replaced with an Aldi or Lidl or both, but it was so strange to see the married quarters estate pretty much as it was in the 1960's. Trees were taller, and there were satellite dishes on roofs. 

I thought the skylights in the roof were new, but looking at an old photo once more, they were there in the 1960's.




 

All of the houses appeared empty – but not boarded up – and looked recently painted. Although all appeared unoccupied there was no sign of vandalism – which is something that you would expect in such a location in the UK. I parked the car in front of the house next to where the base perimeter fence used to be.

There are now expensive looking houses where that perimeter used to be, but the footpath I used to walk to school was there. With hindsight I should have taken a stroll along it, but just took a few photos.








On leaving the area of the house, we went out of the estate a different way to what we had come in. As we turned the corner, we saw a small area of grass and I remembered Santa Claus arriving by helicopter and landing on that grass. 





There is no way that would be allowed today – maybe it wasn't then – but it was great at the time for all of us. Of course, I knew that Santa Claus was actually our neighbour, and dad's Army Air Corps friend "Charlie Cable", but I didn't spoil it for my sister Lynda and baby brother Adrian! Now I remember my dad's Air Corps mate's name, but no idea who the children were, although they must have gone to school with us. But then they weren't Santa Claus were they?




Just to confirm - brother Adrian was still a baby - Lynda and I weren't far off! 

The photo above and right were taken at the back of 18a Niedersachsen Strasse in the 60's.






We then headed in the direction of where I thought the base was. The base is all public land and buildings now, with most of the buildings closed up, but many of the hangars have been taken over by businesses for commercial ventures. There was one business called Hangar 21 which I have since discovered holds cultural and entertainment events in a cleaned up hangar:
Hangar 21 


What was quite strange was that the control tower is also still standing. Land had been cleared on the edge of the base where there once would have been hangars, and a supermarket built, and there is a new road network being constructed near there. I would guess that in time the unused buildings will be cleared, and the area will change completely.






It was nice to see people walking their dogs on what was the airfield, and the area did still seem to have an edge of town feel. Maybe in the absence of any physical monument to remember the many thousands of British service men and women who served there in the Cold War, and of course the German Luftwaffe personnel who served there during the Second World War and before, it would be good if the land remained as a public open area. . .







That was stage one of the stroll down childhood memory lane, and we headed down into Detmold town itself. To be honest I don't remember much about the town other than the castle, which being a castle is still there. 

It's a pretty town, and after a stroll we found a nice bar, a bit trendy, 








but with outside seating in the sun to enjoy our first beer in Germany. 

Lunch was a little less enjoyable!

After picking up a few leaflets at the tourist office, the next place on the tour was Hermannsdenkmal. Whenever someone visited from the UK, this was one of the nearest interesting places to take them. As a child the statue was just an impressive statue, so going back 50 years later it was still an impressive statue, but I could now attach some very interesting history to its origin. I seem to remember dad being able to drive quite close to the statue, but there is now a massive car park (with charges!) and a reasonable stroll through the trees to the base of the statue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermannsdenkmal

From there the next visit on the tour was to Die Externsteine, which is a geological feature of 5 sandstone pillars, not far from Horn where we first lived in Germany. Again a popular place to take family from the UK when they visited. 

Nothing much has changed in 50 years – not surprising in rocks that have been there millions of years. But I seem to remember being able to see the rocks from the road where now you drive up to a car park and walk to the rocks. We had bought a joint ticket to climb up inside Hermannsdenkmal, and then to the top of Die Externsteine – but one climb in a day was enough to be honest!


It has taken some time to write this post, but in googling some of the places we have visited, and things we have done, it has been really interesting to find things that have changed. For example, at Die Externsteine in 1958 there were around 224,000 visitors a year, and I would guess this was around the same a few years later when we used to visit. This compares with visitor numbers of up to a million today, which probably explains the elaborate visitor displays, car parks, bar and restaurant that were not there in the 60's. And the reason why the road may have been routed away from the rocks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externsteine

It started to rain as we left Die Externsteine, but there was still enough of the day left to return into Detmold and find the Detmold Brauhaus and enjoy a "pint" of the local brew.

"Baby" brother Adrian suggested when we spoke recently that it must have been an emotional return. It was. But in a very positive way. Even as a 10 year old (at the oldest) we had some great times, and very happy times. It enabled us as a family to travel much more than we had ever done before. We had memorable camping holidays in Holland and Italy, and in travelling South to Italy, also visited Austria and Switzerland.
All in dad's Ford Taunus – VF 94 B ! Like the address in Detmold, I remember that too!
The only negative emotion is that they aren't around for me to ask questions about the time in Germany. . .

While we were in Detmold, Gail and I also visited some of the day-trip destinations I remember from my childhood there - Hamelin, and the Möhne and Eder dams, but it is best I leave those stories for another day.