So near and yet so far – approx 30 miles from BB, they completely shut the motorway near Pforzheim, and I was stuck there for 3 hours. Reminded with 2 visits that the onboard loo is why I’v got a campervan. Then the sky went completely dark and grey and the first real rain of the last 3 weeks came down. Rather miserable.
I managed to get off at the junction near the closure, and go somewhere completely in the opposite direction to the diversion. This somewhere is a stellplatz in a small town called Muhlacker and I think I was lucky to get one of the 5 designated bays as 2 other vans have had to go elsewhere. I arrived at about 4pm, vehicled-out having been on the road since 7:30.
What’s interesting about these park-ups is the diversity of tribe membership of the occupants who change daily. Today I have a works van/camper on one side, and on the other 2 young parents in an old duct-taped VW type thing, plus a mini works van, with their two pre-school children. Beyond their pitch, there are the older (than I ??!! 😄) German couple in their well-heeled motorhome with electric bikes on the back. Yesterday, there was a van from Denmark, a German woman who with her van looked like a van-lifer, me, a single elderly man in his significant ‘A’-class van (a caravan with an engine) who helped me out by paying the parking fee with his card in exchange for my cash. These places are located in all sorts of situations, and in many cases in ‘nice’ residential areas. I don’t believe they would be tolerated by home-owners in the UK, and also interesting is that I haven’t come across ‘traveller’ peoples staying there.
The weather forecast for tomorrow is mostly rain, BB is going abit south, and devoid of campsites other than the base of my last failed attempt to reach the town in the company of my sister. That’s a pre-blog trip full of various happenings, which could be the subject of another post sometime. I don’t fancy doing the 24-mile cycle ride in the rain, and I do fancy the more space of a campsite pitch this time, so will head north and west going via Luxembourg, France’s Charleville-Mezieres (of eventful trip fame), and Belgium, ready for reaching Dunkerque Friday.