Maisy scrapes her elbow.

An appropriate label for a tricky day.

Maisy puts in a burst of speed on the autobahn, touching at times - 53mph...

Monday was tricky. We'd all had great fun the day before cycling into Lindau and mooching about for hours people watching in cafe's and wandering about the lovely lakeside town.
The stelplatz at Lindau has no facilties so Gill took a shower in the van, muttering in irritation as she emerged that it had gone cold half way through. At first we put this down to our incompetence with settings on the van's Trumo gas boiler, but when the cooker would not light to boil the kettle for our first cup of the day we realised that our 11kg calor gas bottle was empty.

Now this was really annoying as the people we bought the van from had assured us that it came supplied with a full bottle and the amount we had utilised the van's gas powered facilities was minimal, especially as most of the time we'd used external facilities and cooked outside on the Cadac gas BBQ; no way should we have run out of gas.

Given that UK fittings are different to continental ones we now had a problem. So we decided to pack-up quickly, empty the grey water and chemical toilet facilities at the 'sanitary station', scoring another 'first' along the way by managing to figure out how to work the coin operated water and WC disposal unit. All good, as Gill is wont to say.

We asked Muriel to direct us to the nearest garage in the hope they would sell propane. Fortuitously it was situated right next to a supermarket sized camping shop. They were unable to help but directed us back down the lake to a village called Kressborn where there was a caravan servicing and sales outlet. En route we stopped off at a service station as we had not even managed a coffee yet. The very helpful young man behind the counter drew a map for us which was meant to direct us to the caravan place. Whether it was the young man's limited cartography skills or our poor navigation, but after a couple of trips around the delights of Kressborn without spotting the place we gave up and hatched a plan B. Gill remembered that when we were researching possible stelplatz to stay in before the trip she'd noticed that one of them in Fussen was situated in the car park of a camping shop. So that's where we headed.

The landscape between Bodensee and the Bavarian Alps is a mixture of pasture and conifer clad hills, reminiscent of the lower parts of the Black Forest. Although it's an 'A' road from Isny to Kempten, in parts it's narrow and much used by Hungarian trucks who bowl along towards you at breakneck speed very close to the white line. Every time one passed Maisy shuddered, buffeted by the slipstream. After one particularly close encounter Gill remarked, 'Can you tuck into the side a bit more, he was really close.' She would know as she was sitting just a couple of feet from the thundering truck. So next time one approached I slow and tucked Maisy as close to verge as possible. As the big artic swept by there was a sharp crack, like a pistol shot, then a sickening juddering sound. Luckily just a few yards up the road there was a patch of gravel and I pulled-up to inspect the damage. The truck had not actually hit us but the force of the slipstream cracked the inner pane of the window in the over cab bed area. Although the window looked closed the catches had not been shut fully.

A minor mishap really, as the outer glass and frame were unaffected. We all got gloomy though - no gas, now a broken window and Laura feeling sad because she felt responsible for her sleeping space. Initially I was annoyed but soon recognised that no matter what the circumstances you had to have a systemic check on the van before you moved anywhere, and that had to be the driver's responsibility; so if anyone had goofed it was me.

Approaching the Bavarian Alps

We soon found the stelplatz in Fussen. The guy in the campshop had a quick look at our gas bottle connections and suggested a solution. He could sell us a gas pipe which would fit our regulator but fitted German propane bottles. We had a spare space in the 'gas bottle cupboard'; the OBI DIY store just down the road would sell us the gas, a spanner of beauteous German manufacture, so after the correct period of male grunting, an extended outbreak of f-word over-use, lo and behold the gas supply was restored. The whole day had been as enjoyable as a maths lesson, no fun at all, but every one had learned something.


Is there anything quite so dispiriting in human existence as self improvement?