Europe

Friday 9th November 2007 Daphne, Edinburgh
We woke up early to a clear sky and stars. We packed u in the dark, and it was so cold the zip on the tent wouldn’t close and our hands wouldn’t work. It took us half an hour of warming the zip with water to get to close. By then it had started to sleet. We traveled towards Calais and the Channel Tunnel as we wanted to experience it rather than go over another ferry. The procedure was very slick and smoothe and we drove straight onto the train into linked coaches and along the train till we were told to stop. As we went through the tunnel our ears clicked from the pressure, and the trip was quite bumpy as they had not had time to pump up the stabilizers (they apologized). At Dover we drove off with no stopping as our passports had been checked in Calais. All this time in Europe we went through borders with no border posts. Not once did anyone ask for or require the carnet or any car papers or insurance.
We drove towards London and met with Sam of Easy Shipping Limited. We parted with our Landy at Southampton which had done us so well, being our home and transport, with so little trouble and only two punctures, and so ended our trip of eight months through Africa and Europe. We now go to Daphne in Scotland and then fly home to our family.


Thursday 8th November 2007 Farm camping, France
We left the hotel very early in the dark (it got light after 8am), having decided we have seen enough of Europe for now as the weather is not favourable. We traveled past Baden-Baden (Kargs origin) and Heidelberg (Laue origin). Lots of vineyards around Baden-Baden. The country in south Germany is very industrialized, so we are glad our ancestors emigrated to SA. As we entered Luxembourg the land was flatter, there were less forests and farms looked larger. Luxembourg was similar to Belgium except the price of fuel was R10/l whereas in Germany and Belgium was R14/l.In Belgium the farming changed to neat, fenced-off larger farms. The cattle were mainly Charolais crosses, shorthorns and frieslands. The cattle were very fat. Belgium seemed far less populated than Germany. The animals were grazing whereas before they were housed, with no fences in the fields. (Bearing in mind that these opinions were formed from the view of the Landy on freeways, and we haven’t really given these countries much time, and our impressions are open to review.) Belgium looks a nice peaceful place to farm. Then we went into France with large farms, big tractors (100KWatt+), lots of implements, big barns, large herds of cattle grazing. No wonder Germany wanted France. We didn’t find that the vehicle drivers were impatient or aggressive.
We found a farm camp to sleep. We knew after an hour that we had made the wrong decision to camp as it started to rain bitterly cold rain (dropped down to 4deg) and the wind blew hard, but by then we had cooked and eaten our last meat (camel from Libya), we were back in our own little home in bed in the tent and had one of the best nights sleep for long time.


Wednesday 7th November 2007 Hotel Rezidenz, Pforzheim, Germany
We spoke to the 80 year old father on the farm and he very proudly told us that 40yrs ago he exported a Pinzgaur bull to South Africa. It had snowed during the night and Landy had 6cm of snow on her. On the way to Germany it rained. Yesterday the scenery changed magically from green and gold to white and geys. Today as we dropped in altitude it changed again, back to green and gold.
At first there were mountains similar to Austria, but Germany isn’t as neat and tidy or as pretty as Austria. As we neared Munich, the land flattened out and the fantastically flat farmland was planted to maize, wheat, ryegrass, and sugarbeet. Germany’s small villages are big towns and cities. The highways are absolutely packed with cars and there were at least 3 traffic jams of more than 10Km long on the east-bound 3-laned double autobahn. We were traveling westwards, and there were certain sections with no speed restrictions and some cars passed us going over 160Km/hr. Drivers here seem tense and Landy got hooted at quite often (and quite unnecessarily) in an aggressive manner, quite unlike the hooting in Africa, which was more informative than derisive. When we first arrived in Germany, there were so many signs off the Autobahns directing us to Ausfahrt, that we thought “All roads lead to Ausfahrt”, until we realized that Ausfahrt meant exit!

Tuesday 6th November 2007, Holts Farm B&B near Salzburg, Austria
We left the apartment in Slovenia and traveled towards Austria. At the border we went through a tunnel under the Alps from Slovenia to Austria of 8.4Km. Still no problems with going from one country to another, they just look at the passports and let us through. Austria is just like the postcards you always see. Can it get any more beautiful? Austria is similar to Slovenia but better. Our journey has been like taking little steps up from third world to first world, every country a bit more organized, a bit cleaner, farmed a bit better. We climbed towards the Alps at nearly 2000m, it got to -4deg, snowing and the snow was lying 30cm in places. We jumped out and had a snow ball fight for two snowballs and then jumped back inside the Landy. Having been through places like Sudan at over 50 deg, we weren’t really equipped or dressed to play in -4deg. All the hotels and apartments were closed as the season hadn’t started so we couldn’t get a place to stay up there in the mountains. The snow machines were switched on and were making extra snow for the ski runs.
We found a B&B on a dairy farm near Salzburg where all (40 Siementalers) of his cattle are housed for 7 months of the year, and he is considered one of the biggest dairy farmers in Austria. The farmer and his son are the only workers and milk with 4 machines. They get R4/l for their milk. Diesel costs R12/l.