Nordhorn Germany

Today we head toward Hamburg, we have decided not to rush and make a couple of stops on the way. Steven has loaded all the German Motorhome “Stellplatz” sites onto the laptop and into Microsoft Autoroute. This is much easier to use when planning than the GPS and we can see all the motorhome overnight parking areas along or near any route. Today we picked a Stellplatz by a lake just outside Nordhorn Germany.

The drive today through Belgium went well and mostly on the motor way in the lane designated for Lorries and vans over 3.500kgs. The landscape was mostly agriculture and cattle grazing. Soon we were driving through the border into The Netherlands taking in the scenes of canals, wide rivers with cargo barges, wind turbines and again landscape mostly agricultural crops, all picturesque. Took the opportunity to fill the tank with cheaper diesel before the German border.

Trish took the opportunity while Steven driving to study the different regulations for countries we were going through, road signs and motoring regulations from our travel guide books.

The fridge is now working well on gas and will now freeze things in the freezer a huge improvement!

We arrived in the stellplatz around 3pm. Found the pay and display machine E$5.00 for 24 hours. There is also water and waste diposal point here.

After setting up and walked across the road to the Pier 99 restaurant by the lake. Had some coffee, beer and frites this was enough to get us the password for internet access on the phone and check emails.

A late evening stroll into town for an hour or so (about 500mts away) and through mall area to get our bearings and back to the Hymermobile for the night. The town has a great feel about it.

The town lies in southwesternmost Lower Saxony, near the border with the Netherlands and the boundary with North Rhine-Westphalia, on the river Vechte. One story holds that the town’s name – which means “North Horn” – came about when the town was under attack, in which case a horn – the so-called Nothorn or emergency horn – was blown by the watchmen to warn the Vechteinsel (Vechte Island) inhabitants and also to call for help. Since the town lay north of Bentheim and its castle, it is said that this yielded the name Nordhorn.

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There was no Wi-Fi signal at the stellplaz and Steven had some work to do so it was out with gadgets we brought with us. High gain Wi-Fi antenna on the roof connected to a 2 watt Wi-Fi amplifier and hi gain Wi-Fi stick- and voila internet from the Pier 99 restaurant about 300 meters away.

Steven spent the next morning (9 Jun 11) trying to fix the radio/navigator. We bought a double adapter for the cigarette lighter unfortunately it blew the fuse for the lighter and radio/navigator. An easy fix the bad news is that the radio/navigator now needs the code to be entered. The Hymer came with lots of documentation for everything except the code for the radio!! This could be a challenge for Steven to fix!!

After lunch we explored the town when everything was open. What a nice town this is.

No one is rushing; most people ride bicycle’s everywhere so there is little motorised traffic. We had lunch in a type of fast food outlet as Steven had to try the local favourite of curryworst and frites. This was a type of sausage (more like a pork frankfurter with a sausage skin) with lashings of ketchup, French fries, dollop of mayonnaise on top and curry powder liberally sprinkled over the lot. We watched a busker in the pedestrian mall opposite playing a guitar and singing western songs. Fortunately Trish can eat frites. We sat here for a while just people watching and enjoying the town.

On the way to the supermarket Trish scored a very trendy coat J