Following Dijon we
headed East just past the German boarder to the outskirts of Frieburg in
sizzling temperatures that I would suspect were in the high 30’s with 100%
humidity. It was such a hard drive in that heat, especially when you feel the
heat coming off the road, it does not seem like any point having your window
down. We checked into a camp ground to find the owner spoke very little English
so we had to work the facilities out for ourselves! This was the first time we
needed a token for the showers too, although we did not run out of hot water.
We also swam in their lake -a much nicer lake than the one in Dijon thankfully
and purchased our first sighting of a black forest slice-not the gateaux but a
version of. It was tasty but not outstanding sadly.
We decided to avoid
driving into Frieburg (as it is low emmisioned zoned and we were yet to work
out how to sort one of these stickers to prove LEZ compliance with Dusty) so continued
into the Black Forest, including down a very narrow road (suitable for one car
at a time) called the Witches path, which took us to Hexonloch. At Hexonloch we
stopped for lunch after being taken aback by the beautiful old house with an
old water wheel out front. It turned out to be the best thing about the Black
Forest, with us purchasing some tasty smoked ham, black forest gateaux (the
best I have ever had) and sharing some black forest trout and schnitzel. We
drove onto a small town called Furtwangen, which held the Deutsches uhrenmuseum
(the clock museum). We spent many hours walking around looking at clocks from
as early as 13th century and watching the many cuckoo clocks chime.
It discussed the concepts of Greenwich mean time and how it came to be, along
with astronomical clocks. We then moved onto Triberg, the home of the cuckoo
clock and after some mooching through the cuckoo clock stores, decided to stay
two nights at Schapbach. This campground was lovely and although we arrived
late, the owners were very welcoming and were able to answer our questions.
There was quite a crowd at the bar and restaurant and it turned out there was a
charity event night to fundraise for some people who were poorly. This worked
to our advantage as when we asked about LEZ compliance, the local mechanic
popped in and filled in the required paperwork for us for a fiver. Given he was
meant to inspect Dusty fully (but was satisfied with a quick look under the
hood and confirmation it was a petrol) we gave him double for his efforts (it
was Saturday night after all!). We were pretty stoked as this meant we could go
into any city with no worries of fines. But this wasn’t the only reason why the
campground was lovely, the showers were new with great water pressure, the facilities
were spotless and all the minor details that were often missing at other
campgrounds were there; soap, toilet seats, hooks and benches in the showers.
Small comforts! Not to mention a TV to watch our first glimpses of the London
Olympics-we happily watched swimming, sailing and table tennis highlights and
cheered on the Kiwis (and German’s) on TV.
We spent the next day
resting at the campground, with James feeling sick with a tummy ache. Poor
man-I did not expect him to get sick first! He slept until 4.30pm and when he
woke (it took a few prods) he was feeling much better. Perhaps too much smoked
ham? I am not sure but we made the most of the rest of the day by walking to
Germany’s largest waterfall in Triberg and taking photos of the red squirrels
and nut cracker birds moving around us. It was great and reminded us of a NZ
forest walk (minus these animals!). On the way back we also discovered the
original largest cuckoo clock, followed by its predecessor –basically a whole
wall of the cuckoo clock store was dedicated to it. On all of these shop walls
were many shows where you paid a machine to watch the event, inclusive of the
status dancing-probably best summed up by the photos. We drove home and enjoyed
some German sausages for dinner.
