We crossed the border and actually had a passport check. well two, one to leave Slovenia and one to enter Croatia. Two small sheds, back to back. Two men in the first, two women in the second. No stamp though, it’s all electronic these days.

Immediately there is a difference. Croatia feels poorer. Rubbish lining the roads, unattractive graffiti. The houses look unkempt and the roads are rutted. Looking past that, it’s still pretty. Very European with churches in every village and the bells ringing the hour. Seeing a lot more spring bulbs particularly daffodils. Today is a very balmy 20 degrees with spectacular blue skies but the forecast for tomorrow is 9 and showers so enjoying it while it lasts.

Again we’re avoiding the motorways and stopping in interesting towns. Today we parked and explored Varazdin. Starigrad is a feudal fortress built in the 11 century with moats, now dry, and embankments all around. The old town is over the drawbridge with its cobbled lanes, old buildings and charming squares. the town hall has been in use since 1531, New Zealand is so young! Multiple churches competing every hour to out toll each other with a cacophony of noise. It’s a Sunday so only bars & cafes are open and there are families out enjoying the day.

Nice coffee, even Greg didn’t complain.

I had a mental eye roll when the Dad at the table beside us reacted very swiftly when his toddler picked up something from the ground, swooping him up and wiping his fingers with anti-bacterial wipes while the cigarette in his mouth sent a swirl of smoke across the boys face. Everyone smokes.

Our site for the night is in the hills above Zagreb (capital of Croatia). The family (3 generations) have converted their farm to provide motor home sites and hire out a few motor homes. They run a shuttle service into Zagreb (€30) which we will take advantage of tomorrow. They greeted us with a basket of fresh bread and a plate of home cured meats & cheese. Just in time for a late lunch. There are hens pecking around our van and a randy rooster desperately trying to get some action. Small community, curtains twitch and people come out of their houses to watch us walking by. The son/dad/ 2nd generation of the family we are staying with speaks English but it doesn’t seem anyone else around here does. Even gestures failed with a lady trying to communicate something to Greg when he photographed the old Mercedes trucks in her front yard.

Greg’s photos from today….

I feel quite ignorant, I don’t know much about Slovenian history pre war. And I feel we should have planned a lot more time here. Maybe we’ll come back through heading north again.

What we have seen, and it’s been just the North East corner, is absolutely lovely. We’re a long way from the tourist areas. Even the Lonely Planet has no mention of this area. We jumped off the motorway in Ptuj, pronounced Pee-tui and spent a few hours exploring the old town up to the looming castle. Being a Saturday, lots of the shops were closed which may have lent itself to the sleepy feel. But the narrow cobblestone lanes promised secret discoveries around every bend. Greg was constantly stopping to take photos, some severe editing happened later.

We had coffee in a very quirky cafe. Very nice and cheap too. I’ve got to get Greg off having milk in his coffee, he’s always disappointed. He’s not going to get a flat white anywhere in Europe and he should stop trying and just ‘ do as in Rome’ and go Espresso. Anyway our coffees cost a grand total of €2.50!

We then traveled further up the Drava river to Ormoz where we’d planned to stay the night. Very oddly the speed limit was 70 through the tiny villages and 50 in between passing by the readied fields. Ormoz was another oldish town, not 15th century like Ptuj, and no castle but pretty in it’s own right. We’re right on the border with Croatia here. Thats tomorrow’s destination. We explored the local area, of course, with Greg taking lots of photos of an abandoned building on the riverside. So far he’s failed to get photos of the birds around here- camera shy! But the bird calls are quite different from home. Oh and we saw a squirrel but it was way to fast for us.

There is a winery just behind our site but unfortunately not open on the weekends. I had to make do with getting a bottle in the local supermarket. The grape is Sipon which is the local variety. Will likely open it tomorrow as we went to the local bar this evening and I was drinking a Slovenian Merlot at €0.90 a glass. Quite tasty once I warmed it up – served slightly chilled but that may just have been the weather. Greg tried the local beer, which he pronounced was quite good. The bar had wifi so some quick photo editing and he’s uploaded them to his page. I’m going to have to be very strict on the photos I add to this blog. Under the free plan there isn’t a lot of space. I should just link his page if I can.

Anyhow, back to the van and I whipped up a quick satay noodle dish, not the curry I was planning before we went to the bar, lol. We took advantage of a free washing machine that was available this morning so the van is looking like a Chinese laundry with clothes hanging everywhere. With the heat on, they’re nearly all dry. Greg’s doing the washing up as I type this. It really is a one person kitchen. I will get Greg to take some photos of our ‘van life’. It’s both spacious and cozy and works really well.

it’s a bit warmer down here…. no snow. High of 15 today with an overnight low of 9. Wind is still chilly but if you find a sheltered spot in the sun, it’s great. Onwards and upwards from here.

Loving the bread. Dense and full of flavour. Juicy tomatoes, crisp lettuce and yummy hummus on fresh, slightly warm from the oven bread for lunch – heaven!

First night in Austria we had picked a site beside a lake with free wifi and limited other services. Arriving there we found it was on the outskirts of a industrial town, wifi was patchy and it was not the most attractive place with nothing interesting within walking distance so we rolled the dice again and moved on. Second choice was a total winner. Firstly we drove along the Danube River past little villages and castles that were jaw-droppingly gorgeous then we wound our way up into the hills, tree filled valleys and high plateaus with quaint villages. We arrived in Schlossburg dominated by a grand Church, just amazing and so unlike home. We parked up and set off on foot to explore, Greg with camera in hand of course. We stopped in the local Gasthof for a drink, providing a conversation point for the regular locals, lol.

The next morning we moved on to Vienna. We took the A & B roads rather than the Motorway which , once out of the mountains continued to follow the Danube River. Makes the Waikato look like a creek! In Vienna we’d picked a fully serviced site with WC’s and showers, really enjoyed that, no water watching! In the morning we caught the very efficient ‘U’ train into the centre. Wandered down the main shopping street, unfortunately dominated by international brands plus Starbucks & MacDonalds, to the ‘Ring’. OMG! So many HUGE amazing old buildings. You don’t know which way to look. So much for not looking like a total tourist. We went into the Albertina and looked at paintings from Monet, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso and many others. I particularly liked Andy Warhol’s Mercedes-Benz work (lol) and a Franz Sedlacek, Mountain Landscape. I’d never even hears of Franz Sedlacek. But art isn’t really my thing, I just like what I like, regardless of provenance. We then wandered the streets and lanes getting ourselves lost regularly before finding ourselves back on a busy square. We checked out St Stephen’s Cathedral, a lot darker than other cathedrals we’ve seen. Concrete (I think) rather than timber or marble. Very sober.

Last night we parked up beside a river/ canal/ stream under a motorway bridge. Interspacing the paid with the free! Tonight will be our last night in Austria and we picked a place with wifi so we can upload photos & this blog.

We woke this morning to messages from the kids on the horrendous event that happened in Christchurch today. Both Greg and I are feeling quite shaken.

THIS IS NOT WHAT NEW ZEALAND IS ABOUT!

How can anyone feel they have the right to take another’s life. We are all humans, we are the same in every way. The only difference between us is cosmetic, as in the way we look or what we believe and we are all entitled to our opinions.

May our love for each other and the kiwi acceptance of our neighbours stop any retaliation or escalation from this event. We need to grieve together and let go of anger.

We’re being very very adaptable with the planning of our route. For example we were heading to the Czech Republic but looking at the weather and having had a couple of cold & wet or snowy days we’ve decided to head ‘South’ instead.

Every day we look ahead to a nice area, dependent on weather, distance and time, then open an app called Park4night and check out what’s available in that area. Some are free with no services, some free with coin operated services, ie electricity and water, some have a parking cost as well. Sometimes we want power, sometimes we need waste disposal, sometimes both. Then when we’ve picked a place that looks promising I send the driving directions to Google maps on my phone and program the address into the van’s built in GPS,or at least try too, mixed results so far. Sometimes I have to settle for the local town and use my phone from there. When we arrive, I check Google maps ‘explore’ option to see what’s around worth checking out. That’s how we found the Roman Fort in Welzheim and the 895 year old castle in Cadolzburg. If nothing appeals we just follow our nose. Like in Nittendorf where we wandered up river and stumbled on an amazing pine forest with mountain bike trails all through it. Very atmospheric in the snow flurries.

So far we’re averaging 2 to 3 hours driving each day and we’re staying in little villages, well off the tourist trail. It all seems quite foreign landscape – no fences, no livestock! Different bird calls. Different architecture. Language barriers but gestures are international.

It’s interesting to think about human ancestry. Languages seem to evolved from different local dialects because generally you can work things out in a written format. Western cultures anyway. And it does seem totally arrogant but English is certainly the dominant language. In any pub there will be someone wanting to talk to you. Anyway human behaviour is the same regardless.

I smile in the supermarkets to see ‘vegan’ prominently displayed on packaging. This movement is international! I can’t be sure we’re being totally pure because I can’t read the ingredients but we’re certainly not buying from the meat counters or the dairy fridges.

Cooking in the van, we have 2 elements only so one pot meals rule! Cooked a chickpea & cauli curry tonight so threw the par-cooked rice in the same pot. Other meals so far have been pastas and Mexican dishes but curries are winning with the cold. Bought a Bialetti coffee pot so we can have our oat milk coffees every day. Experimenting with the local beers & wines – some wins, some failures.

Getting to grips with the motor home or Wohnmobil. A full tank of water is lasting about 2 days so has become more of a priority. The toilet also is needing emptying every second day at the moment but should last longer when we get out and about more, as in when it’s warmer! The grey water tank is lasting 4 days weirdly enough. We bought an inverter so can charge all our devices (lol) and other electric items ie hearing aid chargers while we’re driving off the engine battery reducing the need to plug in to electricity. We’ve driven just over 600 km so far and used half a tank of diesel. Haven’t gone through the first gas/LPG/propane cylinder yet so no idea on how that lasts. The gas is for cooking and central heating plus the fridge is 3 way so if we’re off grid then it’s running off gas. When we can plug in to electricity it fully charges both batteries and we run the fridge off it, plus can plug in the laptop etc. It’s cold now so we’re using the central heating or ‘boiler’ in the evenings and overnight on the low setting for the last couple of nights. We need to keep the internal temperature above 3% for the gas to work, haha and for our own personal comfort. Living together in a small space hasn’t been a issue and we kind of have 3 rooms, living, bathroom & bedroom, all of which can be closed off from each other. The only issue is if someone is showering, then the other person cannot move through or get to the fridge but that just requires forward planning.

Greg’s doing all the driving and I’m navigating, each to their strengths. I’m doing the cooking and Greg’s doing the washing up if I don’t beat him to it, I enjoy having my hands in the warm water.

Greg’s taking a lot of photos, he is currently fascinated with German drain hole covers, gullideckels to be precise. Some Mercedes-Benz mag wheel designs were based on gullideckels, which explains his interest.

Well this is a ramble that’s ended up different from what I originally thought. Whatever, it’s my blog and I can do what I want.

I guess this deserves it’s own post after all we spent all day there. You know you’re getting close when the road are all named Mercedes-Benz variations or connections. And all the buildings have the 3 pointed star on them. It’s a massive area with even a football stadium. We drove around the museum a couple of times looking for some parking tall enough for the camper. In the end I went in and asked. A lovely gentleman directed me to a particular bus parking area. The museum itself is impressive and there are cleaners constantly wiping the floors. The cars on display start in the car Park! We entered through Mercedes-Benz Center where there are Classics on display for sale. €540000 for a replica Victoria. Some are suffering auf anfrage (price on enquiry. Free entry for Club members and the lift whisks you up to the 8th floor and you wind your way back down 9 levels to the basement following the Daimler and Benz stories in chronological order, picking up Jellinek on the 7th floor to add the Mercedes name to the mix. 5th floor brought a smile as I noted to Greg that of the 6 cars displayed, he’d driven 4 and sat in a 5th. The other 2 were a one off 300SLR which never went into production and a 300C – an absolutely gorgeous Car. And right at the bottom is the prototype cars including the orange C111 that Greg has talked about for so long then the racing cars including 722, the actual car that won the Mille Miglia in 1955. I must say the Museum production was very slick and the cars were presented beautifully. Greg has taken hundreds of photos, not surprisingly. So some serious editing required. Then he will post to his Greg’s Eye, Photography Facebook page and I will pick a small selection for here.

We’ve left Stuttgart now and are in a little village called Welzheim up in the hills. Not liking the weather forecast. Snow on Monday over quite a lot of the country. Hopefully it won’t settle. Didn’t really pack clothes for these sort of temperatures. Roll on spring please, there are daffodils and crocus around so surely the warmer weather can’t be far away. We’re going to head towards Czech Republic in the next few days.

Must buy a couple of wine glasses as We’re sitting here drinking red wine out of beer handles with dinner. The only other choice in the van being plastic tumblers. I’ve already bought a Bialetti Coffee maker. Funny how snobbish we are on our drink choices.

After dinner we wandered off to a quaint pub decorated like an underground cavern for a drink & company. Learned about Pub League Electronic Darts!

But firstly, the first day dramas. We landed in Munich at 6.30 am after a just over 12 hour flight and found our way by train to Pasing. I’d previously scoped out that there was a Vodafone shop here and it was as close as we could get by train to where we’d booked the motor home. We were early so had to wait for them to open then we purchased 2 SIM’s and voila we were online, well, 4g a month so will still hunt up wifi where we can. From there we caught a taxi out to this area just beside the motorway which is chocka with motorhome places, a McDonald’s and nothing else. Walked in to the place we’d booked with and asked for the gentleman we’d been dealing with. This was a friend of a friend of a friend situation and this particular business mostly sells new and used motorhomes. Anyhow he was on holiday and hadn’t told anyone else what he’d arranged. The boss was cc’ed in on some of the emails but he didn’t know details either. But they were like don’t worry, we will sorted this out. In about an hour they told us it would be a slightly different vehicle and it was being serviced and prepared straight away but would still take a few hours. So off we trotted to McDonalds for lunch. Vegetarian burger & curly fries! Different menu than from home. Things took longer than a few hours tho and it was 6pm and dark before we were taken down to the van and given information about how things worked by the service guy with a English translator. Needless to say there were a few holes. As it was so late and they couldn’t find the second key we drove across the road to a camp area and went back to MickeyD’s for dinner. Next morning we practiced filling water & emptying water, collected the key and asked a few more questions then finally 24 hours after we’d planned we finally set off. I have to say, the people we ended up dealing with were absolutely fantastic considering they were dumped in it by their colleague.

We stocked up on food and other essentials in the first town then drove north east to Augsburg or at least the outskirts, to a lovely free camp spot beside a lake. Even though it was only 7 degrees it was pretty. The lake is used in summer for wire ski jumping. Never seen that sort of set up before. We parked up and set off on foot to explore. Decided that is a nice way to do things. We’ll loosely plan (based on weather & interest) a route for the next few days then do morning driving to a camp area and afternoon exploring. Next destination is Stuttgart. Obviously have to do the Mercedes-Benz Museum. Will stay 2 nights in the area then head east towards Czech Republic and Prague.

Taking small steps until we’re comfortable driving on the right, navigating our route and van life.

Not to mention it’s quite chilly here still. Singapore was low to mid 30’s and it was 0 when we landed at Munich. Think the warmest we had so far is 11 degrees.

The van we’ve got is a Pössl Roadstar, same Citroen base so 5998 long, 2050 wide and 2580 high, as the Win2 plus we were expecting. The difference is mainly the shower room which is bigger using the hallway area with sliding walls. We’ve also got a spare bed lol. Haven’t got the permanent solar panel but have a portable one instead. And it’s a much bigger fridge with a reasonable sized freezer. It’s 3 way so plug-in electric, 12volt off the battery or Gas. The 12 volt also runs the water pumps. Gas cooking, gas hot water and gas ‘boiler’ ie central heating. We’ve been using that in the evenings for sure.

Not many photos yet as Greg forgot to charge both batteries before we left Singapore. Both are fully charged now for Merc Museum tomorrow.

Singapore threw me, where was the bustle of a city? Particularly an Asian city. The cars, the scooters, the people, the hawkers? I expected to be able to walk out of the hotel and get street food and have my senses bombarded by noise and activity but no, it’s so sedate. You actually have to go into areas like Little India or Chinatown to get that atmosphere.

That being said Singapore has some stunning architecture, lots of parks and green areas and it’s exceptionally clean. All signs of wealth I guess.

Walking back to our hotel to get our bags and go to the airport we stumbled on Albert Markets, literally a stones throw from our hotel and here was the hustle & bustle, spice stands, food galore, hawkers and a heaving mass of people but too late we had to leave. Singapore left me with the impression of 2 faces, one covered in makeup and totally beautiful to look at. The other natural, uncaring of impressions and full of energy. You just had to find it.

It’s been interesting but we both feel a bit like we’re just killing time before our adventure really begins ……..

Well, step one went very smoothly then step two went kaput and step three has altered slightly but it’s all go and getting close – 6 weeks til we fly out now.

Looking back step two was sell our home and buy two easy maintenance places, one with the potential to be our next home. So we listed our place and it went to auction as recommended by all the different agents. But when the day came we had no registered bidders as 3 potential parties had had their houses not sell under the hammer and that is what happened for us too. The housing market has slowed hugely and it is moving from a Sellers market to a Buyers market. But the result is right now there is a disconnect between sellers expectations and buyers. We did get offers and could have sold but we couldn’t find a place for us to buy with what we wanted and at the price we needed so we declined all offers and have decided to keep our place until after our holiday. Josh, our eldest son is going to house sit and get flat mates in to help with the costs.

The part of step three which has changed is the plan was to purchase a motor home but ownership in Germany has to be in the name of a resident or company and we’ve been struggling to find someone to help. In the meantime a fellow Mercedes Club member passed our request to a friend of his who has come up with a reasonable rental plan. The disadvantage is that it looks more ‘tourist’ than the ones I was looking to buy and will cost slightly more. The advantage is if anything goes wrong we will be looked after and we don’t have to try to sell a van at the end of our travels. So this will be our home for 270 days….

Now just to finish packing up all our personal possessions and get the house ready to leave, get our international drivers licenses and prepare for change.

 

As neither Greg nor I did the kiwi ‘OE’ as youngsters we always said we would travel when the kids were grown. Seemingly quite suddenly that dot on the distant horizon was a fast approaching intersection. There is a great temptation to stay on that nice smooth highway, say to yourself there’ll be another opportunity further on but spurred on by seeing others face similar choices and go either way, we decided- we were going to take the unknown path, figuratively and literally. 

So we started painting some broad lines on a blank canvas and ended up with a 3 step plan; 1 Sell the business. 2 Sell the family home. 3 Get on a plane. 

Step 1 – Sell the business 

For more than 20 years we have distributed Cookie Time products to retailers in Auckland’s CBD and inner suburbs. It has been an amazing business to be involved in with inspirational people and it has grown with us as well as grown us, challenged us and supported us. Buying the business was the second ‘scary’ life changing decision we ever made, the first being buying a house in our early 20’s when our peers were partying and traveling. The choice to travel now is our third life changing decision and we are both sure it will also totally the right decision. Back to selling the business, in the last year or so as we have become more plant based in our diet (thanks to our amazingly inspiring daughter) for the first time we have found ourselves disconnecting slightly from the Cookie Time journey which adds to the knowledge that this is the right decision both for us and Cookie Time. We set a loose timeline based on traveling to the northern hemisphere 2019 for their spring, summer & autumn ( staying for a winter Christmas is growing on us) and worked backwards. This gave us an ideal ‘sold by’ of the end of September 2018 which has worked out perfectly. I really feel the mind is a powerful tool and if you strongly believe something will happen, it definitely will.  Good or bad!

Next step is selling the family home…..

This is a biggie. I had just turned 23 & Greg was 24 when we purchased a 2 bedroom very very neglected house in Mt Albert. It had been owned by Her Majesty the Queen for purposes of railway since 1947 and virtually no work had been done on it in that time. Over the last 31 years we have renovated every square inch. It has grown as our family has grown and now the kids have moved out it really is too big. There are rooms I only enter when cleaning but there are so many memories in every space. Off setting that, on a practical side, there is a lot of capital tied up that could be better utilised. So the plan is sell and use the capital to purchase two smaller easy maintenance properties, one with the bones to become our next home and one solely as a rental. Both will be rented out while we travel. 

Step three – Travel 

We set a travel time to take in the Northern Spring, Summer & Autumn 

Over the last few years we have discovered we like to holiday in our van, exploring out of the way places with our home on our backs, so to speak. More luxury than camping, more homely than backpacking. You can cook your own meals and eat out when you choose. You can stay another night or move on easily and be more impulsive about where to go. So the broad plan is to fly in Germany, buy a motor home (more on that challenge later) and hit the road. We have a general itinerary to work within our visa requirements- very general as in it’s March/April : head northward to Norway & surrounding countries, maybe catch the Northern lights. April/May: putter across Central Europe May/June: explore down Adriatic Coast. June/July: shoot up to Latvia and follow the ERA Peking to Paris rally down to Paris. July: exit Europe and spend 3 months in the UK. Then back into Europe to explore Spain, Portugal, Italy. Assess if we wish to stay for winter. 

Google has been great. Decided we really wanted to get a left hand drive van so when driving in Europe we’re correct placed. When driving in the UK it’s familiar rules just a left hand vehicle. Decided we want as small as possible, one that from the outside could be any other van, not screaming ‘tourist’ to everyone. Because we are going to be living full time in it, we want a fixed bed, wet room and a separate sitting area. Bonus is this gives us the ability to take passengers and have a spare (single) bed. Eliminated buying a van in the UK because you can only take a UK registered vehicle out of the UK for 3 months in any 12 month period. Germany has the best selection and the best price. You can take a German registered vehicle to UK for 6 months, longer than we need. The downside is it has to be registered and insured by a resident or company. Currently putting feelers out for someone who can help. We would obviously pay in full for the van and pay a bond, greater than the excess, just in case something goes really wrong. Also get an Auto Club membership to help us on the road.