South to Germany today. A slightly shaky start for me as the shower card runs out of money after two minutes so I have to walk back, head covered in conditioner and body in shower gel and finish off in cold water in the van! I might be slightly annoyed at Tony’s five minute shower!

We have a long drive ahead of us today. We are aiming to be home for the beginning of next week so it’s a case of multiple hops through Germany and the Netherlands and possibly France. We haven’t booked the ferry yet so our journey is still flexible.

Traffic around Hamburg is slow due to roadworks but keeps moving.

Our destination is Bispingen in Lower Saxony and we are staying on a sports centre car park for the night. We chose here simply because the mileage and location were about right and I found an ok park up.

We shop first at the local Lidl paying close attention to the parking signs confirming it’s free and a parking disc is not required.

In Bispingen the car park is busy but there’s no other vans. In the distance we can see BMX bikers practicing on a complex track and lots of people going the gym.

After a tasty spaghetti bolognaise dinner we wander into town along a forest track passing farms, cows and horses. The cows which are noticeably smaller than normal are an Irish breed of small cattle that originated in County Kerry called the Dexter. We enjoy a pint in a local bar at €3.90 the cheapest in a long while and then walk back.

We watch a couple of episodes of a new series on Netflix, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder to end the evening.

A travelling kind of day.

08:07:25