Hanging out in the sun

From the coast we drive south inland. I was reading about it being an area for naturists. No industry or cities close by. Hardly any farming because the landscape is dominated by forests, lakes and swamps. In Malay the term ‘ulu’ would describe our destination the best, meaning ‘coming from the backwaters’.

In the tree tunnel.

I am bit worried that the infrastructure is not up to date: roads might be small or in bad condition, sign boards saying ‘you have reached the end of the internet’ might appear, or hill-billies brandishing pitch-forks or rifles against foreigners. But we are daring and want to explore Germany’s unknown regions.

My heart starts beating faster when we leave the autobahn that was recently built with money from the European Union. Surprisingly the road gets narrower and has only two instead of 4 lanes, but it is smooth and we can ride at full speed at 80kph. Left and right of the road, old trees with massive trunks line up as road markers. Sometimes a tree every 50-100m. Sometimes as close as every 20m. Tolkien comes to my mind when Treebeard and his fellow trees join the fight. The road gets so narrow that the branches of the trees touch each other and we are driving through a tunnel of trees. After each curve I am expecting a huge tree standing in the middle of the road blocking our way.

I get alarmed when traffic signs appear warning truck drivers that low-hanging branches could crush into their truck. It is late in the afternoon, the sky is grey and we have not many options to find other camp sites. So we continue carefully, hoping there are no oncoming trucks or buses. A sign post for a nearby UNESCO World Heritage Site for Old Trees tries to lure us into a narrow side road but we have hardly any longing for more forests and trees.

Usually we try to arrive at the camp of the night no later than 3pm. It is 6pm when a sign post to the destination village directs us off the main road onto a local road. Only 10km more to go. We are relieved to arrive soon when the RV starts shaking and vibrating. Obviously the local road was not part of the European renovation project and its surface made of cobble stones was already used by Napoleon´s soldiers. It will take us more than half an hour for the 10km unless we want to wreck our plates and cups, and Ronda’s hip joints.

Long-term campers and their homes.

By the time we arrive we are thoroughly shakened. The camp site at a beautiful lake rewards us for the tough ride. We can park close to a forest and have a relaxed dinner in the cold evening air.

Singing birds and warm sun rays wake me up. Umbria and I have our early morning walk and explore the camp site. A huge area with caravans and tents. Some of them look like they haven´t been moved for ages. Nicely maintained garden areas around the caravans indicate that people live here for many summers. We walk home with our freshly baked buns when a family bicycles pass us riding towards the lake. Surprisingly all of them seem to be nude.

Cleaning windows for a better view.

The sun is getting warmer when we have coffee outside. The neighbour starts cutting his hedge. After a while we realize that he is only wearing a t-shirt and slippers. We start to investigate this topic further and have a close look at other campers. Indeed many of them lie in the nude on their deck chairs or have a chit-chat in slippers only. Another fashion is to wear a neck scarf only to protect you from cross-winds.

We look at each other and wonder what to do.  I decide to follow the old advice: when in Rome do like the Romans do.

Evening at Lake Rätz