Germany 2

Then Shewhocan'tcopewithheightsatall climbed with lynx-like agility into this hide. Detail:

If one can be sufficiently bothered to follow them (Germans can be?), the routes are very, very well way-marked.

Wood nymphs were everywhere, this one displaying less than her usual coyness:

My attempt to show what the Black Forest's bigger picture looks like, but I feel sure I was basing it on some preconceived notion I'd acquired somewhere along the line.

The area seems to me to be crying out to be even half as handsome as the most handsome parts of Switzerland. There is far more of the unsightly clear-felling than I had expected and much evidence still, especially it seemed on the tops of the ridges, of acid rain from Germany's own (and neighbouring countries'), heavy industry, (heavy industry such as, for example, the manufacture of excellent campervans).

Off the Schwarzwaldhochstraße. The van looks very "euro", doesn't it!

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that it was only on this day that I realised the external mirrors are of different shape and design. The driver's side one is very good and I've been thinking about getting a rhd driver's side mirror for my passenger side. The mirrors' adjustment is electrical. "Just one more thing to go wrong", I hear you say? Well, yes, but haven't folks been saying that about almost every technological development since the dawn of time?

Jo looks less than enthralled by the BFG (Black Forest Gateau). Well, we had to scoff some, didn't we, and a piggin' great slab of cheese cake which was oddly fluffy and oddly less slimy than the American style with which we're familiar.

Despite sitting beneath a Nestlé umbrella >>, he's smiling probably because he ate all the leftovers.

We were developing a theory that those determinedly well-equipped German hikers / walkers actually take very short walks and then finish them with unnecessarily large quantities of sweet and sticky food.

I wandered off down a side road in pursuit of another this-is-what-it's-like-in-the-Black-Forest photograph when a chap trying to bump-start his huge Harley came rolling past me. He failed and I helped him to turn it around so that he and his wife could push it back up the hill while I continued on my way.

At least an hour later they were still waiting outside the cafe when we returned from the not exciting Mummelsee alongside which were shops of great tackiness selling puppet witches which cackled, and other such krap.

Unless one escaped onto the numerous forest walks, much of the area seemed to be very, very busy. Bikers were out, and a goon or too. On our potterings we travelled up a narrow, steepening (no such word, but never mind), valley and higher on a twisting road through the ubiquitous pines. I wasn't dawdling nor racing, but it wasn't very long before three or four cars were visible behind us. The second wasn't challenging us, but the third, a black BMW overtook it and after a while came past us with the passenger shaking his fist out through the window. Or was it a "wanker" gesture? Suffice to say it was threatening and very unnecessary, and it'll be a long time before I forget it. It caused me to reflect upon the impressions we make on visitors to our country.

"Black" forest, isn't it! On our way down to Forbach. Odd one really, but I like it better than the way it should have turned out.

Holzbrucke at Forbach. I do like roofed bridges, perhaps because their builders must have cared so much.

I also like the film, The Bridges of Madison County (yeah, sloppy, or what?), and remember being taken in the '70s by my parents to see a roofed bridge in Lucerne. Returning from the bridge an enormous thunderstorm burst all over us as we rolled south along the ridge route.

Here's a favourite..........

.....although I wish I'd remembered to switch off the indicator.

Our home grown tomatoes were ripening.

The rainstorm had been short-lived, but it had sent nearly everyone home. This descent was as enjoyable as any we've ever found in Europe. And the power steering, it's amazing. The T4 is a completely easy drive. Of course, I'd never realised, even when it was behaving well, that the T3 was relatively quite difficult.

Just trying out the new Zoombrowser's sharpness adjustment on this one.

Our campsite at Wolfach. It made the Caravan Club's sites' facilities seem almost primitive!

That table is nowhere near as convenient as the T3's was with it's modified go-anywhere 3-legged base. Notice the boxer's grill. Hating the very thought of German sausages, we'd packed the grill so that for a few days we could scoff veggie ones brought from home.

Here's another favourite.............

..........reduced in size but otherwise unaltered.

In case one becomes a little tired, there's a light to show the way back into the van.

A silvery-white moth had flown into the van.

After a while he went "upstairs" and next morning was folded into the roof space from which three days later he emerged (grinning).

"Well, go on then, set the controls for the heart of the sun".


	And (as Alistair Cook would once have said), "Gudnight".