Even though the boat doesn't dock until about 08:00, they like to get you up at 06:00 for breakfast with a rather noisy announcement, although we were already awake as my phone had just announced a text, advising me what network to use in Holland (I have the guitar bit from Cream's Badge as my text alert and it was a bit loud).
On the car deck I got the laptop on and AutoRoute with the GPS working, after a short queue for passport control we are on our way. We had plenty of diesel so get straight on the A15 motorway and off we go for Koblenz in Germany, we had enough fuel so we did not have to stop at the first petrol station, a mistake we made in 2003.
Not long after we get on the A15 the lady in the laptop announces that we should take the ramp right, at this point the laptop freezes and we are off the road we should be on and lost. We park up in an industrial estate and try to get the GPS back on, eventually I reboot the laptop and find our position but then it freezes again. We are using a laptop that I have set up just for using as a GPS but have another laptop with us for other uses (DVD/CD player, TV, etc,), so I set this one up and the same thing happens. We have become so dependent on the GPS and although the route has been planed meticulously, it has not been memorised or written down, we did not even know what road numbers we should be on or even what towns we should be heading for. So now we first have to re-plan the route and then find our way back on the A15. Later study of the map sowed that this is a particularly complicated junction linking the A15 and A16 but if the GPS had been working or if we had had instructions we would have been ok. Note, this is a clinical version of the events that took place when the GPS packed up, omitting the bad temper, bad language and pointless banging about.
I apologise for the route not being as accurate as for other rips but sometimes we just can not remember (or even knew) what road we were on. Anyway we got back on the A15 heading for the A73 via a short stretch of the A50, we do stop in Holland to fill up with diesel as we have been warned that credit/debit cards are not as widely accepted in Germany as in most European states. From the A73 onto the A61 to the A48 then off onto the B9 into Koblenz. At rest stops we had got the GPS working intermittently, so every now and then the lady in the laptop would announce that we were "Off Route" or "Back on Route" or to "Bear Right" etc, but not much use at all. So in Koblenz we are in approximately the area we want and just ask passers by for directions to the site (the locals are very helpful indeed).
Campingplatz Rhine Mosel
Schartwiesenweg 6, 56070 Koblenz am Rhein
The site is right on the river Rhine with the river Mosel entering from the side, we drive round the site but there are no pitches on the river so we settle for a place one row back. After the stress of the drive, we just connect the electrics and head over to the sites bier garden for a couple of hefe weissbiers (cloudy wheat beer), very reasonable price but we had to pay a deposit on the bottle and on the glass. Later, after we sorted the van, we had a walk by the river, until we were bombarded by large insects like ginger bees so we went back to the bier garden, only to find it shut at 21:30 not 22:00 as on the sign outside. So it was back to the van and inside as the bugs are now all over and not just by the river.
Day Three or Day One
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