Berchtesgarden

We arrived in Berchtesgaden at the deluxe campsite. State of the art toilet facilities! Apart from maybe the opaque glass ... don;t stand too close if you have a hairy butt!!
We went into Berchtesgaden on the first afternoon. The old town was very pretty... the kids all got new hiking boots and a special rolled up ice cream.
We had dinner in the restaurant at the campsite which was fantastic (schnitzel and chips for the boys and I had the most enormous salad you have ever seen) with delicious ice cold beer.
The next day we took the Jenner cable car at the entrance to the Berchtesgarden National Park to the MIttel Station and hiked to the top with a vertical climb of 600m. Alex and Charlie had a face off with Bessie the Cow, Alex ran away form a bumble bee and Charlie did not moan at all!!
The views form the top were stunning over the mountains and down to Konnigsee.
We then went on a boat trip on Konnigsee... a bit crowded, but cool trumpet playing... it was apparently an ancient tradition to the monster of the lake (200m deep) and the sound echoed off the mountain. Other highlights included the life rafts (aka cushions) and the Greek gods rowing.

View from the top of Jenner over Konnigsee

View from the pool was pretty special

Berchtesdgaden Camping Allweglehen: Review

Difficult to fault this campsite.

Highlights:

• Fantastic views
• Great restaurant 
• Near perfect bathrooms

This is  just about the best campsite we have stayed in 9/10.

Campingplatz Pilensee, Review

Campingplatz Pilensee is 40 minutes from Munich. The kids loved the lake. The bathrooms were new  and very clean.

Highlights

• The lake with large inflatable 
• The bathrooms
• The location
• Also close to Aldi!!!

7/10

We do it again!! Lake Pilsensee

So the year is 2019 and the kids are 14, 11 and 7

Rog is doing contract work and I have some extended annual leave so we take the kids out of school again (BAD PARENTS) and head off to Europe for 7 weeks.
This time we' ve hired a camper van. Initially I had found a small compact number, sleeping 4 so we'd need a tent but Alex commented 'Mum, we'll kill each other in 7 weeks in that...' so we rented a monster truck.
We left Melbourne on 25.6.19 and flew into Munich and picked up the van after an extensive orientation....

Our first stop is Lake Pilsensee, just 30 minutes outside Munich.

This campsite is on the shores of Lake Pilsensee. There was a fantastic inflatable with a slide and trampoline in the middle which was great fun. Alex and Charlie mastered 'the sausage' and I swam across the lake.

Sunset over Lake Pilsensee

Mad Woman Will Travel

Compare and contrast, Venice and Queenscliff. Same Mad Woman at the wheel, same caravan but on the other side of the world!

Pictures 9975 miles / 16053.21 km apart!

Mad woman in Queenscliff, Australia!

Mad Woman in Venice, Italy!

First Australian Trip in Caravan

Happy family

We had our first trip in the caravan in Australia to Queenscliff on the Bellarine Peninsula. Every thing worked just fine. Our 11year old faithfull Mitsubishi Magna coped well with towing the caravan. It has a rated towing capacity of 1500KG and the unladen weight of caravan is 1336 KG. Australian Caravans are much heavier and most vans you see here are towed by 4x4's. We have stored the caravan at storage facility for $12 per week which is pretty good! Next stop Tasmania!!

Grandad would like the view!

Caravan arrives in Melbourne.

After 12 weeks at Sea the Caravan has arrived in Melbourne. It was not a straight forward process by any means:

It arrived on the 18th December just in time for Christmas. However everything slows down in Australia in December so it did not make it  out of the container depot until the 10th January.

When we did pick it up there were two areas of damage which was disappointing. The fibreclass was broken on the front of the caravan. But we are insured through our shipping agent SeaGo so we are getting quotes on the repairs.

The good news is that it was straight forward getting the caravan registered with VicRoads. The key thing was going to the great people at Sunshine Trailers and getting a compliance plate made with the VIN and weights on. This is a must for registration. Now are adventures can continue in Australia.

Damage to fibreglass Ouch!!!

More damage. Somebody has been careless!!!