Forced Staycation
My wife and I love the outdoors. We enjoy riding our bikes, going for hikes and exploring new landscapes. After our holiday in the Alps in July, we wanted to try something different. Neither of us had ever been to the Lüneburger Heath before, so we decided to visit the blooming heath this week. On Monday, we started the trip with our camper van, which unfortunately came to an end at the workshop, 20 km from our home.
The camper van
Here is our Globetrail 600 in front of the Scottish Highlands, on the famous North Coast 500 route. We stopped for a late breakfast somewhere between Wick and Scourie.
Extremely unpleasent noises when steering and reversing made me feel uneasy, so I called a workshop right away and asked if they could quickly check that everything is okay. Within a few minutes at FIAT, they discovered an oil leak and traced it directly to power steering. Continuing our journey was out of the question. So we had to cancel the campsite and leave the van at the repair shop. Our planned vacation was ruined.
First staycation with my wife
Disappointment and anger dominated the first half of Monday, but we soon started making plans for aktivities in the greater Dresden area. As well as organising things, we planned hiking and kayaking tours. We also had time to discuss the van situation.
Zittauer Mountains
The Zittauer Mountains are located in the far east of Germany, close to the Czech Republic. We've been planning a hiking trip there for years, but it never happened. We once visited the area with our van and stayed at an unpleasant campsite that was more like a giant car park. The weather was awful, as were our moods. As a result, we cancelled the hike.
This time, we took advantage of a beautiful, sunny day and started early in the morning. We followed the Czech-German border up to the Lausche mountain, where we found ourselves on a steep, almost alpine climb with a great view. We followed the border through forests and fields, eventually returning to a rocky region near the town of Jonsdorf. This area reminded me of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. While it's nowhere near as big, it has the same kind of rock formations.
Spree Forest
View from river Spree up to a typical Spree Forest farm
The Spree Forest is known for its network of rivers and canals, its natural beauty, and its interesting Sorbian culture. Located in the south of Brandenburg, it is one of the state's most famous holiday regions. It’s a great place for bikepacking, and the perfect spot for kayaking and canoeing, including multi-day trips on the water. There are different towns of various sizes directly on the waterfront with hostels, apartments and restaurants with their own boat moorings.
Taken from a kayak on one of the small side arms of the Spree River
Unfortunately, I didn’t take my camera with me, so I had to rely on my Fairphone to take some pictures. The atmosphere was so pleasant, with the calm, reflective water, green trees, blue sky and perfectly warm weather, as can be seen in the images.
We rented a kayak in Lübbenau for four hours and shortly after setting off, our arms began to complain about the unfamiliar strain of paddling. It also took me some time to get used to the boat's rudder. Apart from this minor inconvenience, however, we made good progress. In fact, we even had to slow down to ensure that we didn't finish the route too early.
The Van
In 2022, we bought 'Detlef' to enable us to go on adventures. My wife and I had just got married and discovered enduro mountain biking as a new hobby, and we wanted to visit different bike parks and trail centres. The pandemic also impacted our leisure activities. We had wonderful holidays in the Alps and also a memorable road trip through Scotland.
However, over the past month, the van has become a source of headaches for us. Searching for a new flat or house is very difficult if you live in a big city and own a motorhome. Over the years, we have also found that preparing the van for a weekend trip is extremely time-consuming and restricts our activities all week. Instead of being outdoors more, we spend more time indoors since we got the van, searching for campsites and so on. Instead of hiking on Saturdays and cycling on Sundays, we only do one of those activities on Saturdays, while Sundays are spent driving and cleaning the van.
Please don't misunderstand me — I think it's absolutely fine to compromise your lifestyle for a pet or a baby, but not for a motorhome. So, we decided to sell the van.