Off On our own (for 3 Days at least).

Monday morning we headed towards Berlin and getting a bit lost, as Steve had not loaded the right map into the GPS! Some how missing the Potsdam map!), staying at a camping park Sanssouci. Which is right on one of the lakes surrounding Potsdam about 25 km south east of Berlin.

Due to our slight navigation misshap we stopped at trusty McDonalds for some WiFi access and to load in the missing map onto the GPS. But as we have found not all McDonalds over here have free WiFI. And this one had a Hot-Spot but only if you were a Deasculand T-Mobile Customer! We are not with them for our mobile phone access so it was just a good chance to warm up out of the rain with a coffee and a cake.

Without further problems we got to the camping park (Kampplatz) all ok. Deb sorted where and what was on offer. A ‘plot’ for the tent was 34euro per day, or we could have a barrel for 38euro! What the hell was a Barrel! So off we went to check it out with a nice young (English speaking) lady.  Who showed us a camp plot, Sandy base… and the Barrel (they had two). Which was a small pine shelter shaped to look like a barrel.  Kinda like a wooden tent I thought. We agreed we could stretch the extra $5au per day for a wooden Barrel.

Our Home for the next few days.

The Barrel Story...

Inside our 'Wooden Tent'!

After unloading the bike and storing our gear inside the Barrel, we headed back into town to an Aldi store we had seen to pick up some food supplies and also to have a short ride about to check out the general area.

Dinner this night was to be pasta sauce, pasta, cheese and something to drink (apart from Tea for Deb). I found a Cab -Sav red wine from Chili for 1.49 euro (about $1.88au). And going with Ray Dom’s suggestion that Chilean wine is a lot like Aussie wine I bought it. It was great, quite like a South Aussie Red indeed, and the price made it even better I reckon!!

Sundowner and snacks on the balcony

We sat on our balcony overlooking a lake as the sun set, sipping red wine, whilst bashing out a Blog story (MRT Rally). While the camping stove sorted out dinner, Fantastic! Hope we find more spots like this one.

Our view across Lake Havel from our Balcony.

So the next day we got going and caught the camping grounds shuttle bus to the tram station for the trip into the Potsdam main train Bhanhof (station). We were heading into Berlin for a look about, unfortunately we did not plan this too well as to what we should see or do. The train trip we as per normal German efficiency. Only problems was the Ashley’s as per stated planning had no idea which station to get off. So we went with the tried and (successful) plan of what and see how big the station was and if it was ‘good enough’ we’d make a quick get-away.

Berlin Telkom Tower

The station we picked got us off near the old GDR sector, near Alexandriaplatz square. Which meant we had a few Kms to walk back to the 1^st place Steve wanted to see, the Brandenburg Gate. Anyhow as the day was bright and sunny we could enjoy the sights and sounds (and traffic) of this busy city.

Deb was checking out all the shoe stores (and still is!!) along the way. With Steve using a map we got from a spruiker trying to get us on a 15 eruo each bus ride, and his watch and the sun for navigation (Forgot the GPS dummys). We wanted and needed to do some walking. So we headed east-south-east to this famous landmark of Berlin. Stephen had read some history and was trying to explain to Deb how it was an old trade control point, for goods moving into and out of Berlin. A Tax collection point, and that originally there were more (I though 16, but 14 was the number).

A famous landmark.

I did not know all its history and we had time to read more of the placards with English words about the site. After this we headed back towards the ruined Kaisers castle, along a canal where we were able to read some good basic German history from the yet more placards, before entering the museum for the old Schloss. The Schloss ended up in the GDR side after the end of WWII. So unfortunately after that it was demolished, to make way for an army parade ground. Seems, that the Russian’s controlling the GDR did not see much value in this old castle. Now after unification the site is an archaeological ‘dig site’ as they reconstruct the schloss to its former state.

Hambolt Museum centre.

Chantelle, A shop full of Mini's... Just for U ?

the view eat up in the Humbolt Caf.

Caravan park office, WiFi was limited to only a few metres from this location.

Our original plan was to head north to Hamburg from Berlin but we decided to spend another day in Potsdam as we had not yet seen much of this area. As it is 3 days for Potsdam and Berlin is a joke. We could spend weeks looking at all the history, but we had a wedding to go to, so  we would spend one more day, before hitting the Autobhan for the 550kms back to Remscheid  for Werner and Claudia’s wedding.

Thursday morning was drizzle and light rain showers for the start, as we left Potsdam. It got wetter the further west we went on the A2 and then the A1 Autobhans. We were warm enough, but it showed that Steve’s helmet visor needed some anti fog and rain X products to help in the wet weather.

We arrived safe and sound about 15:00 local time. Steve had taken time to do some refuelling along the way and do some fuel consumption figures for the highway. Which averaged at 5.5L /100km, for two up and all our luggage. But we only ‘sat’ at 100kmh with a few 120kmh periods as we needed to pass the slower (80kmh max) trucks that try to overtake each other. So the need to get out of the Hi-Speed lane is much desired!! As many cars (Merc,s, VW’s, Porsches, Audi,s, Fords and Opel’s) all zoom past at much higher speed than us. Steve feels it is a kind of payback for speeding past cars back in Aussie! We’re the slow ones here!