18^th and 19^th July 2018

Cathy posting,

Pogo is Parked in a Stellplatz in Salzgitter, Lower Saxony Germany, near Braunschweig next to the Salzgittersee- Lake

Late last night in our Potsdam parking spot we were getting ready for bed when I thought I got a faint whiff of gas, I was sat on the dinette bench over the location of the outside gas lockers, I’ve got a good nose for gas having sniffed out a couple of leaks in our previous houses, Dave goes outside into the pitch black to close off the 2 LPG bottles but neither valve would budge! Stuck tight! The 11kg bottles are a very tight fit and it’s difficult to get a grasp on the valves so I brought out my rubber gloves, Dave laughed but it worked and he managed to turn them both off,  I went inside and lit the gas hob, we know turn right is to close and left is to open or as Dave says lefty loosey righty tighty! but I wasn’t taking any chances, sleeping with the windows open just in case, next morning Dave heads off for a 10 minute walk to a garage and finds a guy who calls another garage, can we be there in an hour? So a quick pack up and we’re off but unfortunately when we got there they don’t fix refillable LPG habitation for motorhomes only LPG engines, he then sent us to another garage 20kms away and here they checked out Pogos’ gassy innards, problem is the LPG system has some German pipes, Pogo being a German built Dethleffs Moho and he also has some English pipework as this was added when we had the LPG conversion done at Autogas 2000 Thirsk so they can’t use their equipment to test it as it’s non-standard. I asked them if they could do a water or gel test for bubbles and they brought out a couple of spray cans of stuff and sprayed Pogos pipes, no leak to report, the boss comes out to tell them to get on with another job, Dave asks how much do we owe them and once again we are told nothing to pay! We told them we would leave good feedback, Nuthetal Caravans, Potsdam.

The helpful garage who tested our LPG system

This garage had waste facilities for Mohos so we availed of them as we’ve been 3 nights in Potsdam with no waste emptying so loo emptied, fresh water taken on and waste water got rid of and we went on our way but not until Dave bought some Thule straps for the awning, he’s been using a 5 litre water bottle tied on to hold the awning down up until now, we’re glad we gave them a bit of custom at least.

Driving on for 3.5 hours to today’s Stellplatz at Saltzgitter (N52.15250, E10.31390) this was such a boring journey, 3.5 hours and nothing to see except fields, fields and more fields, it looks quite a nice place even though it’s only a car park, some vans have EHU, we parked up, turned on the gas and no smells anywhere, maybe when one bottle ran out and as it switched automatically to the other one there was a small release of pressure? my nose had been in every crevice and I couldn’t smell anything so I was happy to cook Thai Prawns and noodles.

Open areas around the free Stellplatz – Salzgitter

We took a long walk along the lakeshore and found it to be a lovely place for families, a huge picnic area, a sandy play park, in the Go Ape style and a lake with long cycle paths, a restaurant overlooking the lake and setting sun definitely a good stopover, the evening sun and gentle breeze lifting our mood after a long day of problems and driving.

We left after a breakfast of poached eggs in the sunshine outside Pogo and as nobody came to collect the €5 parking charge we had enjoyed a free night, we are heading westwards quickly as Dave wants to go to France so it was another long drive with hardly any views apart from broccoli trees as Dave named them and many fields of golden corn, the latter made me think of my mum who passed away 8 years ago, she loved Eva Cassidy and so I put Fields of Gold on the iPod and was in a nostalgic mood, she would have loved Pogo and would want to know all about our journey, my sister gave me a cushion made from a nightdress of hers so actually she has been everywhere with us in spirit! And when I’m writing the blog the table is a little too high, so I sit on her everyday oops! She would have found that so funny, she had a great Liverpool sense of humour. It all reminded me why we are doing this journey, renting our house out and living in a motorhome, it’s because life is too short and we both believe in living and not existing and we’ve a lot more living to do! Bring on the adventures.

“broccoli” trees!

Cathy x