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| Gravelines to Gladbeck |
A restful night and an earlyish start as our route planning had shown we'd need two full days to catch our booked Germany-Denmark ferry. In retrospect we wish we'd have allowed another day but hindsight is great isn't it? But we didn't rush, just emptied the loo and waste tank at the separate facility then refuelled at the first supermarket we came to.
Our route took us along the coast before crossing into Belgium and south to Ghent where we headed east towards Antwerp on very busy roads. However the closer we got to Antwerp the worse the traffic was, compounded by multiple sets of roadworks, until we were down to a 1st and 2nd gear crawl. We'd made the mistake of not programming TomTom as we'd set our route up on Nellie, Brens trusty old notebook, and anyway it was pretty straightforward but the complexity of the new roads being constructed inevitably meant we missed a crucial turn in the heavy traffic. Rather than fight our way back again we thought it best to continue going the wrong way round the ring road and attempt to rejoin our route, or at least replan a new one, once we were headed in the right direction. TomTom wasn't being helpful again and didn't want to know so we resorted to subterfuge and gave him a "destination" along the route we were trying to take. This worked out reasonably well but it still took us over 2 hours to get clear of Antwerp and we stopped for a latish and short lunch as we were now way behind our schedule.
But the traffic wasn't finished with us by a long way. Despite using motorways all the time it seemed that every major junction had roadworks and severe delays - we couldn't believe the congestion. Duisberg will remain in our memories as the most confusing and plain awful experience of trying to get around the city - at one point we had been sitting for 30 mins before we realised TomTom had changed his mind and was directing us out of the queue! But now he was really confused and decided to take us right through the middle of Oberhausen in the rush hour - it's a very nice town but we hadn't planned on sightseeing this early in the trip.
By now it was getting late and became obvious that we weren't going to make up any of the lost time, so when we spotted a sign for a stellplatz, a German motorhome parking place, we headed off for a looksee. Just our luck, it was pre-bookings only and was full anyway so back into the fray once again and finally onto the correct road. Having had enough, we stopped briefly at a service area to find an overnight stop and a stellplatz not far away at Gladbach looked to fit the bill. Only a short distance off the autobahn we were made welcome and helped with our parking and they only wanted 3 euros, cheapest we've ever found anywhere outside of Morocco!
Okay, it was close to the main road and suffered background traffic noise but it quietened down and we enjoyed a late meal in the lovely evening sunshine and another early night.
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