Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Kuwait City, Kuwait on March 31st.

Sunday, July 4, 2021

Getting the hang of RV'ing in Germany

We would probably have spent another night at the Rhine River watching the barges go by, but our toilet tank was getting full. 

That's the problem with these types of cassette holding tanks... they aren't very big. It was easy to deal with in Australia because there are so many public toilets and a lot of our wild campsites enabled me to pee outside because there was nobody around. But here in Germany, that's not so easy.

Friends gave us a tip that they occasionally pee in a bucket and then it's pretty easy to discreetly dump it. Might add a couple of days to the length of time between needing to dump.

We're pretty frugal with our water usage, so our 100 liter (26.4 gallon) onboard tank lasts quite a while. The grey water holding tank is 85 liters, so by the time that gets full it's also time to fill the fresh water tank.

Fortunately, dump stations are fairly easy to find. 

And we're learning that laundry is not so easy here either. Seems most Germans have their own laundry machines, so laundromats aren't that common. And when you do find them, they are expensive. So we were also told that a way around it is to spend a night at a campground that advertises free laundry machines. You might spend €15 to stay the night at that particular campground, but if you were going to have to spend €10 to do laundry at a laundromat anyhow, then it's not so bad.

I'm using a combination of four different apps to find both overnight spots and dump stations. Two of them are pay apps, and each was a small one time fee that is worth it considering the amount we'll us them.

They are iOverlander, Stellplatz, park4night, and camping-app.eu.

I found a listing of a municipal campground at the small city of Goch (pop 30,000). Most municipal dump stations that we have come across are free, but you have to maybe pay €1 to fill your water tank. We really only wanted to use their dump station and carry on to our next planned location, but when we arrived, we decided to stay despite the fact that it's not really our style of place. So we never did make it into Netherlands again yet, but we are only about 5 kms (3 miles) from the border.

Yikes. This is not normally our style of place. Max is parked at the far right.

I bet it holds 150 motorhomes, and it was probably half full. But, this municipal campground is really well thought out. They have a modern dump and fill station. They have an automated pay machine to pay for 24 hours of parking at €5 ($7.30 CAD, $6 USD). They have several sites with electricity available, coin operated.

And a friendly camp host who makes sure everybody is following the rules.

Plus, it's a short walk to town and we had been told that Goch is worth a visit. So we decided to stay one night.

As soon as we got parked up, we broke one of the rules. Notice how the motorhomes are all facing in one direction? At first, we couldn't figure out why. We thought because most Germans tend to like the sun, that they all parked in that direction so they could have the afternoon sun on them. But Max is built low in the front end and the interior is easier to level if we are parked slightly uphill. So I put him in the other way around.

But it wasn't long before we had a visit from the camp host telling us that the reason is due to Covid. When they were given the go ahead to re-open the camping area, one of the stipulations was that everybody park in one direction to follow the social distancing rules.

No problem, we turned him around.

Had an early lunch, and then walked into the city.

You can rent a raft on this canal.

With a picnic table!

Goch water tower.

Goch Cathedral.

Ruth admiring the pretty fountain.

Pedestrian street in Goch.




Scenery along the way.

Hi Max!

We took advantage of the fact that we will be able to empty the grey water and refill the fresh water when we leave this morning, so we had showers and did some hand laundry.

Today (for sure!) we head back into Netherlands.

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6 comments:

  1. Washing machines - good luck finding a campsite that lets you use them for free - we toured Germany extensively and never found such a site! There are launderettes around in some town centres but, as you have found, few and far between. I can't remember if there were any in Germany but in many European countries there are such facilities at supermarkets which are very reasonably priced. Carol

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    1. The park4night app actually has filters where you can include campgrounds that offer laundry included. Haven't tried them yet, but a few do show up in the listings.

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  2. I have accomplished what I set out to do. I found you when you posted on the Senior Nomads FB account about your climb of Kilimanjaro. I read the remaining portion of your African journey and then went back to the start. I have read all of your blog and loved it!!!! I particularly enjoyed your trip to the Arctic Ocean and I was looking forward to your drive across Labrador to Quebec. I know someone who rode a motorcycle to. Churchill Falls from Maine and back, but I didn’t know that you could drive to the coast and with a ferry are it a loop trip. I love your style and will continue to follow along. I enjoy seeing new places and I like seeing how you experienced places that I have been

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    1. Wow, we can't believe that you actually went back to the start of our blog and have read it all through, that must have kept you busy for awhile?!

      We are so glad that you have enjoyed reading about our journeys and adventures. We loved our trip up to the Arctic Ocean that was definitely one of our highlights and we are sad that we never made it to Newfoundland and Labrador in Sherman but we still hope to make it there one day yet, again we think that would be an amazing trip.

      I hope that we can continue to keep you entertained with our travels here in Europe, we are definitely looking forward to seeing a different style of life, culture, history and natural beauty throughout our travels.

      Thank you very much also for taking the time to comment, we enjoy hearing from our readers. :-)

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  3. When we were in Germany in the late 80's we went to a hotel used by US servicemen that had a laundry in the basement, but you had to use US coins in the machine.

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    1. That was odd but at least you could get your laundry done, providing of you could you had some US coins!

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