Free camping

There don't seem to be too many 'no camping' signs in Germany. Maybe this is because I can´t read them, or because the locals wouldn´t dream of camping in each other´s fields, but I´ve chosen to believe it means we can pitch a tent anywhere we choose.

Last night, as we have on many other nights, we left looking for a camp a little late. Instead of stopping in the national park we were heading for, we took refuge in small forest on the edge of a field.

Just after sunset, as I was cooking dinner (pumpkin and lentil curry - it´s pretty simple fare out here) and Andy was setting up camp, a huge tractor crept over the horizon, heading straight towards us, clunking away and lit up like Christmas.

While we were safaly hidden in the forest, we had left the bike in the field and thought we were surely sprung. I swear the lights shined straight on the huge regulation Áus´sign on the back of the panniers. The tractor, however, just slowly turned around and started crawling back up the hill.

Maybe it is German humour. He was spraying shit behind him.

They do things efficiently here. The manure created when animals are kept in barns over the cold winter is mixed with water and sprayed over the fields in summer. Our timing was impecable!

He sprayed and sprayed, and we ate our dinner to the aroma of horse-shit.

ahh! free camping!

(despite this, we had a lovely night in the forest, and fell asleep to the rhymical ´whoosh ... whoosh ... whoosh´of the wind turbines that towered above it :)

Much love, E and (on behalf of) A xxxx