Last post I mentioned our 'last' meal in Sweden, as we had suspected that we wouldn't be staying anywhere else that had a restaurant before our return to Hoek Van Holland.
So we left DHR camping in Motala, heading Southwest - back towards Malmo.
This was the second Tuesday of our trip, and we weren't booked on the Rodby-Puttgarden ferry until Thursday lunchtime. So I was back on Google, searching for a new stop for one or two nights, luckily, I found a site called Tostarps, near Tyringe, which was still open for business. We arrived there and booked two nights, knowing there was a private swimming lake and the possibility of a cycle. The camp office also had a pizza oven, and a sauna so we made sure to book them both for the second night (on the first night, the restaurant was booked for a private event and someone else had the sauna.
We swam on the afternoon of arrival and again on our rest day, making use of the time to dry our clothes before the penultimate leg of the trip.
On Wednesday evening, our previous 'last' meal was supplanted by a second 'last' meal, this time homemade pizza - Cam was able to have a gluten free pizza and we enjoyed a few drinks, after which we went and had our sauna, a lovely evening of burning wood before settling in for our final night in Sweden.
Enjoying another round of Mocha martinis to as we had passed our last System leaving Motala. We didn't stay up too late as another long day was ahead.
The drive back over the Oresund bridge and through Denmark was without incident, and arriving in Germany after the brief ferry return we encountered our first traffic of the trip - heading across Germany towards the border with the Netherlands, on the hottest day of our trip. We made our way to the spot I had picked out, but on arrival we discovered it was just a scrub parking spot with nothing nearby, so I scouted the camping website we'd been using and found another site a few miles away. Another lucky found - with temperatures reaching 34 degrees even at 4pm when we arrived, a site with swimming and facilities was what we needed. The place had public access to a manmade swimming lake, which was rammed, so we opted for staying at the van and finishing off the box of wine that we'd forgotten the night before (luckily for our heads).
Our ferry on Friday night was a late one, so we eked our stay at the last site until the last second; exiting the campsite a minute before checkout time. Despite the weather taking a steep sip to 17 degrees, we braved a swim in the morning - a good way to clear the wine flu before the last drive. We only had a couple of hours to go and arrived at Hoek Van Holland well ahead of schedule. Fortunately, we were able to board several hours before departure, and we checked into our room before going down for dinner and drinks. Having a room, rather than the VIP lounge meant that our seating for the evening was not guaranteed and waking in the morning was a slight bump in the road as I got very confused about time differences and we were up (panicking) and getting showered an hour early.
We spotted our error and stayed in the cabin until a little later when time anxiety had me urging us out for breakfast.
Thankfully, we knew they would be able to cater for Cam and we had a large breakfast and a couple of coffees while we listened to the wake up calls that I'd been anticipating and worried I'd missed.
At the end of breakfast, we made our way to hover at the top of the stairs to the car decks, as on our previous ferries we'd been back to our van later than we should have (managing to be front of the boat for most of our trips).
We were off swiftly, and greeted by drizzly rain - stark contrast to our glorious day on Thursday - for our final leg back from Harwich to home.
It was an amazing trip and one we have already begun planning the sequel to (in a couple of years).
Comments