From Belgium to the Black Forest

 Happy Birthday to you, Father Constable!

Morning all! We have found a computer! In Todtnauberg, a mountain community in the Black Forest in southwest Germany. All is still well, we are in mourning today as it is officially only 1 week to go till we hand back the Snuggle Truck!!! but we are going to pack that last week full of action, let us assure you.

Since the Belgian beer drinking stopover we drove all the way down to Baden-Baden at the start of the Black Forest, where we found a great campsite with the help of the tourist office, called Campsite Adam! It had a swimming lake and the weather was boiling hot on our arrival so we swam, cooled down and had a generally nice evening. In the night it rained and stormed and when we woke up it was a lot greyer and cooler, so we decided it was a good time to hire bikes and have a cycle round the area. Luckily at that point it was still quite flat so the cycling wasnt too bad. We made it to the river Rhein and cycled along the banks for a stretch, on the German side of course! Conveniently we made a lunch stop at exactly the point of the next storm, and we were warm and dry and eating kebabs and noodles while the rain came down. Once it cleared up we cycled on and eventually completed our 5 hour circuit back at camp. That evening was a bit annoying as we had just done a massive load of washing and it wouldn´t dry in the dryers, and just as we were checking it a HUGE storm came and it chucked it down!!! So we had to sleep amongst pants and socks strung up around the inside of the van, lovely!

After these couple of days enjoying the lovely scenery just before the Black Forest, we headed to the Friedrichsbad in Baden-Baden. For those of us who know about our secret (not so secret any more!) spa passion, the Friedrichsbad was brilliant. It is a 130 year old traditional Roman-Irish spa where you follow a circuit of 17 stations around through steam rooms, hot showers, warm baths, hot baths, cool baths and a soap and brush massage, until you are thoroughly clean and relaxed. It was just what we needed! We spent about 3 hours there including a sleep in the resting room at the end, where they wrap you with towels and leave you all warm and sleepy, and then we grabbed lunch in Baden-Baden and drove on into the Black Forest proper.

We were lucky to find our current site, Camping Hochschwarzwald, at 1050 metres above sea level in the beautiful forested hills. Yesterday we went for a half day walk through the hills, woods and fields to a little hut where we had sausages and cheese, black forest gateau (had to be done!) and ice cream for lunch. In total the walk was only about 10km so today we are about to strike out from Todtnauberg up to the Feldberg, the area´s highest point, for a longer stretch of the legs.

After here we are going to a theme park!! Europapark of German text book fame. Then hopefully 2 nights in Freiburg, maybe a meeting with Jan and Janine our German friends in Konstanz, and then the final event of our tour  - 2 days at our favourite spa EVER, Erding by Munich.