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.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Big 26800mAh Solar Charging Power Bank. Take 50% off at checkout using coupon code CHKSWQRN

And in Canada...

Pedestal Fan