Balkans and Beyond

Another border, another insurance farce. In this case the insurance is available from a little cafe just before we leave Montenegro. Of course, we don’t find this out until we cross the rickety wooden bridge and arrive at the border post for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The jovial guard is understanding and is kind enough to look after our passports while we enter the country uninsured and undocumented to perform a three point turn. He returns them from his window on the entry side with a smile. Driving back across the rickety bridge I wonder which side maintains it?

Once clear of the litter strewn border town, Bosnia turns into a green wonderland. It’s not that long ago that this was a country at war. In Mostar the scars are still visible, even if Stari Most (The Old Bridge) has been rebuilt. Bullet hole riddled buildings bring it home but the museum of War and Genocide comes close to bringing tears.

As we cross the country, the flags of the various factions still fly. The war might be over, but the divisions still seem there.

Croatia is crossed quickly, it isn’t all that van friendly. The border crossing back into the Schengen zone is easy enough and I enjoy not having an insurance fight but it’s the first time since we left home that the van has been searched. Probably should have had a quick tidy up first.

Despite being back within the Schengen zone we’re surprised to find a border in operation between Croatia and Slovenia although we’re waved through quickly.

We go looking for a gorge walk only to find it closed due to a landslide. The weather deteriorates and we hole up in a campsite for a couple of days.

Matt sends me a message, he’s in Bosnia and his engine has fallen out. Well, hanging down alarmingly at any rate. Seems he pushed it a bit too hard in Montenegro.

Slovenia’s other popular location is Lake Bled. The route there is a spectacular mountain drive but we find the lake too touristy and quite underwhelming.

The actual highlight is meeting up with Matt, Lucy and Matt’s parents in the town’s motorhome park. We swap stories, discuss engine mounts and have a general catchup before parting ways for the final time, our routes home and return dates are very different and there will be no more crossing paths.

We cross Austria in torrential rain, which deteriorates further as we cross into Germany. The Danube looks ready to burst, as do the roads they are so wet. We abandon plans for an alpine camp and hide in a town Wohnmobileplatz. Germans have such cool words.

As we travel north through some of Germany’s oh so pretty medieval towns the weather begins to improve. We stop for the night at a quiet sports centre near Bad Kissingen ahead of the show.

Abentuer Allrad officially opens the campgrounds at 1pm on the Wednesday before the show. The campgrounds are an institution in themselves, with every imaginable make and model suitable, or not really suitable for overland travel parked up. They’re so famous they even have their own T-Shirt. Excitedly we arrive bang on time and find that campsite one is already full. We miss the turning for campsite two and arrive in an already busy campsite three. Campsite four, across the road, also looks busy. Check in is efficient and we are soon parked up and watching people arrive.

Before long we are hemmed in on all sides. The ladder from a Jeep’s rooftop tent exists into our awning, but it’s not a problem, everyone is in the same boat, almost literally. The rain is falling again and more is forecast, the sloping fields are getting sloppy and the unprepared are getting stuck. I’m glad we’re camped on high ground. A British couple with a Landrover Defender find us and we strike up a friendship, they’re heading for Albania and we’re heading for home.

I’ve wanted to visit the show since I first heard about it several years ago. It’s everything I hoped it would be. As much as we like our little van, he’s getting on in years and so are we, so we were kind of window shopping for a future replacement.

It’s a tricky thing, finding the ideal vehicle. We don’t find anything we’d rush to replace our van with, although there are some interesting possibilities. We bump into some people we recognise from the UK’s AOS show while we are both investigating Land Cruisers. They already own one while I’m searching down the back of the sofa for enough cash to buy one.

Four days of the show and I’m not sure we’ve seen everything. We manage to take a tour of two of the four campsites, all of which sold out. It was noticeable that they started to empty out on Saturday, maybe a result of the high cost of camping at the show now?

We make our way out of the mud without issues and point Godzuki!’s stubby nose towards the familiar lands of Luxembourg and Belgium and our Journey home and the end of this little adventure.