Life in the Sauerland

I’ve not been much of a fan of rock and roll, although I did see Bill Haley and the Comets at the Finsbury Park Rainbow in the late 60’s. I never understood the attraction but now I do, it’s the beat. Brilon is a small town at the northern end of the High Sauerland. It’s not particularly remarkable but is best recognised by the magnificent church tower that dominates the town and the surrounding land. It has a pleasant town square, on one side a town hall (Rathaus - nothing to do with evil rodents), two old Gasthofs on another. A museum, and a bank with an Italian bistro make up the other two sides.

Brilon Church

Brilon Town Square

What makes Brilon’s town square stand apart from others less fortunate is that on mid summer evenings the square comes alive with the sound of pop music. A small stage is erected and groups perform to the town residents on Thursday and Friday nights.
It’s been a very long time since I went to a ‘pop’ concert but we thought ‘why not give it a try. Crowded into the square were people of all ages. There were young children running and playing at the front of the stage, old stagers knowingly quaffing their beer at the back plus all the generations in between. We had arrived before the start so were able to secure the last available table outside one of the guesthouses. The rockabilly band, as they called their themselves, soon had the square rocking. The amplified thump, thump, thump of the double base at 120 beats to the minute raised our heart beats as at first we tapped our fingers and then our feet. Soon shoulders were seen to pump - all at four beats to the bar.

Warsteiner to the Rescue

The Joint is Jumping

Table service was swift as the waitresses wearing traditional costume rushed around in time to the music. Those not at the Gasthofs had their thirst quenched by the two mobile pubs provided by Warsteiner strategically set on the sides of the square. A mobile canteen sold German sausages and chips and did a roaring trade in the centre of the square. The band played rock around the clock and other standards and also their own compositions. You would never know that 50 years separated the old and the new songs nor the band’s sense of dress. But I have to ask, why do all rock and roll singers have to slick their hair back in the Elvis Presley style? Some things never change.

Other nights hosted other groups. Jazz, Santana tribute and folk groups entertained us and captured our ears and imagination. The one common factor which connected all groups was the quality of their musicianship. You could not believe these were bands formed in basements and garages. The musical highlight of the season was a penny whistle solo by a young man who until that moment had been playing the flue and clarinet for the folk group. Fast, furious and faultless - music school trained? - Definitely.

View from the Window

View from the Window

Due to its elevation and soil quality the Sauerland isn’t known for its agriculture so forests are everywhere. One started on the hill at the back of our campsite. When it wasn’t raining we put on our hiking boots and went ‘Wanderen’ although we did not have a knapsack on our backs. Despite the wet weather the forest paths were well drained and defined even if they steeply climbed and descended the hill contours. After a good hour’s walk we came to a deep descent and saw at the bottom a concrete pool. Curious as to what a man-made pool was doing in the middle of a forest we further descended. The pool was filled by a spring which had been fed through a pipe attached through the rock. No more than five steps away was a bronze plaque which announced (in German) that this spring was the source of the Mohne river which went on to join the river Ruhr. This was the Mohne river which filled the very Mohne dam whose breach in 1943 by the RAF bombers of 617 Squadron created the legend of the ‘Dambusters’.

Mohne Spring

Read All About It!

Fifty metres along the track and around a bend was what could have been mistaken for the ginger bread house from the story of Hansel and Gretel . Although not made of edible confectionary it was constructed of pine logs and unoccupied. Wendy looked through the window while kept a lookout for witches. It was a restaurant, clearly in use but nobody around. We found a notice by the door that said that it was only open for a buffet Sunday lunch, but there was a telephone number which you could ring to book ahead. It looked so inviting inside, even though it was in the middle of nowhere, so we said ‘let’s give it a go’. We found out from the campsite owner that there was indeed a back track to what we referred to the ‘Hutte’. We didn’t mind walking for an hour to get there to raise an appetite but the thought of walking back with a full stomach did not appeal. Also what’s the point of having a four wheel drive vehicle if you don’t use it. Yes we drove.

Take Your Seats

The Hutte

Not on the tourist route the clientele were both locals and regulars so when we walked in the door every head turned to us and gave the look of ‘who the hell are you?’ Well it was time to assume the Kiwi persona and explain to the waitress that we had come from the other side of the world in a voice that everyone in the Hutte could hear. There were muted Oos and Ahrs and ‘So weiter!’ and ‘Schones Land’. It did the trick and we were accepted as honorary locals and regulars with everyone wanting to have a ‘word’. The meal was an excellent eat-all-you-want and we were so glad we did not have to walk home. The inside was everything you expected a ginger bread house to be, except edible. The pine beams and cladding had matured to a light amber giving a warm glow from the sunlight streaming through the windows. Agricultural artifacts and dried flowers adorned the walls and in the corner was an antique wood stove to keep the cold away in the winter. Needless to say our appointment book had Sundays blanked out for the remainder of our stay.

To Keep You Warm

The campsite was terraced on the side of a hill in a shallow valley. A quarry had carved out the other side. The elevation gave us fantastic views of the the countryside and the low land to our north. Having only been opened for 3 years, the campsite had the latest technology and facilities. That included internet and cable TV so we were able to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics in London. Despite our luxury we did have a scare one night. At exactly 11 o’clock the caravan shook and the alarm on the car activated. A sweep of the area with a torch discounted burglars so we put the incident down to a freak wind. The trouble was, the same happened at exactly the same time the following night. This was enemy action! It was not until we were driving to Willingen to see the tower which is the highest point of the Sauerland that Wendy said ‘you don’t think it is something to do will the quarry?’ The penny dropped and the camp owners subsequently confirmed that the quarry did it’s blasting at 11 at night. The blast wave was strong enough to set off the alarm but we heard no noise. Why did they set off the charges when people were going to bed? It turns out the do it so the dust has settled by the time the day shift come on duty to clear away the debris, simple really.

Sunset

Sunrise

Perhaps the most poignant moment of the our time in Brilon was when we took a shortcut through a side street and came upon a clearing with a large concrete block cut in two. It was a monument on the site of the old synagog which had been destroyed in the notorious ‘Kristalnacht’ (night of broken glass) in November 1938 when gangs of Nazis went on the rampage against Jews and their businesses, buildings and synagogs. What really hit home was the names of those who had been murdered by the Nazis during the holocaust inscribed on a bronze plaque on one side. There were two sisters who were born in 1938 and 1939. By 1945 both were dead. I’d had the impression that Kristalnacht was something that happened in the big cities, 95 synagogs had been burned in Vienna, but to imagine the same Nazi thugs doing this in a small town in an insignificant part of Germany where everyone must have known everyone else makes you shudder.

Wobbly

Beer in Germany can only be made with four ingredients - hops, malt, yeast and water. It boggles the mind to thing what other countries might allow to be put into their beer. Another beer fact is that there are over 1250 breweries in Germany, that’s one for every 64,000 men, women and children. The country has bucked the trend of concentrating production in the hands of a few multinational companies who produce a multitude of labels on bottles of essentially the same stuff. The brew is local, with many if not most breweries in family or private hands. Those who want to expand - export.

Welcome to Warsteiner

One example of an independent, locally produced beer with a world reputation is Warsteiner. This is brewed, funnily enough in the town of Warstein which happens to be in the northern part of the Sauerland. The family had been making beer here since 1753 which when you think of it was 17 years before Captain Cook sailed into Botany Bay. I’ve been a beer drinker for many years and occasioned upon Warsteiner 22 years ago when the RAF sent me to RAF Gutesloh some 60 km north of Warstein where it was the local brew. There the troops know it as ‘Wobbly’. Not because they could not pronounce ‘Var-st-eye-nur’ but because of what it did to your legs. Another interesting beer fact is that the Germans regard Warsteiner as a lady’s drink. This is because it has an alcohol content of only 4.9% which a German man would regard as weak, or so we were told. What they would make of English pubs selling some drafts at 3.8% I can’t imagine.

Visitors' Centre

We discovered that the Warsteiner Brewery had conducted tours for the general public so we took ourselves off to Warstein. The first thing that greets you is a large old copper brewing vat, highly polished which gleamed in the morning sunlight. These attractive old vats were scattered, not only around the brewery, but also around the town. Be in no doubt, this is a brewing town! After paying 10 Euros at the swish visitors centre (you thought the beer tasting was free!) we were ushered into a multimedia centre to be briefed on how Warsteiner made their beer. The centre had all the modern technical bells and whistles. The auditorium seats moved through 360 degrees, There was film, hi-fi audio, anamatronics even smoke. Disney and Universal Studios would have been impressed. Although the presentation was obviously in German they even provided us with headphone for different languages. Mine didn’t work so Wendy knows exactly how Warsteiner is brewed and I had to make do with the silent movie.

First Class Carriage

Stainless Steel and Glass

I was undismayed because next came the tour of the brewery. We boarded a small train of enclosed carriages. Each carriage provided a commentary in a different language. We boarded the first one which was for English listeners but were the only occupants. Those following were for the Germans and Dutch and were packed to the gunnels. It was like traveling First Class on an old British Railways steam train. The train trundled through what is a modern state of the art factory. No bewhiskered, stout men in leather aprons hurling wooden barrels from place to place. White lab coats seemed to be the common uniform as we moved between walls of glass and stainless steel.

Der Zug

Bound for the Four Corners

A railway line had been laid from the brewery to the Deutsche Bahn network and the brewery had their own locomotives which were painted in the company livery. Cream coloured containers with the Warsteiner logo, were being loaded onto flatbeds ready for their journey to the 4 corners of the world. There were also rows of mobile pubs ready to be towed to the nearby festival, concert or sport event where their sides would be opened to revel beer taps, kegs, coolers and surrounding counters ready to serve Warstein’s own amber nectar. The commentary also explained that the brewery had its own reservoir nearby so using one water source made every bottle of beer taste the same.

A Lot of Hangovers!

Thirsty Work

By the time our little train pulled into the visitors’ centre, all these new beer facts had given everyone a thirst. Thoughtfully, the brewery had provided all adults with vouchers for not one but two glasses of Warsteiner or two soft drinks for minors and tee-totalers. The non alcoholic drinks also included zero alcohol Warsteiner (why would you bother!) but Wendy found one with a hint of lemon and decided to have two. Negotiations were quickly concluded and in the interests of road safety it was further decided that Wendy would act as duty driver for the return journey home.

Flying Through the Ruhr

Those who have worn the light blue of the Royal Air Force are acutely of its history. The Royal Navy have the Armada and Nelson. The Army have Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme. But the new boys on the block did not get going until 1 April 1918 so their history revolves around the 1939-45 conflict. Fighter Command get most of the recognition due to films like the Battle of Britain but most of the effort in terms of resources, time and casualties was put up by Bomber Command over Germany because they were the only outfit able to hit back at the Nazi war machine in any meaningful way until 1944.

Our first long distance haul just happened to be through that very industrial heartland known as the ‘Ruhrgebiet’, the nightly stomping ground of the Lancasters. So there was a certain historic, poetic edge to our journey via the ‘Ruhr’ to the Saurerland on the other side. Ninety five percent of our journey was by autobahn and we had noticed that most long distance lorry drivers took Sunday off so that was the day to go.

Lancaster Crew 1943

Now the worst weather conditions you want for your first outing with a new caravan is heavy snow. The second worst weather is heavy rain. We had the second. What was worse was we could see the rain on the radar on the internet and the rain was coming along for the ride on the whole journey. We weren’t going to change our plans at this late stage so we ‘kicked the tires and lit the fires’ and set off. The rig behaved superbly, steady as a rock, brakes working as they should and responding to the throttle when required. It appeared that our Lancaster bomber (as we now christened her) was going to take us all the way. This was more than could be said for me and Wendy. I broke the initial 15 minutes of silence by saying ‘have you got a drink, my mouth is really dry?’. Wendy replied ‘So’s mine’. I felt the left side of my chest and could feel that my heart beat was up. After a quick look at each other we burst out laughing as the penny dropped that we were experiencing stress and the adrenaline was pumping round our bodies. So after a swig from the water bottle, and putting on our Queen CD we started to relax and so did our heart beat.

Lancaster Crew 2012

Wendy was a good navigator, she had planned every interchange and landmark with thoroughness and gave the pilot, sorry driver, good notice of what to expect. I’m sure she would have made a good bomb aimer as well but she didn’t get the chance. We drove through the Wupper valley which is very uphill and down dale but the Jeep’s Mercedes 3 litre V6 engine has amazing power. I was surprised at how effectively it could accelerate, we even overtook a slow moving lorry going uphill. The self-adjusting brakes and stabilised  coupling kept us steady even on the steepest down hill sections. By the time we left the autobahn for the final leg to Brilon I was quite enjoying myself. The rain had finally stopped just as we pulled into our Sauerland campsite just south of Brilon.

Safe Home

The Good the Bad and the Germans - Hariksee

The valley of the river Schwalm or Schwalmtal as the Germans call it flows through flat agricultural land. A few killometres down stream the Schwalm flows into the Maas which in turn joins the Rhein before ending at the North Sea. The Schwalm is beaded by lakes made by dams which provide power for water mills. The mills no longer grind corn but they make lovely Gasthofs which are now restaurants or small hotels.  I would have expected the nearby Maas to represent the border between Germany and the Netherlands as the Rhein does between Germany and France in the south. But no the Maas is several kilometres in Dutch territory. I suppose it allows the Dutch to control the river traffic and keep trade flowing even when they don’t get along with the neighbours.

Grazing by the Maas

Navigating the Maas

But from a German point of view, a farming community cut off from a major trade route with its back to a national border is always going to be a bit of a backwater. But shortly after the  end of the European war the local economy received a a boost when the British Army and Air Force decided to locate, not only their Joint Headquarters (JHQ), but also their hospital and 2 major air bases in the Schwalmtal. So the extra spending power provided by the British servicemen and their families gave the locals an affluence they would otherwise not have. Now this physical and economic geography lesson is all very well but what has it got to do with Steve and Wendy’s European Vacation? It just so happened we were one of those service families 20 years ago, so it felt like we were going back to old haunts and familiar places. Plus of course there would be a lot of English speakers there if we had trouble with our German.

Our son in 1991 at JHQ with someone I can't place

Water Mill at Hariksee

     









When we first came to Germany we communicated with the outside world by postcards and enough Deutschmarks for the telephone box on the street corner. Today you need a ‘Handy’ (mobile phone) and an Internet connection. We shyed away from plunging straight into technical German so it was off to the understandable English voices at JHQ. Twenty years ago JHQ was a thriving little bit of England. There were cricket matches, rugby teams and even a ‘Last Night at the Proms’ provided by the RAF Band. You could say it was one of the last outposts of the British Empire. It was even patrolled by armed Gurkhas to scare away any wrongdoers. So armed with our British passports and a cover story as to why we should be allowed on the base we set off.

JHQ 2012

Arriving at the checkpoint was a bit of a let down. We were met by a civilian in a blue beret who just looked at the colour of our passports and waved us through. As we drove onto JHQ we suddenly understood the nonchalant reception. There was no one there! The place was virtually deserted and the only thing missing was the tumbleweed blowing down the main street. The centre point of activity was always the NAAFI so that’s where we headed. It’s a duty-free zone so we could not buy anything but we had a window shop for nostalgia’s sake. One of the assistants started looking at Wendy, then came over and said ‘haven’t we met before?’ The lady had indeed worked in the NAAFI for over 20 years and recognised Wendy. I said, ‘it must be the hair’. The lady told us that with all the defence and austerity cuts there were only 200 servicemen left at JHQ. Even they would be gone by Christmas and the place handed back to the German authorities. There were rumours that they had plans to bulldoze the old buildings and turn the base into a large windmill farm. It’s whimsical to imagine a future Don Quixote tilting his lance at the windmills thinking they are the warriors of a British Army, long gone.
 

Charlemagne's Forearm Aachen

Magi Casket Cologne

Vodafone surprisingly still had a shop on JHQ (they get everywhere) so we soon got a ‘Handy’ plan and a mobile internet connection. We even picked up a TV/DVD player VAT free. So we were back in contact with the world and able to watch German TV and any of the 400 DVDs we brought with us. It was just as well because it rained and then rained some more. The Germans have a word ‘Schadenfreude’ which roughly translates as having joy at someone else’s misfortune. Being able to see that the weather in England was worse, and the rain in Queensland was not much better, we closed the door and were smug and snug as bugs in a rug. Trips to Cologne, Aachen and the Roman town of Xanten were a lovely distraction. The gold casket in Cologne Cathedral is supposed to hold the remains of the Magi and a gold gauntlet in Aachen’s Cathedral is supposed to hold the forearm of Charlemagne. Very surreal!

Cafe und Kuchen

Champagne for Breakfast!

The rain did eventually stop and we were able to unfold our folding-bikes and get out and about. The Germans are very pro walking and cycling and many tracks are cut through the forests and farmland for what they call ‘Wandern’. The best ride was around the lake with ducks, geese, herons and red squirrels in abundance. The lake was also full of trout which was on the menus of every restaurant in the vicinity. Despite, or perhaps because of their love of Wandern they ensure the tracks are well appointed with Kiosks selling sausages, chips and of course - ice cream. There are also small restaurants if you want to rest your weary legs and have something more substantial. The best of all these was Inter-Schloss at the southern end of the lake where on a weekend you could have a very large Champagne (Sekt) breakfast for 10 pounds.

Hariksee

Hariksee

Our favourite kiosk was run by a couple who looked and dressed like ‘alternative life-stylers’ straight from the Glastonbury Festival. When we mentioned we hailed from New Zealand he waxed lyrical (he’d had a few!) in ‘Germish’ that it was a beautiful place. I got the impression he has seen Lord of the Rings but never been there. Be that as it may, the reason it was our favourite was on Sunday afternoon they always booked a singer/guitarist. Now I’m not normally a lover of performers who sing and strum to backing tracks. To me it is one step up from karaoke. But this guy performed heavy rock and he was really good at it. They were all there, Stones, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC and when ‘Smoke on the Water’ rang out across the lake all we needed was a smoke flare to complete the image.

Favourite Pub!

View across Hariksee

To keep the calorie intake under control we ate plenty on salads and home cooked food in the caravan but we treated ourselves from time to time in the Meuhle Gasthof attached to our campsite. Trout and Herring were the house specialities with fried potatoes, not chips, served with salad and washed down with German beer - Lovely Jubbly! The owner seemed to take an interest in us and often came over to our table for a chat to practice his already impeccable English. During the second week as we left one evening he met us at the back door and presented us with a bottle of wine which was a pleasant surprise. An even bigger surprise was he did this on 2 other occasions, each time increasing the quality of the vintage. And we had not left a tip! We like to think it was an expression of cross cultural friendship.

Permanent Residents

 The camp was a little strange as most of our fellow campers were either full time or weekend permanent residents. Apart from the occasional over night visitors we were the only tourers. But after 3 weeks it was time to move on. We seemed to have been an item of curiosity and as we used our mover to align van and car quite a few people came to ask where we were going next. Expressions of good luck were given, well we thing that’s what they said. As we pulled out there were even a couple standing by the entrance waving goodbye. So after final checks, storing away the chocks and releasing the brake we taxied out of the car park and set our course for the Ruhrgebiet.

Permanent Residents

Kitting Out, or the Joys of Shopping in the Eurozone

I am sitting outside the caravan with a hot cup of coffee watching the sunrise. Can’t sleep. But let me tell you about setting up our new home for life on the road. We knew from building our house in Australia that new dwellings only come with the basics. Time and money would have to be spent on the finishing touches. It was also clear that, being on the road, there was much to learn; the life, languages, and a new way of looking at things. Teachers say that to learn something new, it’s best to start from something you know already. Twenty years ago we had lived in Germany for 2 1/2 years and were familiar with the area around the British Joint Headquarters near the village of Rheindahlen. JHQ, as it’s called, is an island of Olde England carved out of the German forest. We remembered cricket and rugby matches, fish and chips and even the expatriates version of Last Night of the Proms. It made sense to set up our base near there as we knew where the shops were and if we really got stuck we could always find a friendly English voice for advice. We chose a campsite by the picturesque lake Hariksee. It was formed many hundreds of years ago when the locals damed the River Schwalm to drive a water mill.

They say you spend 1/3 of your life in bed so that was the first priority. The Hobby Premium comes with a very comfortable Queen sized mattress but no bedding. Thanks to the internet we had already tracked down the nearest IKEA so off we set. I’d think IKEA would like to be known for their modernist simple, yet functional designs, provided in easy to construct flat-packs and offered at reasonable prices. But we know them for their cheap breakfasts Looking of the IKEA catalogue tells you they have the same goods in the same place in every store world wide, but did that apply to the food in the restaurant? Well it does for lunches, pasta, smoked salmon, Swedish cakes and of course the inevitable meatballs and mashed potatoes, but not for breakfast. In Brisbane you got scrambled eggs, thin bacon, snags (sausages) half a tomato and hash browns. In Edmonton it was similar but you could supersize to 9 items to increase your intake of saturated fats. But at Neuss it was cold cuts; salami, smoked salmon, cheese and a portion of strawberry jam all to be eaten with 2 Broetchen (German rolls). So we now look forward to how IKEA in Italy, Spain and France are going to ‘break our fast’. Oh, and by the way we collected our bedding on the way out.

Next was the kitchen and washroom. We brought a microwave oven, electric steamer together with items of cutlery and crockery with us. All that was missing was the food. The richest man in Germany was, until recently, not a financier, motor manufacturer, electronic of factory magnate as you might expect. He was the founder of the Aldi supermarket chain. That’s not actually true because Aldi was founded by 2 brother but they fell out over the issue of selling cigarettes at the checkout. Not being able to agree they split the company into 2, now Aldi North and Aldi South. We would never have noticed this if it had not been for a geopolitical quirk. Our local Aldi in Waldniel was Aldi South but just over the border in the Netherlands Aldi North held sway We are fans of the Aldi business model which uses their buying power to obtain existing brands but sell them under their own label at much reduced prices. So with 2 Aldis and the German and Dutch varieties of Lidl to play with we soon stocked the larder with food and the washroom with cleaners. Now all the ‘interesting’ things were bought we had to turn our attention to the ‘boring’ things like, power, water supply, heating, waste disposal and Health & Safety items such as extending wing mirrors, fire extinguisher, steps and a breakdown kit. 

There are slightly fewer Dutch than Australians but the big contrast is that the Dutch are shoehorned into a country about the size of a postage stamp. it’s small, flat and sticky when wet. So it’s not a surprise that the Dutch want to get away from home from time to time just to see hills, lakes and mountains. This makes them the world’s greatest caravaners. At the start of the school holidays caravans stream out of Holland to fill the Autobahns and Autoroutes heading south and east like Orcs out of Mordor. Back in England apart from a few specialist shops, caravaners have to rely on Halfords for their bits and pieces. The Dutch on the other hand have Caravan Mega Stores. On most Saturdays German shops literally shut up shop at lunchtime. Those still in need of retail therapy head over the border into the Netherlands. On one such Saturday we headed for the border town of Roermont and found the shopping complex which seems attached to most towns these days. It was raining so we found an undercover car park attached to a large store. As we got out of the car we noticed they had tents in the shop window so we thought we’d have a look inside. Well it was about the size of one of those electronic stores in Tokyo or Marks and Spencer on Oxford Street. It would be no exaggeration to say it had everything a caravaner or camper could ever want. It had a whole department just for hiking boots! You could buy a tent that would house you and your camels on the Silk Road to China, or keep you snug on Mount Everest. There were enough chemical toilets to satisfy an army. There was even the battery powered caravan mover that the Germans had just sold us for double the price. The store was not just packed full with goddies it was also jam packed with people. We had been to the British Caravan Show in London’s docklands back in February and there were more people in this shop than at the show. OK it was raining but the Dutch school holidays were only a week away and it seemed that the locals were in final preparations for the invasion of the Shire.

Water resistant electric cables, toilet chemicals, water hoses and gas bottles were bought. We even had a choice of 20 types of car wing mirrors extensions. But the best buy was a pair of wellington boots in the Dutch Delft pottery style of blue on white, complete with windmills and winter scenes. Guess who had those? We were now kitted out and ready to experience the joys that caravanning would bring.