After a nice breakfast in the sun we left Hümme and were headed to our final destination – home. Another 4 hours of driving through the hills of northern Hesse while listening to another long episode of „Die Drei ???“. We arrived in Langen at around 17:00 PM. Here we unpacked everything in the bus and cleaned and tidied up everything. After that was done I drove the two boys home to Dieburg and Lengfeld.
And that’s it. It was an awesome adventure guys!
And thank YOU for reading my blog and following our journey!
See you on the next adventure!
Niklas
The beautiful view from Marius‘ backyardThe Frankfurt SkylineAnd us after 16 days of travelling in a VW T4
After leaving the backyard and putting the first hint of the treasure hunt into the family’s mailbox, we left the small town in north germany and hit the road. Our destination this day was Hümme, a small town about 30 minutes away from Kassel. There we visited our fellow student and friend Marius. We originally planned to just make a stop there and drive home the same evening, but in the end we had such a good time that we stayed there overnight. After we arrived at Marius‘ home we went outside for an archery session and Marius showed us how to shoot with a bow. That was pretty fun and after shooting some more arrows, we ate dinner. We had asian food for dinner with Marius‘ own attempt at a nice peanut sauce which he had once eaten at an asian restaurant and swears on it. Which is why he tried to recreate it at home and it actually was pretty delicious!
After dinner followed a nice long session of the german version of „Cards Against Humanity“ called „BAM!“, a game where dark humor is key. The goal is to create a sentence out of random playing cards with words on it that is as dark and humorous as possible so the judge chooses your version of the sentence and thereby gives you a point. We played until it was already late at night and after that we fell into bed tired.
Not many pictures this time, because we were too busy.
Again the alarm rang at around 8:30 AM so we had enough time to drive to Germany and to get a corona test in case we would need one. Luckily we did not. We got tickets for the „Artsafari“ at the Kliemannsland in Rüspl a few days ago and so we drove down to the small town between Hamburg and Bremen. We arrived 1 hour early and, as we hadn’t eaten anything this day, used the time to get some food qnd drinks at the Netto market in Zeven. After that it was finally time! We drove back and after a short briefing we entered the Kliemannsland with our camper. For the Artsafari the Kliemannsland partnered with Viva Con Aqua to create artworks with by different artists that dealt with current topics like for example environmental issues, the black lives matter movement or eco-friendly energies. And all these artworks were spread over the Kliemannsland and while driving through it, we could listen to voice recordings by the respective artists talking about their work. The Kliemannsland really was like it is shown on YouTube. Everywhere are crazy constructions made out of the most diverse stuff that most people probably would call scrap. But here it is gold for DIY’ers, mechanics, nerds, welders and suchlike! It was really awesome to see all the stuff from the YouTube videos in real life and there definitely is much potential for artistic breeding ground. Before leaving the place we had a small chat with one of the dudes living there handing us a photograph of us that was taken at a „Foto-Ampel“ during the safari. And even got the chance to win a Kliemannsland T-Shirt by playing a game. But in the end none of us made it. Nevertheless it was an amazing experience to visit this legendary place!
After leaving the Kliemannsland, we searched for a place to stay over night and found an advertisement on the app „Park4Night“ where a family provided their private backyard as a camping pitch for campers like us. As we assumed that all nearby camping spots around Rüspl would be occupied, we drove to the advertised address. Here a friendly neighbor told us that the family was on vacation over the weekend and that it would be fine to just drive into their backyard. So we did that and it felt weird to park in a private backyard without even knowing the people who normally live there.. So we got us their mobile number and Lazaro called them. They seemed really nice and told us everything we needed to know. During the evening we began to work out a small treasure hunt for the two kids of the family. We read that they were the ones receiving the donations from the people camping here and as Animation and Game students we of course had to turn the donation into a small game for them! We worked out some small puzzles for them and hid different scraps of paper everywhere on the property with hints to the treasure. As it began to rain outside we were forced to cook inside the camper again and after eating dinner, went to sleep while of course listening to another episode of „Die Drei ???“. We would finish the treasure hunt the next day.
Vegan snacks from the Kliemannslandthe backyard of the familyThe café Zum Dübel
The alarm rang at 8:00 AM and pretty sleepy we started to pack our things together to start our 5h trip back to Fredericia, Denmark. And as we came near the border control after about 2½h we began to think about how the covid situation in Denmark is right now and if we needed a test. We should’ve done that earlier. This question was answered for us at the danish border by a border patrol who checked our IDs and wanted to see negative covid tests – which we did not have… But we were incredibly lucky. He was a nice dude who actually let us pass after seeing Lukas‘ and Lazaro’s old Covid tests from Hamburg about 1 Week ago. Lucky us! We arrived at our already known camping pitch in Fredericia at about 15:00 PM. Perfect timing when considering that one or two hours later the pitch was almost completely occupied. We then went to the beach and Lukas and I went for one last swim in the Baltic Sea. After that we went showering – we really started to appreciate that during our trip. Then we cooked dinner and while eating the moon rose above the horizon and was unbelievably big and red for the first minutes! It looked amazing and reminded me of some synthwave-style paintings. After taking some photos we got ready for bed as we had another long trip ahead of us the next day.
Lukas and I enjoying the cold waterA beautiful moon rising
Today was a calm one and not that much happened. After breakfast we went for a small walk around the tongue of land where we stayed and while doing so, we tracked our walk on OpenStreetMap to add new trails to it so other people can find the way, too. After our small expedition we went swimming in the lake with Lazaro’s inflatable mattresses and sunbathed way out in the water. After going back on land and sitting around for a while just doing nothing, we collected some firewood and made a small campfire where we ate dinner. And as we had to get up early to get to the camping pitch in Danmark on time, we went to bed after sitting around the fire for a bit longer. Of course „Die Drei ???“ was playing again while we slowly fell asleep.
Today we needed to get up earlier than usual as we had to leave the camping pitch by 11:00 AM and needed to pack our things together before that. After leaving we drove back down towards Malmö because we wanted to drive back to Denmark on Friday. But for the next two nights we wanted to camp at a lake again so we drove to Bolmen, a big lake located east of Halmstad. Finding a place to stay was quite challenging once again. We drove down along the western side of the lake in search for a place always using the offline maps of OsmAnd. When we found the first fitting spot, we met 6 or 7 german travelers our age and they told us that they travel through sweden just by bike! But we left again as there were way too many mosquitos and horseflies! After a few more unsuccessful attempts we finally found a nice spot on the southern side of the lake where we parked the camper. Soon after that we ate vegan köttbullar with Uncle Ben’s rice for dinner, which was pretty good actually. After that we played some games and drank some whiskey. The fun evening ended again with some „Die Drei ???“ for sleep.
Taken during a small break during our tripDelicious Köttbullar!A cozy sleeping place
Today we spent the whole day in Gothenburg. We used the bus to get from our camping site to Gothenburg central station. From there we walked directly to one of my favorite stores: „Shock“. They have clothing and merchandise for metal, rock, grunge and goth fans and there is always awesome music playing! We looked through everything and Lukas and I each bought a cool shirt. After that we continued our shopping and sightseeing tour a bit more and of course found another geocache. We then ended up in the Åhléns City shopping mall where we ate lunch at a very delicious burger restaurant called „DINÉ Burger“. Then we visited a few more stores like the vintage store „Beyond Retro“ which always had cool clothing and after that took a break in the nearby park. After snoozing in the sun for a while we walked through the park and ended up at a café where we ate some cake and drank lemonade. We sat around in the nearby rose garden for a bit longer before going back to the camping place. As we were still pretty full from the burgers and the cake, dinner turned out rather small with some slices of bread. And while eating we watched the movie „We’re the Millers“ to let the day come to an end.
(Not so many pictures this time, because we were too busy discovering the city)
Fun fact: On the 3rd picture behind the two white cars there is a side street disappearing between the buildings. Two years ago I took a cool picture of my brother right over there!
Inside „Shock“ storeLaying in the parkGöteborgs råthus!Jonas two years ago in Gothenburg
The day started with a breakfast in the sun and the nice seaside view! After that we went to the beach to go swimming and try skimboarding. Skimboarding is basically a variation of surfing but, depending on which board you’re using, happens in more shallow water and not as far out in the sea as with normal surfboards. We used my old wooden skimboard which is used on very shallow water and puddles without waves and also happens to be quite difficult to learn on for beginners. When we went to the beach it was low tide so, besides the strong wind, pretty good conditions for skimboarding. It took us a lot of tries but it was fun! After a short swim we went back to the camper and started our showering mission. As we weren’t paying for a pitch at the sailing club, we officially weren’t allowed to use the showers. We did it anyways. And after 5 days of not really showering, the warm water felt like heaven! We then left Haverdal and drove to our next stay: Gothenburg. We booked 2 nights at Askimsstrand camping and after arriving there we cooked vegan hamburgers for tonight’s dinner and they turned out pretty delicious!
As we are on our mission to reach Gothenburg, we drove further up north along the coast. For our next stay we found a nice little spot right next to the ocean and only a few hundred meters away from a small sailing club (that we weren’t allowed to stay there only occurred to us the next morning). First wanted to stay directly next to the sailing club on dedicated pitches so we could use the showers and bathrooms, but unfortunately were all occupied. Because of that we drove to the parking lot a few meters up the street. After we parked and enjoyed the view for the short while, we began to search for a nearby geocache. We found it relatively quickly in the bushes behind the sailing club and after that walked further up a small path that led us to a labyrinth. We all expected to find a mansized one out of hedges or so, but it actually was just a small pattern of a labyrinth made out of small stones on the ground. It still looked interesting though. After a small climbing session on the nearby rocks we went back to the camper. For dinner wie cooked Spaghetti again but this time made our own sauce with fresh vegetables. After watching a beautiful sunset we went to bed and listened to „Die Drei ???“ before sleeping.
Today we said goodbye to Häckebergasjön and drove further up north-west. We passed Helsingborg and drove until we stopped in Jonstorp to go shopping. After that we ate a delicious pizza at Pizzeria Mona Lisa. We even could speak in german to one of the workers because he has lived in Germany for 10 years before moving to Sweden (he told us it’s less stressful here than in Germany). After finishing our pizzas we drove further up in search for a place to stay until we arrived at Himmelstorp. There we stopped and hiked to Nimis, a really interesting place! It can be best described as a wooden fortress built only out of wooden planks and sticks – and one can climb through it. It felt like a „Wilde Kerle“ movie! After climbing through the wooden construction we had a beautiful view over the sea. After inspecting another small mysterious ruin a few meters next to Nimis, we hiked back to the camper. It started to get dark by now so we really needed a place to sleep. And this place turned out to be a meadow next to Ransvik Havsveranda, a cute little restaurant located directly next to the sea. As we didn’t shower since leaving Hamburg (the swimming sessions in the lake only count as half-showered), we hoped to find at least running water in a public toilet, but we were unlucky.. But the beautiful evening at the seaside and our nice sleeping place under the stars made up for it!
Hiking to NimisNimis – The Wooden Fortress!our place for the night
