Dexter 1

Getting used to the weird configuration of a left hand drive vehicle is tricky. The gear lever is now at the right hand but the clutch remains operated by the left foot. Always looking to your left first and driving on the right takes intense concentration to perfect. Roundabouts are surprisingly easy, but pulling out onto an empty road requires thought and self-correction.

But we’re gettin’ there, we managed to move away from the city and into the country side, turned off the autobahn and followed a big river until we found a narrow twisty mountain road to investigate that had a well preserved castle at the end, overlooking the river valley. Delightful views with ancient architecture.

This vehicle, which looks small compared to other motor homes that we have seen on the road, feels actually quite wide to drive, a bit like a bus, although its relatively short wheel base allows it to be manoeuvrable enough. We didn’t want to be restricted too much, so Dexter will do us just fine. We needed the width for comfortable sleeping.

Getting all our mountains of luggage into the myriad little cupboards and shelves is still an ongoing job of re-shuffling and re-sorting. Working out which items need to be accessed quicker and more often and which can be buried beneath other layers is a science that we are still in the process of perfecting.

Having a dunny and shower on board is a luxury that we probably won’t be using too much because you need to empty the waste water safely into approved places, but it’s good to have it there as a back up nevertheless. There may not be lions to negotiate on the long trot to the night toilet, but the chill of Europe is quite crispy after dark.

We have made a few minor modifications (removed the squishy dining table in favour of using the outdoor one under the wind-out awning) and adjusted the bicycle rack more to Rod’s satisfaction, but basically Dexter was ready to go when we picked him up. The machine is still fairly new and we are only its third hire, but by far the longest. Ten weeks for goodness’ sake.

On our third day in the motorhome we decided to retrace our steps a little bit and go back to Heidelburg to visit the palace. Now being fairly confident behind the wheel we even went into the guts of the city to find a laundromat. The Schloss (palace ruins) was a gorgeous old structure that had a fascinating apothecary museum in it. We both never realised how interesting the history of pharmaceuticals, from ancient times to modern chemicals, could be. Photos of this gorgeous schloss will follow in the NEXT blog.

We then continued to follow the river valley further upstream in the (very) vague direction of Switzerland. As the Sun drew closer to the horizon we turned off on a random road and meandered up into the hills, eventually taking a bush track to a nice deserted spot to spend the night.

Rod got up at sparrow’s fart and wandered off amongst the tall trees for a while, hands clenched deep in his pockets to ward off the chill of the morning mountain air. He was fortunate enough to glimpse a deer dashing off into the undergrowth, determine some fox tracks, have a good look at several very large and bright orange slugs and listen to two different woodpeckers knocking away at the trees.

We have decided that Dexter is a crap name, it conjures up the image of a somewhat drained intellect, so we have decide that even though the motorhome has the name ‘Dexter’ emblazoned across the bonnet, this mini home of ours is to be now re-christened ‘Ebeneezer’. A far more befitting moniker indeed. Ebeneezer Motorhome has a nice satisfying ring to it.