grant and helena's excellent adventure: Munich

In good spirits we left Hanger 7 and settled in for our drive to Munich where fortueously we drove past the Man truck factory where one of us stopped to look at the trucks while the other watched and took the odd photo.

On arriving in Munich, we worked around some unforseen road works which upset our GPS 'navigator' and we found ourselves being 're-calculated' around the city before we finally turned her off and found an awesome park on the river without further assistance. We moved after the first night and found a spot on the river opposite the park for an extra three Euros per night. Good deal.

The view from our site.... isn't it magic?

Spotted the back end of this little duck as it looked for food - cute

We relaxed on our first day and enjoyed a late afternoon walk along the river where we found a group of 'surfers' catching a wave under a bridge which was not far from our site. It was absolutely amazing. One of the young lads was very good and we spent a bit of time sitting in the sun and watching the others trying to match his standard - but that didn't happen on our watch.

The wave

Quite amazing to watch - and they're not even at the beach !!

Later that afternoon, we enjoyed listening to a barge of musicians who floated down the river and we were later told that they construct a wooden pole based raft, about two or three hours up the river and then sing and drink themselves to their final spot which was just opposite us. They were good and we enjoyed watching them sing, throw themselves into the river and then take apart their raft for the following day. It was very amusing and great to listen to live music.

Here they come ......................

What's left of their raft....................

BMW

BMW Welt Exhibition

We caught the bus to the U3 Underground Line which took us directly to the BMW Welt Exhibition and were fortunate enough to get ourselves onto the next factory tour. It was in German but we managed to understand from the hand signals of the tour guide what was happening in the factory. It was amazing and well worth seeing. Understand you need to book months ahead for the English tour. If you don't have a ticket you wait-list yourself for the slot requested and hope someone forgets. We were lucky to get a spot on the day of our choice and made a snap decision to take the German tour, along with several other English speaking people. What a buzz it was to see a car being constructed from scratch. The 'robots' work like 'clockwork' to check and place the parts together. There is human intervention but only in small amounts. It was great and we were able to touch display panels from the initial through several stages of painting to the final coat which is incredibly smooth. Amazing and great to watch.

After the factory tour we enjoyed wandering around the exhibition and found ourselves enjoying the ambience of the vehicles on display. BMW have a large area which is solely devoted to the personal delivery of their vehicles which are being delivered to their new owners. It's a scene which is repeated many times every day. The vehicle arrives in the lift from the production floor, polished to an inch of it's life, displayed on the floor, alongside others of the same ilk. New owners arrive, have their photos taken and take delivery of their new car. The vehicle is then driven around the display area before exiting the building and beginning it's new life on the streets of Europe. Magic scene.

The white BMW sports car with leather trim .......

An original- isn't it cute?

Class and lots of style

Smooth and ready to go ...............

We made an enquiry when looking at the BMW road bikes if the same courtesy would be extended to a desperate couple from Australia!! Unfortunately this level of service does not extend to bike purchasers so I guess we have to re-think our future purchase.

The bike of his dreams ...................

AND ... that's how he would look, without the leathers

Loved the place and much later enjoyed strolling around their retail shop before heading back to the centre of Munch to enjoy the beer and music at the Hofbrauhaus. Loud music, big 'jugs' (the sort that men enjoy) huge beer mugs and a long day for the both of us.

That was the beginning ....

Could hardly lift it but manage to drink it

Chuckling as he started to drink ....

A huge pork knuckle ......

We loved Munich and think it's a beautiful city.

Transport Museum

We rode our bikes to the Deutsches Museum at Bonn and discovered that it was the first museum featuring a unique collection of land vehicles in a setting that is rich in tradition. Mobility and technology, travel and urban transport are the topics in the three halls. We strolled around for three hours. Gosh time flies !

There was an original steam engine, horse drawn trams, Goggomoil (remember he RAA advert.) the first automobile, first motorbike, road cruisers and trains. It was something special and we both enjoyed it. Fortunately there weren't too many people sharing the same time so we were able to ramble around and view each of the vehicles on display and fortunately everything was explained in a very clear and entertaining way.

We needed some Euros so to our peril we strayed off the 'known' path to find a 'friendly' ATM. End result was we got lost and spent some four hours riding our bikes around the streets of Munich. At one stage, we actually rode a complete circle and ended back where we started, the great Deutsche Museum !!!!
Not happy Jan.

Helena came off her bike twice. The first time - Grant rode past a little dog who rushed at him and Helena, who was following, had to brake hard to avoid the little soul and then helped off the pavement by a guy with significant tattooes, no sign of Grant who was blissfully unaware of her fate. The second time - Grant took off, Helena tried to follow, but from share exhaustion - just toppled off onto the road and a nice young man in a suit came to her aid. No sign of Grant. !!! Big day. We returned to our site, one of us sore and both of us hungry, thirsty and tired.

Leaving early the next day, we enjoyed speaking with Hans and his wife Marga, from the Netherlands, who turned out to be a world-famous artist. We also enjoyed chatting to a couple from South Africa and they told us about a number of good places to visit in Munich and other areas. One of those areas was Sulzemoos which had a huge display of Motor Homes. It was fantastic and we enjoyed looking at losts of different vans which offered anything from heated flooring, heated grey water to automatic satelitte dish and various storage options. It was good and we really enjoyed putting together the van of our dreams.

Cosy and nice way to open up the inside of the motorhome

From the driver seat.............

Our van was absolutely filthy so we stopped to have it washed professionally and then headed off. It looked fantastic and it was great to be able to see how good it does look when it's clean.

It needed extra scrubbing ..........

In the car wash .............

Putting it together .............

AND - ready to go

Unknown to us, the weather was going to change and we headed straight into a nasty storm, (something that always tends to happen when you have a clean vehicle). We had very heavy rain, thunder, lightening and more heavy rain which reduced our visibility and made driving quite dangerous. Traffic on the other side of the road was at a standstill for several kilometers as we made our way to Stuttgart.