Heading north ⬆️

 Monday 10th July

291 miles

Monday was a much cooler morning when we woke up. We sorted out all the van as we wanted to try and get up north beyond Hamburg and possibly as far as Flensburg a distance of around 300 miles. Ina, Bjorn, Monika and the 3 dogs were all up and about and we had to say our goodbyes and thankyou's. I hate doing this, especially after such a great time. But all good things have to come to an end and we know (God willing) that it will not be another 4 years before we meet again....either here in Germany or over in Scotland. Hopefully Ina and Bjorn can visit Scotland over the next couple of years and maybe love it as much as they do Norway 🇳🇴. So...at about 9:15 Bjorn headed off to work and we maneuvered Bessie out of the drive that been home for the last 3 nights. 

Soon we were on the A1 heading north round Munster, Bremen and on to the A7 at Hamburg. 4 years ago we had missed the A7 turn off and ended up going the long way round Hamburg, today we got it right. Hamburg is a very large industrial city on the Elbe estuary, theres lots of interest as the motorway passing between big docks areas, and we had plenty time to look as the traffic was at a standstill for a while due to heavy congestion and roadworks....however we were not delayed long and were soon up to speed again and eventually reached a campsite at Krusa just across the border in Denmark just about 5pm. 

We got sorted at the campsite and plugged in our hook up cable. Joyce started making dinner and this is when we realised that our fridge was not working...it wasn't cold....and our freezer stuffs were still 95% frozen...but something was definitely wrong. We have lost the charging symbol on our display when hooked up. This is almost certainly the issue that tripped the electrics in Bjorn's garage...We still have mains 240v to our sockets and other ancillaries but no 240v to the fridge and also upon investigation not to our split charger. It is working whilst driving but not while hooked up....I did as much investigation as I could while at the site. Vents removed to check the fridge workings, panels removed to try and trace electrical cables and hunt for fuses, voltages checked here and there,  diagrams read and as much googling as I could before dark but to no avail.....what we also could not work out is why the fridge appears to be doing very little even on gas....but it is still very hot....hotter than we have had to deal with in the van before. The trouble is poor Joyce spent ages making meals that are all frozen and we do not want them going to waste.

Part of the problem is that everything in the van has been so reliable over the years that it never gets much attention and when I need to try and find a fuse or a relay I simply cannot remember where to look. I should have all this written down so I know where I need to check. So, the plan for tomorrow is to head straight to a shop and buy some bags of ice to try and keep the fridge cold if at all possible and salvage what we can. 

Callum and Logan had a good time in the campsite Park, bouncing around on the huge inflatable mats for ages and all the other fun things there. After dinner I set about trying catch up on the blog as up till now has not been started....plenty work to do.