It had finally stopped raining when we woke up but after breakfast and while loading the car, it started to spit.

We went back to Lindau to have another look at the town and found a few buildings that were worth the second look.

We finally hit the road, heading towards Frankfurt, just after 10:15AM. It was now pouring and there was slush all over the windscreen, so the speeds were dropped to accommodate the conditions. Then we hit what we presume to be an accident. The GPS won't talk to us in English, but whenever there is a traffic condition update, it burbles at full volume, in German, no matter what I do with the volume control.

We were in a 10+km queue at 15 kph and then found that we were being directed off the motorway. We had no idea where we were going and our GPS kept telling us to get back on the motorway, but that was no good. We followed a few trucks, hoping that they knew where they were going. It was after midday before we finally managed to get back on the motorway, heading in the right direction. At this time, we hadn't covered 100km of the 400km that was required.

Fortunately the rest of the day went OK. The external temperature ranged from 12 to 25C and the weather from squalling rain to brilliant sunshine.

Tonight we are in a cheap B&B hotel, near Frankfurt airport and will have only a short distance to run tomorrow.

That's almost it folks. We have an 11 hour flight to Hong Kong, followed by a 12 hour stop over. We will be going into the city, so you may get lucky and see something about Hong Kong. I see the temperature in 30C. Then it's a 10 hour trip to Auckland and we will be back into the cooler weather.

Above and Below X 2 - Lindau goes in for highly decorated buildings. 

Two churches compete in the square at Lindau.

A pub sign we stumbled upon.

Above and Below - The queue goes on for miles in both directions as we wit to exit the motorway.

No idea where we were going, but it was a pleasant journey.

This piece of roadworks slowed us to 80kph.

The ambulance cruised the motorway waiting for an accident to occur.

It rained all night and it was still raining at breakfast. It continued all day and the temperature hovered around 15 C, so it was about the same as being on Wacky Island, cool and wet. We can't complain though, because this is the first really wet day we have had on this holiday.

We went to the Ham Radio hamfest. Lynette stayed in the car and read etc. I did a quick tour and then came back. The numbers were significantly down on the previous two days. You could easily walk around all three halls and the fleamarket stalls had shrunk by 40%. Even some of the retailers had disappeared and left their business cards holding their stands.

After the hamfest, we programmed in Bregenz, which is in western Austria, Vorarlberg. We had a pleasant surprise in that the trip took us through the 6.8km long Pfander tunnel. This was opened last year and bypasses the climb over the Pfander mountain. It was interesting to see that the Austrian and German border checkpoints are on either end of the tunnel. They don't stop the car traffic but probably keep an eye on the trucks.

There didn't appear to be any trucks on the road today, being a Sunday. We found that to be the case in France 30+ years ago and it looks like it has been applied to the EU. Also, on many dual carriageways and all motorways that we have been on, the trucks are not allowed in fast lane. That makes a tremendous difference to the traffic flow and hopefully they will bring it in in NZ.

At Bregenz, we aimed for the centre. We were looking for a tourist shop so that Lynette could get a fridge magnet and after a few unplanned loops, we managed to find something open. It was quite an achievement as almost all the shops were shut.

Next we headed to the water (Lake Constance) and took a few back lanes. A lot of the suburbs that we travelled through were limited to 40kph. We did see a number of boats in large marinas. They looked to be open boats of about 15 – 20 feet and were covered over to keep the rain out of them. In fact, where we ended up was the town of Hard.

By sheer chance, we stumbled on a restaurant on the water's edge. It would be a great place to eat on a fine, dry summer's day, but in the pouring rain it offered a bright spot. It was an Italian restaurant and the guy running it was an entertainer who kept everyone amused and under control. We had a couple of Pizzas, as that was the limit of our Italian and German.

After that we came back to the B&B and drove through the village of Hohenweiler. It's a bit bigger than we thought, but probably less than 2,000 people. A sporting goods store (shut) and a supermarket, plus a couple of pubs.

For dinner, we attempted to go to the supermarket, but it was after 6PM, and was shut. We stumbled on the Krown pub, (yes JP, another pub.) It was built in 1769. We had a pleasant small meal there. Smoking is permitted in some areas, but we were able to eat in a smoke free area.

Then it was back to the B&B to prepare for the trek to Frankfurt.

Not a very nice day to be going boating, Hard, Austria.

The boats in the marina at Hard.

This looked to be an expensive property, especially with the land around it.

The church in Bregenz.

A fancy house in Bregenz.

Rail is well supported in Austria and Germany.

There's a bit of wood stacked up for the winter here.

In NZ, someone would have helped the owner "tidy up" this pile by now.

Just one of many similar houses in Hohenweiler.

Crosses were at both ends of the Hohenweiler village.

We guess the covering over the chimneys is to stop the snow going down.

It must make things difficult for Santa Claus.

The Krown pub sign.

Another wonderful day after the rain last night. 19C at 8:30AM and an easy 26C during the day. Still cooler than the halls inside the hamfest.

This was a day of action for Lynette. She decided that she wanted to spend time actually in Friedrickshafen and Lake Constance (Bodensee as it is called in this area). One of the ladies at the information desk at the Ham Radio Fest obtained a map of the town and a timetable for the buses that called regularly throughout the day at Messe West, the Ham Radio site. There was a bus to the town bus depot and one to the harbour (lake) and both were free. A great bonus.

Lynette took the bus to the bus depot and found it was situated below the train station and also a couple of blocks from the lake shore. Having been told that the Visitor Information Office was at the train station Lynette did a search of the area and came up with nothing so left that for later and headed down to the lake front and checked out the little market squares in the area and also took photos.

There were no kayaks, just small boats that were powered by two people pedalling. A trip across Lake Constance was called for so Lynette headed down to the large building at the end of the shore near where the ferries were moored. Plenty of pamphlets but none in English and when an assistant was asked if there were any in English there was a prompt “No”.

There had been an announcement regarding the departure of a vehicular ferry to Switzerland and Lynette had photographed it and its departure. Another large old ferry crammed with passengers had taken off for another destination. Then there was mention of a ferry to Konstanz (still in Germany) so Lynette asked a lady in the queue for details of the trip, time of return and ticket. It appeared that the return trip took about 1 hour and tickets were from an adjacent kiosk. Lynette watched two couples attempting to understand the instructions and giving up. She then tried and managed to order a return ticket and the price but then had to go and search her wallet for the money. Once found she was successful at the next attempt and out popped a ticket. Then there was a mad rush along the pavement and down the gangway as the ferry was leaving in one minute.

Safely on board Lynette stayed out in the bow area to take photos of both sides of the lake and the frequent ferries plying back and forth, some 24 hours per day. Once at Konstanz there was a 5 minute stopover which gave Lynette enough time to get off, take some photos, rush down to the water, have a paddle and then get back up and on the boat. A very, very pleasant time on the water.

Once back on land at Frederickshafen Lynette set about window shopping and comparing prices of fridge magnets. There was one of Germany which she could not ignore. It was a miniature cuckoo clock. The elderly owner knew some English from his school days and she was able to tell him that back in 1978 she and her husband had bought a proper cuckoo clock when they were in Frederickshafen and a further limited discussion took place between them.

Time for a softies (snow freeze) and then a walk back to the bus depot to catch the bus back to the Ham Fest. This time the bus did two extra blocks and Lynette discovered the Visitor Information Centre and the post office so if necessary will go there tomorrow. Starting to feel like a local now. It is a small town and very pleasant. However still pleased that our B&B is just over the border in Austria.

Jim on the other hand had a quiet day wandering the halls of the Hamfest. The most exciting thing was the balloon launch, and I believe the team that launched it are all part of the German Cricket team, as they move so slowly. They certainly took their time with the preparations, but in the end it went straight up, directly above the exhibition complex. I tried to look for it on the APRS.fi page but there is a jumble on Friedrichshafen. The local club were tracking it on a large screen.

I also found out about the “gypsy caravan.” The guy who makes them, makes them as round huts and they are used for all sorts of thing such as sauna rooms in Finland, kids play houses and cabins at camping grounds. The owner of this one does take it along to campsites on his trailer and stay in it and run his radios but he is not a gypsy.

When Lynette came back to the complex, we headed to Lindau, which is further east of Fridrichshafen. We walked along the edge of the lake for a little while, until the expensive lakeside houses stopped access to the lake. We then went and had dinner in a restaurant which had been built in 1671, according to the carving on the log holding up the ceiling, Then it was back to the B&B.

Just a couple of notes on eating in restaurants here. Firstly, although we ask for tap water, we always get sold still water. Not sure if this is a communications issue or simply fleecing the tourists a bit more. Also whenever we have paid for a meal, it's been at the table and the waitress has brought out a large wallet that is loaded, to provide us with the necessary change. I haven't seen them use a till in a restaurant yet.

A model of the zeppelin that has made Friedrichshafen famous.

One of the ferries on Lake Constance (Bodensee.)

Guess who owns this building in Friedrichshafen.

A great picture of the lake, Friedrichshafen and the farmland behind.

Entering Konstanz.

An old time in Konstanz.

One of the guardians to the port of Konstanz.

A water feature in Friedrichshafen.

There's a tractor to be seen every day, even if it's a little one in Lindau.

Apartments in Lindau.  Note the window boxes with plants in them.

Slowly getting the ballon ready to launch.  

The balloon is directly overhead with its payload under it.

Jakob is a bionic rabbit who rode down from Frankfurt.  It's over 400km and we took about six hours to drive down.  He rode down in three days.  His radio is on the handle bars and his antenna is the tall one at the back of his trailer.

Breakfast was at 8AM and at that stage the car was telling me the temperature was 19C. I know because I went and installed my own GPS just because I wanted one that I was happier to use.

We went to the Hamfest as we missed the turn off to downtown Friedrichshafen. (The GPS told us to turn left into a No Entry road.) At the Hamfest, Lynette was happy enough to sit in the car and catch up with her diary and reading while I spent the day inside.

Entry was easy, as I had already paid for the ticket over the internet so just needed to pick up the tag itself. That jumped a heap of others in the queue.  Inside, there were three halls set up. The largest held all the commercial vendors, exhibits and radio clubs from all over. The two furtherest clubs were from Thailand and Japan.

The other two halls held the flea market and were each about 110 metres long and one had 14 rows of tables and the other 16 rows. Walking the front of each row was good exercise, about 5km for the total trip, all on hard concrete. The main hall was about twice as long as the smaller halls.

I started in the flea market, the two smaller halls. Literally there was everything there, except the kitchen sink and I may have missed that as I saw a kid's pedal car there. Ton and tons (literally) of test equipment, some PC stuff, components by the truckful, especially high voltage heavy duty items, probably form the Iron Curtain countries. Lots of ex-miltary stuff that we just don't see in NZ, whether it be UK, US or Russian origin.

I put my card on the QSL wall. It's a great idea for the organisers to see where people have come from and for everyone else to see who has visited. I think it would be a good idea to do occasionally at some of our NZ junk sales.

In the main hall, I wandered around and met a few people. There was a gypsy caravan there, which Lynette would have liked, where the guy had set it up with his radio in part of it. I have strict instructions to talk to him tomorrow and see if he travels around with a horse towing it.

A number of people chatted to me. A couple of guys had been to NZ and enjoyed it greatly and a lady is going next week to have a three week ride on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, up and down the country. I met one person who had worked me and also a German engineer from whom I had purchased a piece of kit, ten years ago. He was rapt that I remembered him and contacted him.

Lynette and I had lunch at a food stall and then I went back inside while she continued. It was actually cooler outside (26C) than inside, despite the inside having air conditioning. It was just all those bodies. Speaking of bodies, I have no idea how many turned up, but I thought there were more people there than at Dayton, Ohio (the world's largest hamfest), on a Friday. It may be an illusion, because Dayton is spread out over a greater area.

The afternoon prowl, took me until 4:30PM, by which time I had had enough for one day. I caught up with Lynette. She checked on the buses at the Hamfest and they will take her to town tomorrow.

We headed away from the Hamfest and programmmed in the B&B. We planned to try to go downtown to Friedrichshafen, but missed a turn and got on the road back to the B&B. At 5PM, it was jammed, literally, so we inched along and took the first exit. We found a car park near the Friedrichshafen train station and tried to get in.

At the car park entry, I pushed the lit green button and nothing happened, other than the light went out. I tried again and then pushed the only other button on the parking thingy. A lady sounded a bit confused, when I told her in English that I had pushed the button and the barrier didn't go up. She turned on the light on the button switch and I pushed it again and the light went out but the barrier still stayed down. She sounded even more frustrated with me, then the driver behind me came up and pulled a plastic token, the size of an old 20 cent piece, out of the machine, and the barrier magically went up. When we had parked and were walking out, we found a meter that read your plastic coin and took money from you. When you put it in the exit machine, it will let you out. Clever people these Germans! Saves all the rubbish of tickets etc.

The first call in the town was to find a pair of jandals for me, to replace the one the leprechaun has borrowed. Then we walked along the lake, took pictures of the boats and ferries. It looks like they have a roll on, roll off vehicle ferry between Germany and Switzerland. Then we had a pleasant meal and returned to the B&B.

It's just started to rain (at 10PM), with a little thunder, so maybe we should have bought a pair of gumboots instead of jandals.

The gypsy caravan, mounted on a trailer

That's not fruit drink they have in the bottle.

Hordes in the flea market area.

Lots of green paint on this equipment

See if you can see ZL1LC

I thought the Irish only flew kites not balloons.

Count the number of different national flags here.

Just a small portion of the car park.

Part of the main hall.

An Egima machine on display.  There was another for sale for Euros 33,000.  Not sue if it sold.

The Italians know when it's time to relax.

Along the Friedrichshafen waterfront.

A catamaran ferry.

A conventional ferry with Switzerland in the background.

It was a little cooler going to breakfast on Wednesday morning, as the wind was blowing. However during the day it warmed up to about 20C

The morning was spent getting from Tunbridge Wells to Heathrow and the Airport Hilton. The beloved M25 was very slow and held us up. Then we missed seeing the only sign to the Rental Car return until it was too late so had to do a circuit of the airport, well almost, to get back in.

We then headed for town via the underground. The train took about 50 minutes to get there and we got off at Piccadilly Circus, with no idea what we would do. We wandered around the streets. This is the hub of London's expensive shops, with Regent Street being only one of them. All the big name stores and entertainment theatres are there. We walked the streets, changed some money to Euros and found a China town where I got a massage for my neck and shoulder. We then had an “all you can eat” Chinese buffet and headed back to the airport. The train was jam packed with the late office leavers and we had to stand almost all the way.

On Thursday morning we were up early and left the hotel just after 7AM. British Rail clipped us for almost NZ$20 for a ride from Terminal 4 to Terminal 1. Checking in to Lufthansa was not too bad other than the excess baggage fee, but it was expected. We went through security and had breakfast and read while waiting for the flight.

We were about 40 minutes late leaving Heathrow and still arrived on time in Frankfurt at 1PM, after a one hour flight. Work that out. It took about 40 minutes for the baggage to get out and we had our hands on the car keys by 2PM.

The car proved a bit of a challenge. It came with a GPS fitted as part of the car and I couldn't figure out how to enter the address. I walked back to the rental office and they paged someone. I walked back to the car, about 300 metres away, and solved the problem. That was lucky as the Turk who came to help didn't speak English. He did help me with the electronic parking brake, by showing me where it was and how to release it. Put the foot brake down first.

Eventually we were on our way, but the GPS wasn't talking, so I had to read the screen and Lynette read off the cheat sheet I had printed. We made it onto the motorway (autobahn) and headed south. There were a few hectic moments as I learned to change gear with my right hand. It's a little 1400cc Opel that's turboed and has a six speed gearbox, so you have to stir the gears to get progress.

We stopped at a couple of service areas. One to adjust a few things, but the second was to get some drink and a little food. There one of Ian's visiting leprechaun friends stole one of my jandals. I had it when I walked back from buying a few things, but never had it when we stopped a couple of hundred km down the road. (I was driving in bare feet.) I bet he's using it as a surf board!

The roads were great. Not a roundabout all day. The road surface is flat and relatively noise free, but progress is not as fast as you would expect. Sure you cruise along at 130kph, and faster cars still go flying past, but there were a number of areas of roadworks, which slowed usto a stop, for no apparent reason and there were several areas of serious congestion. We joined the commuter traffic in Stuttgart and that took a long time to clear.

We had a bite to eat in one of the greasy spoon road houses, as we were too late to join the hams for dinner in Friedrichshafen.

We managed to find the 250+ year old B&B in Austria, and spread out. It will be a fun place. The husband doesn't speak English but the wife does, a little. Still it's only for a few days and we are in Austria after all.

An all too common English road sign.  No idea what is being said.

Above and Below - Piccadilly Circus area.

Beautiful clocks on the wall.

We even found NZ House, but it was closed.

A long view of Buck Palace.  They didn't invite us in.

The famous Eros statue.

A typical German sign.  Still no idea what it means.

Check out this roadworks on the autobahn.  The cars are about two miles away and crawling.  That pile behind the digger is dirt/material that will be used on the roadworks.

Bosch have a carpark that stretches across six lanes of autobahn.  Pretty pretentious.

There's always got to be a tractor on the road.  In this case it's in Germany, just.

Little Austrian cottage viewed from our window.