We thought we’d take a break from civilisation and spend a couple of days in the Eifel National Park. This took us over the border from Belgium into Germany. My brain was a bit strained from going from British to French to Belgium road signs in only a few days, but thankfully driving in German is pretty easy. Their road layouts and signage is pretty similar to the UK and the average driver seems to be fairly tolerant of my ambling pace…
We arrived fairly late at our intended stop for the night, but thankfully there weren’t any issues. It was just a car park in a nature reserve that allowed overnight stops and there was only one other camper there. We had a very peaceful evening watching the birds, including a woodpecker.
In the morning we headed back a few km around the lake to a good spot to do a bit of walking. I convinced Joolz to hike up a rather large hill to find a geocache. We were on the lookout for the wildcats that are making a comeback in the park, but all we saw were lots of beetles, small birds and a fairly fearless vole. Thankfully we found the cache (or I would never had heard the end of it) and the scenery from the viewpoint was fantastic.
Model at the viewpoint 
Actual life 
Found a geocache! 
Hallo Herr Käfer, hast du scheiße gefunden? 
Spot the vole competition
After the arduous trek, we walked to a cafe in the town of Rurberg for some refreshments. Joolz found that they had Hugo cocktails on the menu, so had to have one, along with a slice of ‘cherries with rice’ gateaux.
For the evening, we drove a little further through the park to Vogelsang, which is a former Nazi training camp, which was used as a Belgium military base from 1950 to 2005. It now houses a visitor and exhibition centre. It also allows overnight stops in their camping area, which was virtually deserted.
Panorama (click to view) 
View for the night
Up early tomorrow. My first drive in a German city, so I hope Köln (Cologne) is easy.