As I write this blog post, we are sat in a rather huge and impressive Mercedes dealership in Frankfurt. We are not broken down though, we are here for hopefully, the final piece of truck upgrade work that we need to do, now that we have registration and we are on the road. We are both very much ready for the preparations / configurations to be done so we can set off and use the truck on our planned travels.
In my last post we had just dropped off the truck at Krug Expedition in Schladming, Austria. There were a few upgrades we did not want to do when we bought the truck as we wanted to be sure what payload we had to play with, once we had registered the truck and packed the rest of our equipment and spares etc. We also wanted to use the truck a little before deciding what we needed.
The list to be fitted was finalised only when we dropped it off:
– Air Conditioning – with two dogs onboard and plans to travel through the tropics, we decided we did need this. Many people manage just with the AirMax fans we already have installed, but having experienced hot and humid climates when we were sailing, we realised air movement is not always enough. This is especially true for little dogs with big fur coats
– Extra Lithium batteries – all of our cooking and appliances run on electric and although we have solar panels to top these up, we needed a bigger battery bank to be able to use aircon as well. On cloudy days, as we have had many recently, the extra battery storage will come in when we have less solar charging. Although, we have found the alternator victron buck boost charging to be really effective, you may not always want to drive everyday.
– Extra Sound Proofing in cab – the demo Rhino we drove had an extra pad of sound proofing in front of the pass-through door. We did not get this when we picked up our truck and asked for this to be fitted. It seems this solution had been upgraded as the thick black fabric covered pad with Velcro panel holding it in place is much better than the first version we saw. It takes cab volume down from having to have slightly raised voices to almost saloon car quietness. It is a considerable improvement and also helps with thermal insulation.
– Starlink cable run – We plan to roof mount our Starlink as soon as we are home using the StarMount system with mounting bracket so that we can also remove it from the roof and use away from the truck, if needed (E.g. if we want to park in the shade). However, as this involves drilling a hole in the roof, we did not want to invalidate our Krug warranty, we asked them to add a cable gland to enable us to complete the install at home.
– Retractable steps – We did not fit these originally as we needed to be sure we could afford the payload. However, taking ladders from the garage each time gets old very quickly. We got to see the steps fitted on another Rhino and were immediately convinced we should add these too. It is good for security to be able to quickly deploy and remove the steps, although we do have 2 quick access steps, these are much better solution. Also, I cannot actually reach the door handle without them, so for me they are a game changer, especially as nipping through the cab is less easy with the sound proofing.
– Roof Rack – this was part of the base vehicle, but again we wanted to be sure of weight capacity after fitting other critical safety / recovery kit. This gives us good protection to trees, more carrying capacity, plus a double LED lightbar for extra vision at night offroad. Although you would not plan to drive at night off-road, you would be pleased to have them if you had to do so.
So, we dropped off our home on wheels and de-camped to an apartment in Schladming. We had timed our trip well for accommodation, as the ski season had not yet started and summer hiking season was finished. We got a really lovely apartment with mountain view’s for a really good price.
We had a walk through town on the first day, the pre-season difference was stark. The streets were empty and most of the shops and restaurants were closed. The ski slopes which appear near vertical, to our relatively inexperienced eyes had a mere dusting of snow. Although from the large piles of unmelted snow here and there, they have clearly already had a good fall recently. We have been here in peak ski-season and seen the apres-ski celebrations spilling out onto the streets all around town. Even in the summer with hiking and mountain biking the town is bustling.
We went over to the Tourist Office but they confirmed our initial observations that the town was collectively taking its annual holiday. The summer hiking routes were closed but they did offer us a riverside walk which we used frequently through the week to walk / run with Lizzy and Lola.
So we had a fairly quiet week loitering in Schladming. We enjoyed lunches out and crisp frosty walks, just enjoying being in this beautiful Alpine region. I caught up on some language lessons, switching to Spanish now in preparation for our South American travels.
We were itching to pick up our truck again by Friday though, ready to get back “home”. Waiting for our 3pm pick up on Friday seemed endless, but when the truck emerged from the garage with roof rack LEDs blazing, the hanging around at last seemed worthwhile. Kevin ran through tests on everything with Stephan the Production Manager, whilst I unpacked our many bags back into the truck.
Once we had completed handover, we decided to head straight Berchtesgaden, just over the border in Germany. It is on our bucket list to visit the Eagle’s Nest there, Hitlers former Alpine holiday retreat / Nazi Party meeting place. It is now converted to a restaurant and many of the original features removed, to discourage the wrong sort of fanatical tourism I understand. The bunker where Hitler was found dead in Berlin is now a carpark for the same reason. However, we were a week too late to make it to the Eagle’s Nest as the road up there (accessible only by tour bus) or the hike is closed for the winter due to the weather.
We did get to enjoy a weekend in the National Park area of Berchtesgaden Land by Lake Königssee. It was absolutely beautiful in its autumn colours. We enjoyed some lakeside walks / runs, though we were persuaded by the sleet to take the bus for a walk round Berchtesgaden rather than the 3 mile each way walk.
We could see the familiar hexagonal shaped bay of the Eagle’s Nest (Kehlsteinhaus) watching over the town of Berchtesgaden from the top of Kehlstein mountain. It must have been quite a menancing presence during its usage by the Nazi Party, although reputedly you had to be a Party member to live in Berchtesgaden at that time, many of the Third Reich having holiday homes there.
The old town of Berchtesgaden was well worth a wander round with its pretty and ornate Alpine buildings. We made sure to get the bus back in time for the Premiership rugby game that afternoon though.
On Sunday though it was time to start making our way north towards Frankfurt through 2 days of almost constant rain, for hopefully our last truck appointment for a while. We are visiting Off-road-Motorhome Services at their base in a Mercedes dealership in Frankfurt. We had a pleasant stop off along the canal at Hilpoltstein, where we had the odd experience of watching huge Viking River Cruise boats passing us almost silently at night, their big glass dome windows displaying all the diners passing whilst seated for a formal dinner.
In the morning of our dog walk, we got to see the observation deck for the hugely impressive Eckersmühlen/Haimpfarrich lock. It has a huge 24.67m height difference to lift boats of upto 190m length and 12m width. Wikipedia tells me it achieves all this through 3 savings locks which help to refill the massive chamber via a 300m tunnel to the nearby Rothsee lake. There is even a 200m dike which allows the Klein Roth tributary to flow beneath the lock. This massive engineering feat built between 1980-1985 and serving these enormous cruise boats makes the narrow boats and wooden lock gates of UK look like toys.
We had a final night in the long thin town of Leidersbach only 30 mins to Frankfurt on Monday night. The highlight being a lovely dog walk this morning, where the hike up the valley was rewarded by the sight of 7 deer running around on the edges of the woodland. Obviously this was because I had not brought my camera….
So, we should hopefully pick up our truck again in 30 minutes complete with remote monitoring system from O-M Services. You may remember we met Markus, the owner of O-MS and former worldwide overlander at the Krug Off-road Weekend in April. This will give us a device to read any of the engine faults codes, run performance reports, perform diagnostic tests and also get remote support from Markus and team.
There are many schools of thought about vehicles to be used as Overlanders. Many who advocate older vehicles which can be repaired without computer assistance. Although, it seems to me that very few of those who buy them have any experience or expertise to do so. Kevin is actually a time served Engineer from Leyland Truck and Bus in his younger years and worked in engine development for truck engines, so very capable of doing repairs. However, we felt a modern vehicle with extended service intervals and reliability plus a computer that can run diagnostics to tell you exactly what is wrong, was a better choice for us.
However, despite Mercedes having a worldwide dealer network it is clear from the experiences of many of those travellers we follow that the reality is there are different models sold in Europe versus the Americas and you cannot always get parts or servicing as standard when you ship your vehicle to a different region. Therefore we plan to be as independent as possible.
In for a Penney 