Day 3 – Tuesday 10 July 2012

Leutkirch-Herlatzhofen – Illertissen

Campsite

Camping Illertissen, Dietenheimerstrs 91, D-89257 Illertissen
www.camping-illertissen.de

Notes

As I wheeled my bike off the camping field I found a red squirrel lying prone on the grass. I took a photograph to remind me of my mortality and set off pondering fate and the meaning of life.

This was a shorter day than Torfmann planned as he goes all the way to Ulm. However, I couldn’t find a campsite near Ulm, so we stopped short at Illertissen. From the Moorbad camp site I wound towards Leutkirch passing through a village with a large decorated pole with various emblems attached and a garland near the top, much as we find maypoles in English villages.

I rode through Leutkirch and skirted to the east of the autobahn on quiet country roads, crossing over it at Aitrach and then joined a straight minor road with occasional cycle paths all the way to Illertissen. This was delightful riding, if a little short of variety.

At Dietenheim I turned left towards Illertissen and just over the river Iller I came to a sign for Camping Illertissen, down a ramp to the river bank and a nice lady in the office who confirmed that Liz was already here. We had a bit of a struggle to get our Strom connected but eventually managed it with our long extension lead over a bridge and round a corner amongst some bushes. I’d never have found it without the nice lady. While relying on Liz supporting me from the car I don’t have to worry about recharging my ’phone and GPS as they just plug into the tent’s mains distribution box. We keep in touch by text message during the day but we found that Liz’s ’phone wasn’t roaming. So we walked into Illertissen and found an internet café, logged into Liz’s mobile ’phone account and found that roaming had been disabled. A quick click in a check box and within half an hour there was a text message confirming that roaming had been activated.

We found a serviceable Greek restaurant to shelter from a rain storm under a large garden umbrella and eat a meal before a quick wander round the camp site and so to bed.