Dwti Draig

It’s time to talk about the giant that is the Allrad & Abenteur show! This is a huge show that happens every year in the town of Bad Kissingen in the centre of Germany, and is a magnet for anyone interested in Overland/4×4 travel. Lyn was desperate to attend, so we based our trip this year solely around being there. 

The website advises that entry is not possible to the camping fields until 1pm on the Wednesday, with the show starting on the Thursday and finishing on the Sunday. We camped in an ideal free spot about 20 minutes away, and turned up at Camping Field 1 at around 12pm, as we expected to be queuing in traffic. Amazingly we drove almost straight in, with only 3 vehicles queueing to pay in front of us. We quickly found a spot and parked up. The priority was to get our awning up as soon as possible as we knew it would be busy with people parking right next to us. We got our awning up, only for an official to wander over to us and  ask us to move a few feet to our left! Guess who had to take the awning down and start again!

We made friends with our neighbours on both sides, who were both lovely German couples. The couple on our right are planning to ship their truck to Canada at the beginning of September, and spend three years travelling the Americas. The couple on our left had the same version of Hymer motorhome that we had, albeit the 4×4 version. We had great conversations with both couples and felt very safe leaving stuff outside etc. There is a huge element of trust in places such as this; we assume everyone looks out for each other as we all have shared common interests and values. 

The campsite quickly filled up, and we were soon hemmed in with vehicles, including a big German family in their assorted vans behind us, with one van almost parked on our guy ropes! There are no designated pitches, it is a free for all that fills up very quickly. We found that some people had been camped up from the night before to get pitches! Lesson for next time!

It is expected that things are chaotic and busy, as the event is so popular, and attracts so many different types of vehicles from all over the world, with the camping fields being as much of an attraction draw as the event itself. Everybody there is fascinated with the vehicles they see, and they can see everything from cars with roof top tents to multi million pound off road expedition vehicles all parked up next to each other. We had to get used to sitting outside the truck and have people come walk by us, with many stopping to talk, or just walk around the truck to look even more closely. We invited a few inside to look in more detail. Lyn was in his element, spending 2.5 hours one night just walking around Camp 1 chatting to people and admiring vehicles.

There were not many Brits there, and we drew a lot of attention with our Welsh number plate, as it says CYM which stands for Cymru; the Welsh word for Wales. Even though our number plate shows the Welsh flag, and we had a big Welsh flag flying above the truck most Germans guessed we were from the Cayman Islands!

There are another 3 camp sites in addition to ours, and free buses are available from the campsites to the showground a few miles away. These are frequent and free. It is all run with typical German efficiency. The journey to the show ground was through beautiful rural country side. 

The show itself is massive! Personally it wasn’t for me, especially as the weather made it so hard to walk around, especially with thousands of other people. Lyn loved it though and visited every day. I only went in on the Thusday and the Sunday. It was much quieter and more chilled on the Sunday. 

Lyn here, happy 60th to me, this was my birthday present to myself. I should have come here before I started my truck, as the Allrad is sort of an European mecca for offroad travelling. I know this wasn’t going to be Lucy’s cup of tea, but it was a must do for me. There are 3 sides to the event, the actual showground, the people and then the 4 campsites. Walking around the campgrounds was an education in itself, looking at how people have adapted their vehicles. I took away so many ideas my head was bursting. Each evening I would go out for a wander, beer in hand, which was amazing as you would expect. The first loop of  campsite one took me 2.5 hours, wow!  I did manage to get  it down to about an hour’s constitutional in the end… I took pictures of hoists, cranes, sand ladders, wheel mounts, hammocks, slide out kitchens, BBQs, tables etc etc. 

All this before I even got into the showground. I bought a 4 days pass as I knew I would be in every day. Day 1 with Lucy was to scope it out including a visit to Motorcraft from the UK who built our truck and we also met some other MC customers which was cool. For 15 Euro you can drive a huge old 6 wheel truck on an offroad course, or queue on the Land Rover stand to have a drive on their wet course ( it was all very ‘nice’) but they did have a point you could get a wheel off the ground for that Instagram picture !!! Add this to water filters, winches, air track fittings, BBQ, roof tents, shock absorbers, and all the other wonderful bits you really NEED on your 4×4 and you get the idea. I was expecting a lot more big truck stuff, but it looks like their current market trend is for 4×4 pickups and smaller 3.5ton 4×4, as the age profile of customers with lightweight driving licences (=3.5t) comes into mainstream use. Older people still have up to 7.5t but are slowly leaving the market for producers. As expected there were a few £1m plus trucks in the show and the campground, but I forgot my chinos and prefer beer to white wine anyway. I had a tour of one vehicle, talking to the builder who explained about the amount of work that went into the veneer carpentry and how the owner wanted to have an office set up. When asked where the 6 wheel (6×6), 33t beast had gone on its travels Spain was the furthest !

One part of the show that both Lucy and I enjoyed was meeting and talking to lots of fellow travellers, we spent some time with a few people and made some good connections. When you share travel ambitions and plans and you get the “us too” response, you know you are going to spend some time talking. One couple gave us their details and we agreed to meet up with them in the ‘Stans” next year! How crazy is that ! Others advised on the best ferries and routes across the Black Sea! What a fantastic event. I could go on, but this is Lucy’s blog not mine ….. 

So, back to me now! I found it all a bit overwhelming, with the number of vehicles and people, how crowded the campsite was, being on “display” all the time and very definitely the heat didn’t help! I wouldn’t be in a rush to go back, but we did manage to stay until the Monday, when we left the campsite at lunch time. It was a completely different setup then; just us and a few others in a beautiful green area. Bliss!