BootsnAll Travel Network



Introducing The Bear Cave

by the housewife
Berlin, Germany

For most of us our first look at our new home for the next six months or so came in the middle of the city at twilight. Nervously inching along the road shared by trams, trucks, busses, bicycles and cars, our fat beast loomed closer and closer. Rob pulled over as best he could on the single-lane one-way street and we fired packs in through the side door, not stopping for a moment to actually LOOK at the van. A car pulled up and so we moved round the corner into the bike lane for a final three minutes of mad bag-chucking and jumping-in-ing and finding-seats-ing……and then we were off…..cautiously.

It seemed so spacious – there were ample seats for everyone, even though we were not *supposed* to be carrying more than six passengers. There were little cupboards and nooks and crannies everywhere. But there were also a lot of backpacks and bags of food, and I wondered if we would fit.
First night we dispatched Grandpa and two big girls off to a couchsurfing apartment, while the rest of us settled into a carpark, piling packs in the middle of the room (seeing as it turned out there were no corners), transforming seats and tables into beds, getting kids into said beds (it was, after all, eleven pm) and repositioning the Cave to the free side of the carpark, which was to become our base for a few more days than we would have liked to think would be necessary.

Today we became acquainted.

The Number Plates:

pic (we have the vision – but not the pics yet!)

You don’t really think we’re going to let mad internet stalkers see the actual numbers, do you? But after all the kerfuffle to get these things, the least we can do is a photo!

The Front Door:
It’s where you’d come in, if you come to visit. And look, it can be all open, closed or half open. That is one snazzy feature!!

pic

The Front Seat:
From here Rob has come to terms with crossing over lanes of traffic on the right/wrong side of the road, what to do when there are no traffic lights, who gives way to whom, negotiating roundabouts and intersections…..it certainly helps that German drivers are Eva So Polite. The Front Seat has a curtain behind it…..I have visions of drawing it and escaping sometime to the relative solitude.

The Carseat:
In a country where carseats cost 100-200 euro (yikes), we snaffled up a secondhand deal for just 5 euro. 
Actually, we are supposed to have four children in carseats here – by law – but this vehicle is old enough that we are exempt from the laws. Not that it makes us any safer. Of course, we would prefer for everyone to be belted in, but we only have three belts and so it’s not an option. We’ll be looking at installing belts if we can. In the meantime, everyone sits down to travel, just like in the olden days when I was a little girl.

The Front Table:
Is it a table or is it a bed? My oh my, it can be both!  
Under the seat on one side we have tanks of water (boy oh boy, are we thankful for our lessons in water conservation in  Mongolia). The other seat houses the children’s “wardrobe” and all the winter boots and a whole lot of nothing.

pic

The Front Cupboards:
Behind the front seats, above the front table, one on each side are two cupboards, each with a small shelf underneath. Packs of cards and other miscellaneous games fill one, with not-to-be-lost-items like torch and keys and phrasebooks and pocketknives on the shelf beneath. The other side is a stationery centre with journals, pens and pencils, watercolours, crayons, maths text, Bible, Europe map….a place for everything and everything in its place.

The Alcove Bed
By day it gets pushed back and covered with sleeping bag liners, sleeping bags, jackets stuffed in pillowcases pretending to be pillows (or just the pillowcases if it’s cold and we need to wear the jackets). By night, the bed is stretched out to make room for three bodies (though four would fit easily), the ladder is dropped down and half the horde is shipped “upstairs”.

pic

The Back:
There’s another table, this one with a snazzy drop leaf for those times that you want ease of movement in a crowded space rather than a tabletop (or bed base or kitchen bench, as the case may be). You’ll find a pile of cupboards up above, now filled with important things like craft supplies and reusable water bottles (and a whole lot of empty ones – coz actually we just don’t need so much space!!!!!!!!!!!! – like the under seat storage – there’s just more than we need). The back also houses the Big Pots (whew, I was so glad they fit somewhere), our laundry (a nice white and blue enamel basin), The Blanket, a bag of plastic bags (although we have picked up some reusable cloth bags so now we can be green shoppers again), a brush and shovel, teatowels, cloths, pegs, rope, ra ra ra – and there’s a whole lot more space besides! Squeezed onto the window seat is our fresh-is-best herbarium, which Jgirl14 has requested to keep alive. Win-win. There’s also a secret cupboard, but if we showed it to you it wouldn’t be a secret any more, would it? Actually, it’s not that secret, and if you open the door you can use it as a wall and turn the Cave into an upmarket Two-Room Variety.

pic

The other cupboard Bathroom:
You would not believe what luxury can be squeezed into such a small space. Just take a look. There’s a shower, but not just any old shower – this one can be fed out a wee door in the wall and allow you to rinse off outside under the stars or beside the beach or wherever you happen to be. There’s a toilet. And not just any old toilet. No way. This one flushes. If you pump it hard enough, that is. There’s a handbasin too – and *that* lifts up, offering a second showering possibility if it has not finished draining…..and there are toiletries that hide. I told you it was a cool bathroom.

Last, but not least,
The Kitchen:
This was the part I thought would potentially be too small to be practical. But over the course of the next week I’ll be pleasantly surprised. We can easily fit all the staples and an entire week’s worth of food in the three cupboards and vege basket on the floor. It’s a different mentality to the super-stocked pantry we left behind.

Next week when we get the other Womo (which most of us still have not seen), we won’t know what to do with ourselves. I’m guessing there will be storage room, not that we need any more. The second toilet could be useful though. And it might just make a nice Quiet Spot – the Womo, not the toilet. Oh, and three children and Grandpa will sleep in it, leaving us very spacious sleeping arrangements in The Bear Cave (there is so much room in here that we could actually sleep in this one vehicle, so long as Grandpa didn’t mind sleeping on the roof….it’s just a pity there are finnicky laws about how many passengers can legally be transported in one vehicle).

We are going to be very very comfortable.



Tags: , , , ,

6 responses to “Introducing The Bear Cave”

  1. Pam and Mick says:

    hi there from uncle mick and aunty pam.
    we are hoping that you enjoy and appreciate all that you come across on this adventure. maybe we can meet up somewhere, someday. get out there and enjoy – hopefully we can join you someday. Love you all, Mick and Pam

  2. nova says:

    looks lovely! (thus far 😉 ) in awe of your tidiness & organisation too, it would surely descend into chaos with us at the helm!

  3. Gran and Pa says:

    Maybe we should start a family convoy one day.

  4. rayres says:

    Consider yourselves invited! You’ve got six months to get here 😉

  5. Leah says:

    I can’t believe Germans are so pedantic about how many people you can carry in one vehicle, yet not about seat belts. In Australia there’s no way in the WORLD you could travel without a seatbelt (not unless it was just a very short trip and you avoided any policemen who happened to be around), yet the only limit on how many people you can put in a vehicle is in regards to how many seats/seatbelts there are in said vehicle! I know a family of 13 who had a minivan that just fit them all. That said when you do get to these bigger vehicles I think you do need special licences.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *