A weekend in Müritz-Nationalpark

After four months of waiting, I finally got the car. A Dacia Bigster, intended this summer for a three-month trip north and currently a very expensive question mark. Before I rely on it for anything serious, I need an answer to a basic one: can I actually sleep in this thing? May 1st is a bank holiday in Germany, which turned the weekend into a usefully long one, and a couple of nights in the woods felt more informative than another evening of YouTube videos.

I left straight from work and pointed the car north toward Müritz-Nationalpark, a place I hadn’t been to in years, roughly halfway between Berlin and Rostock. I then spent over an hour escaping Berlin, so much for the head start. Plan B was a lake I’d flagged on the map called Kalksee, in Binenwalde, near Neuruppin. I rolled in with plenty of light left, walked the short way down to the shore, and made dinner there with the water in front of me. Already a better evening than I’d earned.

The one problem with sleeping next to a lake in May is mosquitoes. I don’t have a window screen yet, and this was my first night in the car, so I improvised. Unfold the bed platform, drag the mattress in, jump after it, slam the doors, pretend I’m somewhere else. Then it got worse. I still had to change clothes, find my Kindle, my earphones, and my sleeping bag, all while already inside. I’m 188cm. The headroom in the back is about 50cm. The contortion that followed was the kind that makes you sweat for the wrong reasons. But eventually I was horizontal, dressed, and reading. First night in the new car, here we go.

First night verdict: uncomfortable, woke up with a sore lower back. I slept right through, which was the headline, but the mattress is, on closer inspection, garbage. Fine for one warm night on holiday, a liability for anything longer. I was also cold for the first hour, until I pulled out my second sleeping bag (rated to -6°C), and I’d left a window cracked behind the blind without realising. Probably didn’t help. All fixable. Close the window. Use the warm bag from the start. Replace the mattress, which I will. Mostly I’m wondering how the 100-kilo auto journalist who reviewed this same setup honestly called his night comfortable. My working theory is he slept at the hotel down the road and came back for the morning shot. Anyway, let’s open the window, enjoy the view, and make coffee.

While making coffee I noticed I’d left the water canister at home. Two litres for three days is a problem, except it’s also a perfect excuse to stop at a village café, buy a piece of chocolate cake, and refill the 1-litre bottles I’d brought with me. Thirty minutes later I was parked next to the campsite at Boek, ready for a proper day in the woods.

Quick note on the park. Müritz-Nationalpark was founded in 1990 and is the largest forest national park in Germany. It sits beside Müritzsee, the country’s largest lake. The beech forests joined the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2011, as an extension of the Primeval Beech Forests of Europe, an unspoilt slice of what the continent looked like after the last Ice Age. It’s also a serious birdwatching destination, which I am not, but the older I get, the more interesting it sounds. A possible future hobby, filed away.

The walk was 19.3km and mostly silent. I’m not sure I passed a single person on foot all afternoon, just the occasional slow biker drifting through the trees. The bird hides are everywhere, little wooden boxes half-hidden in the reeds, built for patient people. I am not yet a patient person, but I sat in one for a while anyway and pretended.

For the second night I drove to Röbel, a tiny town with a parking lot where campers are welcome. I’d rather be tucked into the trees somewhere, but it had been recommended, and I didn’t want to risk picking a spot where I wouldn’t be welcome. The mattress somehow felt worse the second night. I gave up around 5am, made an early breakfast, and drove twenty minutes to Sietow Dorf, a small village on the western shore. The walk that followed was the kind that makes you forget you slept badly: forest, rapeseed fields blazing yellow, a long stretch along the lake, Klink castle in the distance, and a sunburn I didn’t notice forming until much later.

Then back to Berlin. First micro-adventure with the car: officially closed. The honest takeaways: the mattress is leaving, I need a window screen before the next outing, and I need to work out how to change clothes inside without auditioning for Cirque du Soleil. The car is also a lot smaller than the van I used to have, which I already miss, and there’s going to be a long list of compromises before this thing is ready for three months. But I forgot how much I needed even a short stretch away from the city, and how much better the day feels when it starts with bad coffee at a lake. None of the small problems mattered enough to spoil it. No adventure starts easy. If it did, it wouldn’t be one.