OXBOW - You never know who or what might pull into your local campground.
On Aug. 16, Norbert Heinzeroth and Heidi Stahlschmidt arrived at Bow Valley Park in Oxbow in their 1998 Mercedes light four-wheel drive Belgian army truck, which had been converted into a camper.
The couple, nicknamed the Stahlroths, from Kleinwallstadt, Germany, have been making a cross-Canada trip which will end in Vancouver next spring (with a detour to a few states and a two-month return to Germany). They plan to add the rest of North America, including Alaska, and South America to their itinerary. It is scheduled to finish in Argentina five years from now.
Their camper arrived by ship in Halifax and they met it on May 10. They’ve owned the camper since 2016 and it has been home since 2018. They have used it to tour central Asia and Africa and now the Americas.
They spent Canada Day in Newfoundland’s J.T. Cheeseman Provincial Park. This German couple won lawn chairs and a hat that were made in China, and were invited to cut Canada’s birthday cake. It was quite the international event.
The Stahlroth’s used to plan holidays around adventures like skiing and skydiving. In 2008, they drove for three weeks through Namibia, Africa and that’s when the bug for driving adventures hit. That led to that driveable dream home that they now have.
They love seeing and touching the world and meeting the people who live in it. Their stops on their trips are not pre-planned. They’re often determined the night before. They know what the end of the adventure will be; they just don’t know the route. While in Oxbow, they decided that their next destination would be Grassland National Park and its Valley of 1,000 Devils. How long it would take to get there…well, that they didn’t know.
It’s a lifestyle they thoroughly enjoy. They already have plans to travel through Saudi Arabia and the Sudan, but that’s at least five years down the road.
In the meantime, they’ll keep surprising campers by showing up at their campgrounds and meeting more people in this part of the world.
