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Oldenburg is a healthy sort of place: residents travel on horseback, by bicycle, or jog like the clappers along its broad, leafy paths.

A world away from Bremen, they say ‘moin, moin’ to each other, meaning ‘well, well’.

Clara and Fenna, my cousins who will whoop with delight when seeing their names on the internet, leave their Spanish homework for long enough to polish off a meal and three scoops of ice-cream each.

They don’t seem to know about that pain in the temple area when scoffing ice-cream rapidly; they devour dollops – and wafers – in record time. Can you eat ice-cream quickly with no ill-effects?

The Italian cafe owner regards me, as a driver for AC/DC, as a celebrity. “Black Ice” was, after all, among the top-selling albums of 2008 globally.

Hopping back into the car, we encounter an obstacle – Heike’s road is closed. Between 7pm and 7am the frogs here, utterly devoid of road sense, are protected. So, inching forward and mindful of small animals, she drops off the teenagers, calling out: ‘the key is in the cat-clap’, and under a full moon drives me back to Bremen.

Talking of keys, Namibian has my spare “house” key, and has left fruit, chocolate and a sandwich on the driver’s seat. My heart melts. Despite all the teasing, and painting him as an object of derision, Namibian is a brick.

That’s all I’m saying or you’ll be weeping – I’m sure you have a soft spot, too, after all these weeks. He calls in with my flask after the show, dancing over the tram tracks like a disabled hare.

Woudn’t it be nice if AC/DC considered doing matinees; we could be away late afternoon instead of early hours of the morning. Actually, there is no mad rush to reach Rotterdam, so there is time for a nap. In fact, Namibian and I use our travel day wisely – yet barely deviate from the most direct route.

We park at an unused concert venue in Arnhem, Netherlands, and wander over to the famous war bridge. It marks the site of Operation Market Garden on 17th September, 1944, one of the largest airborne landings ever.

The weather is foul, eliciting a not unreasonable request for Namibian to perform a Zulu sun-dance on the bridge. ‘I can’t get my legs high enough any more,’ he wheezes regrettably. Cor, I’ll tell you what: If we were meant to be out in temperatures like this, we’d have been born with fur.

It’s raining cats and dogs again today, and I’m coming over all unnecessary with a mild bout of diphtheria. Or it might just be a sore throat. Either way, carrying two umbrellas is definitely overkill..

Extraordinary! Namibian and I have pulled out of a gig and gone straight to the next one – OVERNIGHT – even though it’s a travel day. It’s unheard of. This is, like, rock n roll, man.

Goodness, I do wish he’d stop releasing the radio button before speaking when we’re in convoy; all I get is a little crackle in response to a yes or no question. And it could be important: ‘shall we stop for a cup of tea, Love?’ Crackle.. It’s infuriating.

Little Dick does a double-take when noticing us both in Bremen at 5am, expecting us no earlier than midday.

Mind you, anybody would do a double-take at such an incongruous sight: twenty gargantuan trucks are parked on a flagstone courtyard – just a hundred yards from Bremen Central Station. Passers-by take photographs as truck doors open to drivers in various states of dishevelment. It’s a funny place to “camp”, emerging ill-kempt onto quite such a busy square.

Ah, now Bremen is worth a look. Namibian, after stocking up with Coffemate at Spar, joins me. ‘I haven’t got nothing to watch,’ he croaks, by way of explanation. Ooh, Spellcheck doesn’t like his turns of phrase.

And is it actually any easier to save one syllable? – to say “anything” rather than “nothing”? It bruises one’s ear. Anyway, along with Little Dick, the three musketeers head into the old town, braving rain and low temperature.

Not long into the journey, worsening drizzle prompts a swift entry into a Gothic townhouse. ‘Fourteenth century? Will it take my weight?’ asks Namibian. Foolishly, I risk tea. Two tea bags notwithstanding, it’s still hopeless. The inn is cold, and we leave unwarmed and unsatisfied.

The Schnoor quarter, Bremen’s oldest district, is a maze of 15th/16th century buildings – delightful to dilly-dally if the climate suits. But it doesn’t. And it isn’t. However, as if by magic, a warm shop selling booze appears.

Intriguing liqueurs stretch from wall to wall, and ceiling to floor – all ready to decant into “transport bottles” of various sizes. Namibian, of course, has found the truck-shaped 200ml bottles, and gives a little yelp of delight. We all have one: two trucks full of rum and one of Weinbergspfirsich-likor.

See what I mean about Germans inventing words? Fill ‘er up..

A thirty-five minute drive last night – Namibian leading with the “spaznav” turned off – brings us to Oberhausen, a place low on the list of tourist destinations. In fact, I’d be surprised if it features at all.

Like those new towns of Stevenage and Hatfield, for example, Oberhausen is dull – reasonably clean and inoffensive, but dull. And it’s raining again.

Thirty – yes thirty, not twenty – rock n roll trucks are parked at the Konig-Pilsener Arena. We are a day early at the venue, and I wander over to see my pal, Turner, one of the drivers on the Pink Tour. With his bottom lip out, he looks like a smacked bottom this morning.

In a fit of rage overnight, he’s made a spectacular hash of a relationship, by text message. Poor old thing.

Like me, he doesn’t really jump at the prospect of living in a lorry. We reminisce and I coo a bit in the right places when sympathy is required.

You don’t get a photo, I’m afraid – it’s still early, and he hasn’t yet applied Clarins moisturiser. Off he goes back to bed, while fans queue outside under blue plastic rain sheets, nine hours before Pink goes on stage. Nutters.

A tram ride into town, aside from harmon-muted trumpet jazz at the station, confirms my suspicion – there is nothing of interest in Oberhausen. From an elevated viewpoint, a sea of drabness is laid out: an industry museum (in German) and grotty architecture. Turner texts me, interrupting the euphoria. The relationship is back on.

Astonishingly, there is a tourist office in Oberhausen…but it’s closed. So, if for any absurd reason you get stuck here then I thoroughly recommend the leisure centre on Stockmannstrasse.

For a modest fee, one can pad around naked from Turkish bath to plunge pool, from the outside terrace to one of those Wild West buckets with a pull-rope that drown you in cold water.

There’s an area to relax by the fire – by this point, perhaps put a towel on – where you can order coffee (not tea, this is Germany) or sit next door by the pool. It’s unisex, which literally raises a problem. When a voluptuous girl in her twenties sits next to me in the sauna, utterly bare, I have to furiously imagine Margaret Thatcher…

Tachographs are a dashed nuisance. Namibian and I awoke yesterday after five hours in bed – separate beds, that is – faced with a dilemma.

Either we go immediately, to reach our destination within a regulation “spread-over” period of fifteen hours; or we wait another four hours, to complete a nine-hour daily rest.

These hard-and-fast rules just do not suit this industry; both options – in the name of safety regulations – leave us knackered. We choose the latter, dining on bacteria and a bread roll to eke out the time.

But I totally forgot it was Friday. While eighteen AC/DC trucks trundled through the Ruhr Valley (the busiest part of Germany) before lunch, Namibian and I had snoozed. The knock-on effect was afternoon traffic. A lot of it. In fact, we arrived at Dusseldorf’s ISS Dome twelve hours after Little Dick.

Rain, glorious rain. You know how people say: ‘Ooh, what a lovely day, shall we go for a drive?’ Poppycock. Glorious sunshine, in my opinion, deserves a walk or cycle. So if it’s lashing down with rain, I’d rather be driving – it’s a good use of weather.

Ah, but you can’t see in heavy spray, you say? No problem in a truck: you’re high above it, and can maintain top speed, selfishly overtaking cars and leaving them blinded by surface water.

Except that you can’t in Germany. Or Belgium, for that matter. Endless stretches of autobahn are marked with that irksome sign of a red truck next to a black car, inside a prohibitive red circle. No matter how many horsepower is under the bonnet – or even worse, if the trailer is empty – overtaking is “verboten” (forbidden).

The ban is lifted occasionally but, if you happen to be engrossed in a Stephen Fry audio book or boiling a kettle, the sign is easily missed.

Hopefully, you haven’t really noticed a small point: I’ve achieved nothing in Dusseldorf..

Did you want a bit more on Colditz? OK then: I join a tour in English, along with four shirt-wearing sexagenarians from Kendal. They’ve come all this way…and not a single bit of Mint Cake between them. We look under-dressed next to Susanne in her duffle coat, and feel it, too.

Either Susanne’s coat is electronically heated, or the woman is impervious to the cold. The tour starts outside…and remains outside. She recounts the camaraderie between the Brits, whom she calls “the boys” – predominantly, British prisoners were housed here – and points out escape routes.

Sadly, most of the castle is off-limits so we amble round the courtyard, at the speed of sloths, yearning for a nice warm room.

Our noses pinking, and with prominent cheek capillaries, Susanne finally leads us through a door beneath the church – to a tunnel. Jeepers, it’s even colder down here than it was outside. I worry  that all this dawdling in inclement conditions might trigger the advent of varicose veins.

Upstairs,  there is a small museum but, all in all, watching “Escape from Colditz” would give you the gist just as well. Sensing her five tourists are numb, Susanne concludes. ‘That’s the end of the tour. You should take a hot tea now.’ Ah, music to my ears.

It’s lucky we’re coming back to Leipzig on the AC/DC tour in May – there is so much to do. Of course I’ve been here before, but one often achieves little on tour if the schedule is punishing. Thus, a report on Bach and Mendelssohn will have to wait.

But…a pressing concern has arisen – my cab interior is now festooned with pamphlets on city attractions. Indeed, there is a sizeable risk of Namibian discovering me buried alive under a mountain of glossy tourist literature. Opening the door to a corpse in the driving seat, he may remark: ‘Ooh look, he wanted to visit the oldest botanical gardens in Germany.’

Talking of Namibian, our familiar South African – actually he was born in England but served in the Namibian Air Force – visits a truckstop barber today. About time too, I hear you cry. Yes, he is beginning to resemble one of those brushes used for cleaning toilets.

Unfortunately,  though, he emerges uncut, bellowing that the girl doesn’t understand him. Ten minutes later, my honeyed words coax him back downstairs…to a young lady speaking fluent English. Isn’t he a one?..

Namibian, never a picture of athleticism, has taken a turn for the worse.

With sunken eyes and clutching a bottle of cough mixture, he looks like a Peruvian spectacled bear. His nose runs as he asks how far it is to the shopping centre.

My reply – ‘ a fifteen-minute walk’  – has him wincing, and coughing; rather than attempt such an undertaking, he shuffles despondently round his trailer. It’s as though I’ve suggested a twenty-mile trek through searing desert.

What he desperately needs – aside from new lungs, new feet and a hairstyle –  is an extension lead. Yes, Namibian wants mains power to his truck, to watch films on the laptop.

But, wait, how selfless – this lead, I’m told, is for both of us. What do I need a power lead for? I’m never in my truck when it’s stationary. In fact, if I could get away with being absent while it’s moving, I would. Remote control trucking from my seaside home in Hastings – now there’s an idea.

‘Yes, but it’s good if you need power,’ he hounds me, intimating that perhaps I might like to run this errand for him. Putting my hands over my ears, and singing: ‘la la, I can’t hear you,’ does me no favours – the irascible Namibian becomes moodier.

You see, he’s had to move his truck after elaborately laying short cables, and is now incandescent with rage, vocal chords on the verge of collapse. One can’t help smiling.

There is an icy gale this morning; even wearing layers, it simply tears through one’s bones.  “Alice” – who is really called Mark, I hope you remember – sidles up. After at least twelve hours’ sleep, he seems on top form.

‘I slept with an icy Gail once,’ he says. ‘She had wind.’ As I head for the tram station, snippets of conversation waft in the breeze: ‘Isn’t a bidet when you do a handstand in the shower?..’

You know how I love superlatives? Oh, you don’t? Well, I do. Saxony’s Leipzig has the biggest tram network in Germany – more than 300km of tram network. And a short hop on Tram 16 brings the traveller to Central Station and, believe it or not, one of the largest terminus train stations in Europe, with expensive toilets.

Bus 690 takes me, via Grimma – made even grimmer by the rusting Trabant parked in the square – to Colditz. A weak sun tries to punch through the pervasive mist as we pass Adecco’s PERSONALDIENSTLEISTUNGEN. Blimey, they just make words up in Germany, don’t they?

Jolly unfair on the foreigner is what I say. And fancy having a language that ascribes a sex to inanimate objects. I mean, how can a table be a man in German yet a woman in French? Why not just say “the”?

Anyway, Colditz Castle is built on top of a high cliff promontory, jutting out over the River Mulde. Deemed to be escape-proof after World War 1, it received escaped Allied officer prisoners of war from 1940-43.

The castle was floodlit from every angle – despite the blackout – and barred windows looked down at clear drops of 100 feet. I watch goats nibble at the fenced allotments far below as I contemplate being a prisoner.

Well, it wouldn’t suit me, would it? No rock and roll tours? I would have to escape..

Did you know that Antwerp has the second largest harbour in Europe after Rotterdam? No, nor did I.

After barrels of laughs in the laundrette yesterday – touring is just all razzmatazz – I cycled to the Schelde River via the International Magazine Shop, a quiet haven littered with snoozing kittens.

I’m an animal lover again today after gorging on stallions so recently. In fact, I’ve even got a cat at home – he came free with the house.

The Saint Anna pedestrian tunnel is 572m long, leading to Antwerp’s beach that I hinted at a week or so ago. There are signs indicating dismounting from bicycles, and a 5km/h speed limit, but why would you have both? Is some helmeted policeman going to accost me for walking too swiftly? My Flemish is rusty so I’m not sure.

As it happens, very few cyclists dismount their steeds; a girl with yellow panniers thunders past at breakneck speed.

Some wag – a clever piece of graffito, this – has doctored the speed limit to read “115km/h”. Arriving at the much bragged about beach, I notice it is forbidden to swim – at any time of year. The view is of heavy industry – possibly an aluminium smelter – and the sand turns very quickly into a suspicious grey clay. Antwerp, you don’t really have a beach.

AC/DC’s show was cancelled last night due to band illness. No, it’s OK; luckily, dinner remained unaffected. So, we loaded up a few hours earlier than normal and set off, like the three musketeers, on the long journey to Leipzig, 660ish kilometres away.

But finding a place to stop at night during the week is a problem: all the parking areas and services are rammed to the gunwales with trucks – even Belgium, closed on weekdays.

There just isn’t room for all three of us. Namibian has motored off with Little Dick in tow. I nearly had you there, didn’t I? Namibian is, of course, the one in tow; he gets nervous if another truck is following him. Either way, I shall be livid if I find out he’s wasting our precious stove-gas on cups of tea for Little Dick.

Finally, we reach the Messehalle, Leipzig, one of those characterless monstrosities offering nothing to eat nearby. Namibian, resting in his cab – with windows partly open for safety reasons – asks to be brought ‘just two Big Macs when you come back from bicycling.’ As I say, there’s nothing to eat nearby.

The poor chap is feeling off-colour, and needs “food” to wash down whatever tablets he’s taking for man flu. Fear not, though, he won’t starve. His cab closely resembles a tuck shop..

One can  fool about with blunderbusses and grapeshot for only so long.

Moving swiftly from Dinant’s Citadel, Ive and I drive to Durbuy, ‘the smallest city in the world’. If asked, though, I’d lean towards it being more of a village. What constitutes a city, anyway? I used to thing it was having a cathedral. Any ideas?

Or the difference between a town and a village? This is your perfect opportunity to leave an erudite comment. How about the difference between a village and a hamlet? Oh I don’t know – I used to be indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.

Durbuy is a pleasant spot, formerly part of Luxembourg. At this time of year, however, it warrants little more than a short stroll along the river banks. Oh, and a cappuccino served by an adultress masquerading as a waitress. As our eyes meet over a china saucer, an oblivious Ive asks what I would like for the evening meal.

Flippantly, and still aroused by the coffee girl,  I use the expression: ‘I could eat a horse.’ This has never been a problem in the south of England,  but the phrase is taken literally by men from the Flanders region – they’re the ones that speak Flemish, which is more or less Dutch.

Incidentally, they are called Flandersmen, not Phlegms – a shame, I know. ‘I have horse in the freezer,’ says Ive, then frowns. It slowly dawns on him that he is, in fact, fresh out of horse. But he doesn’t give in that easily.

The Walloon butcher in Durbuy looks aghast when Ive asks, in French, something like: ‘Whatho. Got any horse?’ What a funny country Belgium is. A couple of sneezes on the motorway and you could miss the country altogether. Yet Walloons and Phlegms – oh, all right, Flandersmen – have such different cultures.

We stop at a supermarket for wine and vegetables, and I ask if some leeks from his garden wouldn’t be rather nice with dinner. ‘Leeks?’ Ive exclaims, outraged. ‘With horse?’  He wrinkles his nose a little, and whinnies.

‘Leeks are only for soup and fish.’ What a wonderful irony that he thinks leeks are the black sheep within the meal. It turns out that any red wine is OK, though. Phew, I’m going to need plenty if I’m to look a Shetland pony in the eye again…

Why sleep in a truck – or Hotel DAF, as I fondly call her – if I don’t have to? Twenty-seven minutes away by train is Brussels, and my pal, Ive de Sterck. But one has to survive being tossed about on Tram 12 to Central Station first.

The driver accelerates hard into the first bend, launching my fistful of change into the stairwell. Still picking up coins, we enter the second curve where my luggage goes over. I’m still trying to pay the fare.

Backing up a few minutes sees an unfavourable exchange with a crotchety chap in Antwerp’s tourist office, housed in the main train station. I only wanted to check I’d bought a return ticket: ‘No! This is one-way,’ he roars, purpling with apoplexy.

He frowns at me, veins threatening to burst,and becomes, if anything, more animated. The advice I’m seeking, admittedly, is not really his domain, but he looks more closely at my train ticket before adding, ‘And you can come back with it.’

Arriving at Bruxelles-Nord, the ubiquitous European prostitutes line the last hundred yards of track. I barely notice them cross-legged on stools, wearing only underwear. In dim neon booths, one lady applies yet more make-up while another brushes her hair in a mirror. As I say, I barely notice. I’m here to meet Ive.

Ive, a chap I met in the Algarve eight years ago, is delightful. He has a lovely command of English, and breathes audibly through his nose when uttering witticisms. Last night I asked if we could have an adventure.

‘On a Monday?’ he replied. ‘There’s not much to do in Belgium on a Monday.’ And he emitted a little snort.

Today, he checks the “whattodo” website  –  for the entire country – just in case Belgium has pulled an attraction out of its weekday hat. He draws a blank. It is official, if gobsmacking; there is nothing to do in Belgium on a Monday.

Oh, come on! Don’t be ridiculous! We eventually decide on the rolling green hills of the Ardennes region. Then he offers me a “handkerchief” for my shower. ‘Ah, sorry for my English,’ he says, handing me a towel that’s not, in fact, much larger than a handkerchief. His mother drops by with his laundry.

So we’re off, crawling sedately behind agricultural vehicles on the descent into Dinant.  Statues and plaques of saxophones adorn the street where Adolphe Sax was born. According to the tourist information girl, however, he only lived here for six months.

We’re in Wallonia now, up to our eyebrows in Walloons. Ive tells me we must stop speaking Flemish (which I wasn’t) and start speaking French (which I don’t). ‘Bah oui, saucisson,’ I  respond stupidly. Yes, you’ve guessed it: my French stinks.

Despite multiple years of schooling, and a B in the final exam, I can still only order sausages. And wine. Oh, and beer, coffee, hotel rooms… Hang on, I can speak French..

As Ive so accurately predicted, not much is open on a Monday. The finest caves in Belgium, along with the Leffe Museum and boat trips, are closed.

But the Citadel, with its 408 steps, is receiving visitors, so we puff up there and misbehave. Surely vaulting a rail and borrowing a severed plastic head for a photo is not really that naughty?…