Guttannen, 21:14
We're parked on the edge of the village in a lot that isn't marked, and two other vans are already there — an older Hymer, a VW bus. The Hymer turned its lights off at nine, the VW had been dark when we pulled in.
The stream runs audibly along the back of the lot. It's the Aare at 1,057 metres of elevation, not yet the river that runs through Bern — up here it's a mountain stream with the constant sound that mountain streams have. Anyone who's spent a night listening to one will recognise it.
The heater is on two. Inside the Sprinter it's seventeen degrees — five more than outside, less than home, enough for wool socks and a sleeping bag.
The LED on the heater's display has been green for twenty minutes. That's the information of the evening — no barrier, no check-in, no allocated parcel, no house rules. A green LED.
If you know the German camping system, you know what isn't happening here. No one asks us where we came from. No one shows us a pitch. No one hands us a form. We're here because we wanted to be here and because no one minds.
At nine-nineteen I'm asleep. The Aare keeps running.