For most of the G8 leaders' meeting this week, all roads in and out of the little seaside town of Heiligendamm have been cut off, blocked by sitdown protests. As long as they were peaceful, the police left them there - the leaders came in by helicopter anyway, and no one else needed to get there apart from journalists, shuttling from the press centre a few miles away on a picturesque tourist steam train called the Molli train.

Unfortunately, that's been blocked too at various times - the wrong kind of demonstrators on the line, I suppose. As we came back on Friday afternoon from talking to President Sarkozy, we got stuck less than half a mile from the press centre, and had to go back to Heiligendamm.

Four protesters had held up the train a la Butch and Sundance, although without the guns and demands for money. We thought we'd have to get a boat, as others have done this week, but eventually the way was cleared - amicably we think, as the demonstrators were having a cigarette with the police when we steamed past, and waved at us.

The game of cat and mouse between police and protesters hasn't always been so good-natured, but often the aggro happens away from our cameras, and after a while you start to suspect that's not an accident. The police may well pick their moments to get tough, not when mainstream media cameras are there. A freelance colleague who's been hanging out with the protesters had worse luck, getting a faceful of pepper spray from a policeman who apparently didn't like what he was filming. But the police we've dealt with have generally been very accommodating - rather more so than the anti-G8 protesters, in fact.

There are three camps around the 12-kilometer fence that protects the summit, and if you look at a map it's a bit like the beginning of every Asterix book - except the protesters  would like to think they're the indomitable Gauls, and the nasty Romans are inside the wire.

We went into one of the camps holding a camera, but not filming, and were quickly told we were not to film, and directed to the press tent. There, two very friendly press officers, Michal and Kim, told us apologetically that we could only film from a few positions near the press tent, as long as we were accompanied all the time and kept the shot wide.

Fair enough in a way, the police didn't let us film in their bedrooms either. But the day before, we were filming a group of clowns when they all sat down in a circle. 'You must not film the clowns when they are having their meeting!' an angry German clown told us, momentarily slipping out of character. 'They have their noses off!'

Not much media freedom then, from these comic champions of the freedom to protest.

Part of the worry is about recognition. A police spokesman told us matter-of-factly that they were taking pictures of all those involved in the sit-ins, and would pursue them through the courts later for breaking the law. We saw a lot of police cameras, so I don't think they'll need to rely on what we broadcast.

But suspicion of the mainstream media runs deep. We picked up a couple of hitchhikers dressed in black - generally worn by those prepared to confront the police if things get nasty - and asked them a few innocent questions about where they had been and where they were going, and they were evasive in the extreme.

'Look, we're journalists', Andrew said. 'We give you a lift, you answer a few questions, that's the deal'. But it wasn't, and we dropped them off just before we had to pass the next police check.