Author: Mashley

Le nice lunch

On By MashleyIn france, road trip, T4 Camper, travelLeave a comment

Sunday morning was the last day of the French summer holidays and the roads are apparently mental. Mental isn’t on this trips agenda and having not made any reservations for the next couple of days we decided to stay put, let the French queue and be on our way the following day. 

We also had new neighbours in a modest motor home. 

  
The mornings start was a fairly lazy affair, so lazy in fact it started a mile up the road with lunch in Ars on Re square. 

There are a few restaurants in the square and they all look very nice, we picked the one that had a table for two, it also had moules avec frites on the menu. Lolly had Foie Gras to start and the amount that arrived was more than she could handle, I had duck slices with some kind of terrine and foie gras too. 

For our mains Lolly had the aforementioned moules avec frites and I had a lovely pasta with tatragon, whole prawns and scallops, much happier Lolly! 

 

Lolly ordered the whole meal in French which she says is a holiday achievement!

Lunch cost us all the euros we had on us so we cycled back to camp and decided to let our food go down before venturing out again. 
Our next port of call was St Martin De Re, we got there by following one of the many cycle routes across the island, they love cycling here so much so that in th towns each house has a steel ring concreted into the wall for you to chain your bike too. 

The ride takes you past all sorts of places including the salt plains and oyster beds, both stink but it’s still a nice enough ride.

  
St Martin De Re is a fortified harbour town and when we arrived it was heaving, a bit like Padstow is during the summer. We had a wander around the harbour and concluded it wasn’t quite as romantic and picturesque as we’d imagined.

I did spot a boat in the harbour that reminded me of my dad’s old boat the Affinte II. 

  
 The ice cream shop looked really popular so we decided to find out what all the fuss was about. 

  
They were good ice creams, I had chocolate and specaloo flavour and Lolly had chocolate and brownie. We had a look round the lanes which were typically French, old houses with wooden shutters and cobbled streets, it was starting to get cold so we unlocked the bikes and made for home. 

We covered a fair few miles. 

  

  

Le Cycle

On By MashleyIn france, road trip, travelLeave a comment

We decided to ride to a lighthouse not too far from where we are staying, it’s called Phare De Baleines. 

  
The ride took about 20 minutes or so, nothing tiring. 

The great thing about this lighthouse is you can go in it, all the way to top which is awesome. Lolly and I consider ourselves reasonably fit which is a good job as there’s a whole load of stairs to climb. 

  
In what seemed like no more than a couple of minutes we were at the top enjoying the view. 

  
All around the lighthouse there is lots of information which I’m sure is very interesting but it’s all in French which is no good to me as I’m lazy and only speak English with a hint of poor Spanish. 

We descended from the top and on my way down couldn’t help think of my mate Quincy at work, he’d be bricking it coming down these steps, not a fan of heights!

There is a beach below and we took a wander along that for a while before laying down and soaking up some sun watching the tide come in really quickly. It was at this point I insisted Lolly took a picture of me in the awesome tshirt she made so I could show you all, it’s marvellous!

  
All around the approach to the light house are gift shops and restaurants, all the restaurants were all heaving so we bugged out to find somewhere else to eat. 

After riding around in circles for ages we eventually game to a little town square. 

  

After a quick walk about we found a nice restaurant, got a table and found we had missed lunch so settled for a cocktail and beer. 

We thought we might find a beach bar that did snacks so we jumped on the bikes and headed up the coast, we didn’t find any bars but we did find some ruins from WW2, they look like gun placements installed by the Germans to defend the coast, thankfully they look a lot less menacing than in their heyday but a reminder that even this peaceful and idyllic island was touched by the horror of war. 

  
  

  We left this beach and made for home discussing what to have for dinner, we came across a supermarket, bought some local beer, pork chops and Turkey fillets and unanimously decided on a beach BBQ. 

Lauren seasoned up the meat,  packed up the Cobb, tongs and all the other manly beach things I would need and we set off.  
Right behind where we are staying there is a beach that looks rubbish when the tide is out, when it’s in the place is completely transformed, we found ourselves a little a spot and got cooking. 

  
There is a sign that says no bbqs which we completely ignored, the Cobb we use is pretty contained so it’s no real threat to dry shrubland behind us. 

As the sun went down so did the temperature and we huddled up covered in blankets, hoodies and looking generally like a couple of beach hobos. 

  
The food was great, there was hardly anyone on the beach and the sunset was spectacular, as good as any Ibiza sunset!

  
We covered a lot of ground in a day and I’d put strava on to see how far we’d been, I didn’t think it was that far!

  

Le rain

On By MashleyIn france, T4 Camper, travel, VW Campervan1 Comment

We set off on the bikes in howling wind and rain to visit Le Mont St Michel, we were pretty wet on arrival but that didn’t dampen our spirits and we headed through the gates for an explore. 

Lauren decided the best thing to keep the rain off was a bin bag as she brought no water proof stuff, lots of people stared and laughed at Lauren’s bin bag chic, we did however see someone else with a carrier bag on their head which made Lauren feel better. 

Despite the rain and wind it was still mobbed, making your way up to the abbey at the top involves first walking through a narrow street lined with shops selling everything from samurai swords to old world pistols, all types of food and a hotel. The narrow street is also full of people shuffling along as slowly as humanly possible. Once you clear the tourist shops it’s stairs all the way up with lots of little interesting diversions which on this day gave excellent views of rain in all directions. 

We got to the top and there was a huge queue to get in the abbey, also the heavens opened so we sought shelter under a tree. 

  
I didn’t take any pictures of the mount as it was belting down with rain and shortly after the one above we decided to head back to the van, the ride back was worse than the ride there, soaked to the skin proper. 

A quick change of clothes and we left the Aire and headed for Ile De Re, the drive took forever, a combination of traffic, burnt chips and stopping for supplies. 

  
It rained for pretty much most of the journey but for the last 20k the sun came out and then promptly set. 

It was dark when we arrived and after a massive drive I demanded a BBQ so that’s what we did, unfortunately all the things we bought were rank including kebabs that had added slices of fat between peppers and the meat. 

  
Shortly after the let down BBQ we crashed out.  

This morning we set up camp properly and will be heading to the beach, we’re also drying the stuff that got soaked yesterday!

  

Le fantastique!

On By MashleyIn france, road trip, T4 Camper, travelLeave a comment

  
We were recovered to a little place near Bolougne where we met three nice dogs and a receptionist dressed like a hooker. Once they had been paid by my recovery policy they dropped us off to E.R.A garage who emptied our tank and got us going again, the mechanics complete disregard for health and safety whilst emptying the tank was really quite refreshing. 

We had a four hour drive ahead which went fine, no lasting damage to the van it seems so that’s all good, we are now in a quite nice Aire called La Bidonniere with a view of Le Mont St Michel on the horizon, we met another couple in a T4, Dickie, Julia and their dog honey and after they day we’d had the only thing to do was get drunk so we did. 

  

They sell a local beer which is a quite like lager, suited me fine!

The sunset was lovely and in the picture Lauren took below you can see Le Mont St Michel to the right. 

 
 After a good nights sleep we’re off on the bikes to see the mount, then we drive to Il De Re and hopefully the sunshine!! 

Le bollox. 

On By MashleyIn T4 Camper1 Comment

  
After a successful night of packing up the van, not sleeping through our alarms and making the train on time I filled the van up with petrol in Calais, not good when it’s a diesel. Drove 5 minutes up the road before I realised, made it to a service station and called the recovery people. Hopefully the tank can be drained, replaced with diesel and we’ll be on our way, normally you would replace the fuel filter but I reckon with the amount of diesel going in it will be fine, might run a bit rough while the petrol clears but no proper damage. 

Fingers Crossed. 

Vive la France !

On By MashleyIn france, summer, T4 Camper, travelLeave a comment

In less than 2 weeks we’ll be packing up the van and heading over the pond to spend three weeks driving and camping around France.

We were planning to go to Ibiza but the ferry cost is ridiculous, 650 quid return which I reckon is more than the fuel cost of our entire 3 week trip around France.

Over the last few months we’ve been researching places we’d like to visit and locations we’d like to stay in and as you can see in the picture below a route has been loosely planned.

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Our first port of call will be Mont St Michel, from there we’ll be making our way down the atlantic coast to Biarritz, stopping off at Il de Re, Soulac Sur Mer and Arcachon, a night in Bordeaux and St Emillion, then across to Lourdes, inland to Argentat to hang with the Coups and finally homeward bound via Puy De Dome and Chambord.

We’ll be staying at campsites, my in-laws and Aires we’ve found using this awesome book.

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It’s going to be an epic trip!

By way of preparation some work has been done on the van, new timing belt and water pump, air filter, the old one is below, not great, i’ve seen worse…

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I’ve also invested in a tried and tested diesel treatment that should increase our fuel efficiency by 10% and clean up the injectors, expect a seperate report on that!

I’ll be updating the blog throughout the trip as often as I can for those that follow our travels and we’ll be keeping an eye out for fellow dubbers!

Thats all for now, planning and packing for the next week or so!

Friday Night @ Firle

On By MashleyIn England, summer, T4 Camper, travel, Wild CampingLeave a comment

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As i’ve mentioned before, there is something really quite nice about finishing a week at work, jumping in the van and buggering off away from the smoke for a night or two.

Lolly and I were new to the whole wild camping thing but once you get your head round it all then as Arthur Daley would say, “the world is you lobster”, especially if your life allows you the spontaneity to head out at a moments notice without having to worry about things that require your absolute care and attention, pets and children for example!

Our destination came about from a chat we’d had with a fella we met at a boot sale who complimented us on our van, a long conversation followed covering all sorts of van and boot sale related topics, one of which was about wild camping on the south downs and Firle, a favourite location for our new friend.

Neither of us had heard of Firle so Lolly did a little bit of investigation on the interweb and discovered a good spot for wild camping would be Firle Beacon, a Marylin (hill over 150ft) which is situated on the south downs between Newhaven and Eastbourne.

Soon as I got back from work, Lolly had the van packed and we made our way to the M23 and then on to the A27, traffic was average but we arrived in good time and parked up.

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From the picture above you can just about see the sea, you can also see a couple of of other vans, one of which referred to herself as a van dweller which for no explainable reason made me chuckle! At the very top of this post is a picture that says no overnight camping, this sign (amongst others) is located on the opposite side of the road to us with a couple more near the other vans and in the car park behind us that you can’t see from this photo. There are none on the side we parked on and I suspect (don’t qoute me) the odd night here and there is accepted and overlooked but any kind of semi permenant camp would attract the authorities. We did get a visit from the police, they came up, sat in their car for a bit probably checking registrations and then left, last we saw of them.

As with all our little excusrions, food and a few drinks were on the menu so we got our Cobb BBQ going and knocked up some Wagyu burgers Lauren picked up from Aldi, they’re massive and really quite nice. After some food  and lovely rocky road that Lolly made we went for a walk across the fields and took in the lovely view of the south downs, we also encountered Cockchafers.

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Mad as these things look they are in fact completely harmless and if you come across one you should feel privileged, they only come out of the ground every 4 years because thats how long it takes them to grow from a larvae and they have a lifespan of about 6 weeks, there are loads of them at firle and they really like vans !

After our walk we returned to the van, put up the thermal blinds, setup the bed, put a movie on and settled in for the night. Over the course of the evening a few cars passed us but we had no hassle and woke the next day to glorious sunshine!

The photo below is looking the opposite way to the coast and over the south downs.

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The field in front of us had also been besieged by cows.

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My funniest memory of this outing is Lauren telling me how calming cow watching was which she spent some time doing!

Alas time was against us and we had to leave at around 9 in the morning, other plans for Saturday meant we could only stay one night but we will definitely be coming back with the bikes so we can go on a proper explore!

A trip down to Weymouth

On By MashleyIn England, T4 Camper, travel, United Kingdom, VW Campervan, WeymouthLeave a comment

The beginning of July is our wedding anniversary and due to a slight oversight by myself I spent the majority of it on a flight back from Moscow, I got to spend a couple of hours with Lolly on our actual anniversary and arranged to head out in the van and go somewhere for the weekend together to celebrate properly..

Our destination was Rosewall campsite in Weymouth, google said it would take us about 2.5 hours which I think is just far enough to drive for a weekend trip, we decided to take the A3 and then the A31, two roads I never wish to see again.

The first issue arose getting from ours to the A3, there is a route that Lolly’s dad takes that both of us are convinced we know, we don’t and had agreed not to try taking it, before we knew it we were trying to work out the route, we failed miserably and it took an age to get to the A3, one unimpressed wife, especially as the sun was blazing and we were stuck in a van.

The A31 wasn’t much better, there was traffic leading up to the A31 on the A3, for a while we were belting along before we hit the first roundabout, one of many all of which came with a queue to reach them, progress was slow, really slow, it was so bad we pulled off the A31 around the new forest area into a little pub for lunch, annoyingly I can’t remember the name of the pub which is a real shame as the food was excellent and I recommend a visit, if I remember I will update the post.

After eating we carried on to Weymouth in rubbish traffic and reached our destination just before Lolly was about to explode, she also made me promise no more weekend excursions more than an hours drive.

We booked in, found ourselves a spot with a nice view looking out to sea, grabbed the bikes and headed off for a ride, we made our way to the coastal path and it became clear very quickly that it was completely unsuitable for bikes, we headed back to the van, dropped the bikes off and went back the way we came on foot.

We followed the path down to the beach, the beach was a large pebble / stone beach with boulders thrown in for good measure. In Ibiza, along the shoreline, especially where there are rocks people build little stone towers, seems they do the same here so we decided to make a couple of our own.

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We spent a couple of hours clambering about the rocks, watching these weird things hop about out of the sea, they looked like wood louse and shrimps but weren’t either, very strange! We then followed the path up past the pub which gave us lovely views out over the bay. As the sun started to set we made our way back as cooking in the dark is always a bit of a challenge, we swerved into a pub just by the beach called the smugglers inn, we had a drink, contemplated eating as the food looked awesome but stuck with our plan and walked back to the van to cook some chicken on the cob.

Back at the van we got our chicken on the go, made some drinks and settled in for the evening, about 15 mins into cooking the heavens opened, prior to the rain there were loads of fire baskets alight outside campers tents or vans, they went out pretty quickly! Having a lid means you can leave the cobb doing it’s thing in the rain which to be fair stopped after 20 mins or so. Following the rain was a quite spectacular electrical storm, we sat up for about an hour after we ate watching the lightshow before turning in for the night, dinner was lovely, Harissa chicken with avocado salad and cous cous.

Next morning was a bit of grey damp affair but in no time at all the sun came up, perfect for a picture of camp mashley!

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Rosewall campsite is a bit like wild camping in the sense there are no pitches, you just find a spot and that’s you for your stay, there is a shop that sells all sorts of things, milk, biscuits, bbq food, camping supplies and local beer! The toilet and shower blocks are well maintained as are the washing up areas. There are two blocks, one at the top of the hill near the shop and one at the bottom. The bottom of the hill is flatter but at the expense of the view, we found a flat spot at the top of the campsite with a really nice view out to sea.

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We drank plenty of tea and got some breakfast down us whilst the campsite started to fill up. Our plan was to grab the bikes, head for a ride to Weymouth and possibly on to Portland, a small tied island which is the southern most tip of Dorset.

The ride into Weymouth took about 15 minutes and our first stop was the beach, we arrived just in time for a punch and judy show which is not something I woud bother with but Lolly wanted to watch it, while I went to get a couple of beers, Lolly found us a spot and put a couple of quid in the donations box.

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I’ve got to admit, the show was really funny, it’s main content was for children but there was quite a lot of stuff that was clearly for adults without being risque or offensive for the kids, i’m glad we stopped to watch it. From here we rode to the harbour, all around there are little coffee shops, restaurants and kids with their parents on the harbour wall fishing for crabs, they caught plenty!

You can see the beach and some of the harbour behind us in the picture below

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Just up from where this photo was taken is Nothe park and fort, we stopped for a delicious sandwich and then pressed on.

We followed the coastal path which for most of the way hugs the coastline but deviates between that and residential areas, this is where we came across Sandsfoot castle, a ruined castle set in a little landscaped park that sells amongst other things very nice ice cream which of course tried!

It had taken us about 2 hours to get this far as we kept stopping to look at things or eat, we were less than halfway to our destination, I knew we had a way to go and wasn’t looking forward to the ride back and in my usual style got a bit grumpy.

Next stop was Chesil Beach, we locked up the bikes and walked up the pebble dune to see what was on the other side, ferocious sea and wind with some nutters in a tent was what was on the other side! I think we lasted about a minute at best before we decided being blown to pieces wasn’t that attractive and headed back to the bikes.

At this point I really didn’t want to carry on and just wanted to turn back, i’d had enough riding bikes and we had a long ride home but Lolly really wanted to reach the island, reluctantly I agreed and we cycled over, when we arrived we cycled through a kind of marine industrial estate, past that we followed the path to a dead end, turning round we found a little pebble launch called scimitar wharf  which it turns out is owned by Scimitar diving, we both had a drink each so we sat down, drank our drinks and then started the journey back.

The ride back wasn’t as bad as I thought apart from the hill near where we were staying, it took about 80 mins and below is the strava output from the return leg.

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I didn’t realise we rode that far, a 20.6 mile round trip!

Back at the van we made ourselves a drink each, got the cobb on the go and cooked up some peri peri chicken with the rest of the salad from the night before, we were pretty shattered so put the latest episode of Penny Dreadful on and settled down for the night.

We had planned to get up early on Sunday, dodge the traffic and be home before the afternoon, we woke up about 10 am so failed massively on that front, I packed up the van, we showered and then went for breakfast which was lovely, then began the journey home which wasn’t that bad this time around.

There is so much more to Weymouth than we thought and we’ll be heading back there again, just not exactly sure when, if you are heading that way then I really would recommend the Rosewall campsite.

Back in the U.S.S.R or Moscow to be precise..

On By MashleyIn Gorky Park, Russia, travelLeave a comment

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Every now and again I am sent to do some IT work in one of our rep offices, i’ve been to Milan, Paris, Dubai, Cairo and the slightly less glamorous Aberdeen.

My favourite and by far the most interesting to me is Moscow, they fly me here, i’m not expected to drive the van!

Last time I came here it was -35, cold even for an Englishman, it was the start of the Socchi olympics and the normally unimpressed looking Russians were smiling, i think they are unimpressed at this time of year because it’s bloody cold, even so, it’s a magical time to visit, most lakes freeze over and become ice rinks, the river which is easily as wide as the river thames also freezes over but I never saw anybody skating on it, there is snow everywhere and the parks are lit up with fairy lights, it’s like christmas everyday!

Because it was so cold last time around the only tourist thing I did was take a trip on the metro to photograph some of the ornate stations, it’s warm down there! I also took a wander round Red Square as it was within walking distance to where I was staying, you can find those pictures on my flickr site here.

This time I arrived when the temperature was quite literally at the opposite end of the scale, it was +35 when I landed, nice. As it’s a business trip I am usually picked up by the driver from the office but due to some bad communication he wasn’t coming to get me, I would have to get a taxi, I was concerned I would get ripped off but was assured if I picked up a taxi from inside the terminal I would be fine, I did exactly that and still got ripped off to the point where the hotel told me not to pay, called the police, hid me in a room and told me not to come out till it was all over, that put a stop to any first night excursions although it meant my taxi ride was free. Turns out the taxi driver wasn’t licensed and made up the fares as he went along, they were also all in Russian so his argument that I had agreed the fare was flawed as I don’t speak or read Russian and he didn’t speak English.

The following day was a day in the office, a late finish, dinner and bed, not very exciting, however, the method in my madness was to get as much done as I could on one night so I could head out a bit early the following day and explore.

Next day the sun was shining, I didn’t want to do anything indoors,I wanted to make the most of some good weather, I braved the metro (it’s easy to get lost as there is nothing in English and Cyrillic makes no sense to me) and headed off to Gorky Park.

Over the road from Gorky park is another park called (by westeners) Fallen Monument Park. When the soviet union collapased, many of the old statues that represented the union were removed and some have made their way to the park.

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Each statue or monument has a little info board telling you what it is, some are quite obvious if you know your history.

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The monuments evoke a very cold war / iron curtain feel, I think they are awesome!

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From there I wandered to the river to take a picture of a quite massive monument!

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This is Peter The Great, a 98 metre high monument erected in 1997 to commemorate 300 years of the Russian navy which he founded, it’s an impressive thing, you can read more about it here

You can walk along the waterfront, under the bridge and make your way into Gorky park, the route is fairly busy with couples strolling hand in hand, cyclists belting along or towing people on skateboards,lots of rollerbladers, you can hire a bike if you want or just amble along on foot like me.

Gorky park is an incredible space, within the park there is so much going on, yoga classes with at least twenty or so people stretching in unison, table tennis, beach volleyball on sand, Russian dancing, kids running through fountains.

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There are restaurants and cafe’s dotted about the place, a boating lake with pedalos, massive bean bags to relax on, group running, I could go on, the most striking thing to me was the sound, a mixture of music and laughter which is a lovely thing to hear.

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There are at least 3 different fountains, one that does a show to classical music, all around there are brightly coloured flowers symmetrically arranged, if i’m honest I was pretty blown away, the only thing it didn’t have was Lolly, she was back at home and I know she would have loved walking round the parks.

I took loads of pictures which as I write I still have to edit, I think I spent about 4 hours wandering round both parks and only decided to go home as the sun was going down, maybe I should have stayed and got some night shots, in fact I wish I had.

I hope I get to come here again and if I do, I will come in Summer again, Moscow is a great place to visit, one for the bucket list…

Great stone beach, Dungeness and more wild camping!

On By MashleyIn Dungeness, Greatstone, travel, VW Campervan, vwt4, Wild Camping1 Comment

When the sun comes out there is nothing Lolly and I like better than heading to the beach. If you live in London or Greater London as we do, the beach usually means Brighton. We like Brighton, we got married there but the beach itself isn’t all that, it’s made of pebbles, if the suns out it’s rammed, getting into town is a slow process and it’s easier to solve a rubiks cube on acid than it is to find somewhere to park. You can however go by train, it’s very well connected and the town is a cool place to be, we didn’t want to be in the town, we wanted a beach.

I can’t quite remember when it was we discovered “our” beach as we like to call it, I suspect it was Lolly’s doing as I never bother looking these things up but it’s our go to spot for sand, a few drinks and a bbq, the beach itself is called Greatstone and it’s not far from Dymchurch in Kent, I like to call Dymchurch grim church because in my eyes it’s pretty grim.

There are many nice things about Greatstone beach, parking is easy and not massively expensive, it’s never that busy and it’s a proper sand beach with dunes which is where we usually head to as the beach itself is always a little bit windy, the dunes give you a bit of shelter, there is also well maintained toilets and an off-licence / general store that sells all sorts, we bought beer, biscuits and a mallet. Generally when we are there the sea is about a mile out so we often ditch paddling and just eat, drink and people watch, with that in mind, we cracked open some booze and got the Cobb BBQ on the go.

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Believe it or not that is actually on the go, the cobb doesn’t look like it’s doing anything but the reality is there is some lovely harrisa chicken cooking there and it’s a good job the cobb has a lid, it was windy and near enough everything we took to the beach got covered in sand except the chicken.

While we were cooking I took a quick panorama with my phone so you can get an idea of what the beach looks like and how busy it isn’t.

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The chicken was lovely as was the bean salad Lauren made, we munched, we drank and once i’d reached my limit of what I could have and be within the legal limits to drive, I convinced Lauren we should stay the night wild camping style so I could drink more booze, I love my wife, she agreed and said drink as much as you like!

We’d brought our bikes along as we’d discussed earlier about maybe going for a bike ride. I’d had a good few beers and thought riding on the road probably wasn’t the best idea so I championed the idea of riding across the compact sand, Lauren wasn’t convinced especially as she would have to carry her bike across the loose sand to get to the compacted bit, I think she agreed in the end just to shut me up, we took everything back to the van, grabbed the bike and headed off along the sand.

I’ll be the first to admit it wasn’t quite as easy as i’d thought but it wasn’t too hard either, it was really nice riding on the beach and the further away we got from the van the closer the tide came in, as the beach turned to shingle which made riding almost impossible and the sea was right beside us we got off and went for a paddle.

We had agreed that we would ride to the headland, as this was now not possible via the beach we carried the bikes up on to the road and continued to follow the coast road eventually arriving at a nice pub called The Pilot Inn. The pub was heaving with diners and drinkers, we had now left Greatstone and were in Dungeness, we stopped for a drink and surveyed our surroundings, we spotted a light house and decided to take a look, a helpful sign said it was one mile away.

This is were we discovered our new favourite place, Dungeness Nature Reserve, it’s not your typical nature reserve on the basis that it’s made mostly of shingle but it’s a truly remarkable place. The maddest thing of all is there is a nuclear power station and dotted all around the area are little plaques with details of what to do should the plant go tits up. There are also the most quirky and unique properties, some made out of old train carriages, some that look like run down fishing huts and others that wouldn’t look out of place on George Clarkes amazing spaces, there are also a couple of lighthouses, one of which drew us there in the first place.

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That one doesn’t emit a light but there is one round the corner that does, the first one was built in 1904 and was replaced by the second one in 1961 becasue when they built the power station it obstructed the original lighthouse beacon, I learnt that from another blog written by a T4 owner wild camping in Dungeness!

As I mentioned earlier, i’d had too much drink to drive home and we had planned to stay in the car park by the beach, the nature reserve however looked like a much better option, there were a few motorhomes parked up so we rode back, grabbed the van and parked up for the night next to another T4 and watched the sun go down.

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It should also be noted that we were parked quite near the power station which looked really nice when the sun went down and it was all lit up although the picture below doesn’t really demonstrate this!

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I drank the last of my beers, Lauren had a decaf tea and we got our heads down for the night, more wild camping!

We didn’t bother putting the thermal blinds up so we were woken when the sun came up as our van was flooded with daylight, Lauren did her best to rouse me so I could observe the beautiful sunrise but I wasn’t really up for opening my eyes for a little while yet.

I eventually got up about 7, we made some tea, put the bed away and headed off back to Croydon, i’d really like to go back there again, it was a cool place to stay and there is a load more to explore and photograph, i’ll bring my DSLR next time!