Category: T4 Camper

2020 – Bit of an odd one…

On By MashleyIn motorhome, Sprinter Camper Van, T4 Camper, travel, United KingdomLeave a comment

So as most of you reading this will agree, 2020 was a bit of strange year. For me it started out alright, I began the year by heading over to France to start work on our new van, did that, came back, we had a baby and I’ve been working from home ever since…

The real baby Yoda!

Little Arielle arrived at the beginning of March, I went on paternity leave and at the end of it the whole company I work for moved to a working from home model as did I, however mine was slightly different as we don’t have the biggest house so I worked from the van parked outside!

Van / home working

The upside of working from the van is that in between calls I could do some work on the van and to be honest, if it wasn’t for the whole lockdown thing it wouldn’t be where it is now. With the help of some very good friends we managed to get the van to a state that we could actually use it to go away in despite also having a fire thanks to a Thetford N4100 fridge which I’ll write a separate article on.

Post fire fridge

Having the van and a network of friends who have land we can stay on meant when some of the restrictions were lifted we could get away and we had a lovely summer.

Camp Penshurst

Arielle took to vanlife pretty well too and between when she was born and now her sleeping arrangements have been modified a few times and are still an ongoing project, it’s been lovely to get away as a family at short notice and not have to really book anything, living not too far from the coast we did a few midweek trips to the beach and it’s surprising how many car parks you can stay the night in!

A car park believe it or not!

Dare I say it, the van itself is almost finished, the fridge has been replaced, the door under the fridge fitted and shelving installed along with a shelf above the cab too.

Just needs a paint and net added
Cab shelf, you can never have enough storage!

It now looks a like a van and comfortably sleeps the four of us

We’ve even had a trip out in the snow!

The kids love the van too, here they are a year into lockdown, it amazes me how resilient they are to it all as is Lauren

Stella was so excited she passed out

Hopefully I’ll be sharing some details of trips out and about and will be updating the build section with all the things I’ve done in the hope it will help others on their quest to build a home on wheels, with the whole covid thing I reckon there’s going to be a rise in motorhome builds!

A new van…

On By MashleyIn conversion, Self build, Sprinter, T4 Camper, Urban CaravanLeave a comment

We’ve invested in a new van, Bumblebee is still up for sale but I need to crack on and get the new van built before baby number two arrives in March.

So here it is, a long wheel base 2013 Mercedes sprinter, came with side windows which is a bit of a bonus but the rest of the van is empty.

Over the next couple of months I’ll be working on the conversion in the UK and then heading to France for some help from a friend to do all the woodwork and final fix..

So far I’ve stripped out all the ply lining, treated any internal rust and added some sound deadening to panels.

I’ve also removed the bench seat and installed a single passenger seat on a swivel base.

Lastly I’ve made a small start on the insulation.

There is a very long way to go, jobs to do include fitting the LPG system, solar panel, air con unit, maxxair fan, Fiamma awning, bench seat in the rear and leisure battery system all ahead of going to France.

Over the coming weeks I’ll add what I’ve achieved here and slowly begin to archive the content relating to Bumblebee who looks tiny compared to the new van!

Fancy an awesome camper van ?

On By MashleyIn T4 CamperLeave a comment

The time has come for a new van, as a family of three soon to be four we’ve kind of outgrown Bumblebee. It’s a bit of a pain finding places to put things while all the beds are out and we end up losing things for days at a time as we can’t put them back where they are supposed to go.

Also, the days of just rocking up and throwing a few couple of chairs out and enjoying our surroundings are long gone, it’s a massive effort setting up a camp everytime we stop, we need to simplify our setup.

We’re sad to be saying goodbye to BumblEbee, we’ve seen and slept in a lot of places in the UK and Europe, we’ve upgraded and mended various things that need attention along the way, our daughter has absolutely loved our home on wheels, Bumlebee will be missed..

If you are reading this then maybe you are interested in buying him. If you read further down this blog you’ll see we’ve just got back from a 1700 mile trip round France and Bumblebee didn’t miss a beat mechanically, we did get a puncture, you can’t prepare for that. After a full reset of the solar controllers the solar panels are now doing what they are supposed to do, I also gave the leisure battery a good charge using a 7 stage charger, just something I always do when I get back from a long trip.

I’ve also changed the oil, oil filter and air filter ready for his new owner, the van comes with a set of roof bars a black and yellow VW duvet set. Below are some recent photos of the van, if you are interested you can find the eBay advert here

The final leg

On By MashleyIn Beach Camp Yelloh, Rene Oltra, Cap D’agde, Travel, Le Shuttle, T4 CamperLeave a comment

Things at camp naked worked out quite well in the end, we liked it so much we stayed for about a week. We had awesome neighbours, Leanne and Kevin, hopefully we’ll head up to Newcastle sometime and meet them for a drink.

Stella met who she described as her honorary grandma, a lady called Lynda. Lynda and her husband Stewart were both lovely and invited us round to theirs for a drink one afternoon which we gladly took them up on, it was a lovelyafternoon and we swapped email addresses to keep in touch.

Stella really enjoyed the beach and even ventured out onto a lilo with me and Lolly, she really got the hang of being in the sea.

She also quite like me digging holes for her to sit in and be buried.

Aside from the beach there isn’t really very much for Stella to do so we decided to move on and try and find somewhere that caters more for kids, we consulted the ACSI campsite book. We checked out one place but it didn’t look all that and the surrounding area was pretty run down so we drove on to this place.

It’s a Yelloh camping site which in season is very expensive, as it was out of season the pitches were considerably cheaper. We were offered a number of options and eventually settled by a spot by the beach which would eventually slightly regret.

I spent a little while getting set up while Lolly took Stella to the waterpark. Stella loved the waterpark and was exactly what we wanted for her.

There was a designated small baby pool which she could splash about in, there was a lazy river she floated around while in her inflatable ring, a jacuzzi we all hung out in, there was also another pool upstairs which Stella loved jumping off the edge of into one of our arms and swimming from one end to the other in her ring.

There is an on site cocktail bar and restaurant that we visited on our second afternoon there, I had a steak and Lolly had mussels, it was OK but expensive for what it’s was.

I also discovered they sell my absolute favourite Belgian beer on tap which was an excellent surprise, wasn’t cheap though, 6 euros a glass…

That night there was a beautiful sunset and I sent up my drone to get a picture.

When we first arrived we found a bar which was part of the complex called the Tiki bar, it was closed but a couple of days later we ventured back there and it was open, it dawned on me that i’d taken hardly any pictures of Stella and Lauren together so I grabbed a snap of them both sitting on one of the swings they had at the bar.

We didn’t really do to much at Aloha, it was nice to relax and watch Stella enjoying herself in the waterpark or trying to bounce with the bigger kids on the bouncy castle.

There are a lot of Germans at this site and they tend to head for the more static accommodation which looks lovely.

I also noticed the kids here were quite unfriendly. Stella would bowl up to any kid in the park or on the bouncy castle and say hello and they all just looked at her like she was an alien, I felt really sorry for her especially as everywhere else we go so many people make an effort to talk or smile at her. Most of the adults were the same to be honest, nearly every site we have been to people have been quite cheerful and made an effort to say good morning or hello, few and far between here, I’m not blaming just the Germans either, everyone was like it except us which I am sure got on peoples nerves!

Right by reception there us a little wooden house for kids, Stella went mad for it and I got a really nice picture of her in it.

Toward the end of our trip here I put up the awning lights which I’d forgotten to put out for the entire trip, they looked nice at night.

It was a lovely little spot we had but the wind blew terribly and there were mossies everywhere, they particularly liked me 😦

After 5 nights it was time to pack up and head out, when we checked in we had been told the spot we took was one price but it turned out to be about 9 euro’s a night more expensive, even though I explained we had been told it was the same price as the cheaper pitch reception were having none of it which kind of tainted the whole experience for me.

I dropped Lolly and Stella to Béziers airport and started the long drive back, I drove for about 8 hours to a place called Nonancourt where there is an Aire Lolly’s parents use, I got there and was offered some vodka from 2 kids in a car that were hanging around with nothing better to do, I declined and said I’d have a beer once I’d finished getting myself setup for the night. I’d been trying to find somewhere to grab some beers from all the way to Nonancourt and came across a garage that was open, to my surprise they sold beer and I felt I had witnessed a miracle, it was only when I was half way through the second can I realised it was non alcoholic not that it mattered I suppose, just having a beer after a long drive alcoholic or not definitely helps you unwind.

Lolly’s parents weren’t going to arrive at the air until about midnight so I caught up on an episode of Stranger Things and admired my view for the evening.

Camping for three in a motor home for 3 weeks sounds romantic but you have to take so much stuff..

The roof box was also full, now you see why we need a bigger van!

Before I settled down for the night I decided to put in my API information for the tunnel crossing, It was at this point I realised there was an error in my booking, somehow my booking from Calais to Folkestone had been booked the other way round, it was too late to call so I figured I’d deal with it the next morning.

About 7.30 there was a knock at my window and Lolly’s dad very kindly took my tea cup and filled it with tea, I had a lovely chat with Ian and Lindi along with a pain up chocolate and some cake for breakfast, I got a last picture of Bumblebee and Charlene as this will definitely be their last adventure together.

I said farewell to Lindi and Ian, cleared up a bit of the mess the vodka drinking kids left and got on the phone to Le Shuttle.

Whoever designed their ticketing system designed it in such a way in that if there is an error in the crossing direction you can’t just swap them round, you have to buy a whole new ticket and then give them the booking references for both tickets and they will refund you the original booking. That’s all well a good but as I didn’t notice until after hours the day before I travelled, the price had rocketed to over double the original cost. After a lot of negotiating / pleading they eventually credited my original crossing cost to to the new booking which cost me an extra 103GBP but on the plus side I am getting on an earlier crossing. I know I didn’t make the mistake so I’ll be contacting their customer complaints department.

As I write I’m sat at Calais waiting for my crossing,I thought I’d go and hang out in the Aire Lolly and I stayed at back in 2015, it’s been demolished and rebuilt since then!

It looks a lot nicer and tidier but it’s not an aire anymore, there was a burger stall and kebab shop that was really busy with kids, now it’s just a promenade with a load of lined parking, you can still get dodgy mussels and chips from the restaurant that time forget however, it’s still here and not moved with the times.

I’ll be glad to get home if not just to sleep in my own bed and drink a decent cup of tea, how very British!

We’ve covered about 1700 miles this time round and apart from a puncture Bumblebee has performed flawlessly cruising at 90mph with ease on the A roads, honestly, as a family we’ll be sad to see him go but it’s been a fitting farewell trip for our trusty home on wheels….

Camp naked….

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

On our last day in Mont Dore Lolly, Lindi, Ian and Stella did some sightseeing and I spent some time trying to figure out the solar issues…

I’ve concluded that one of the panels is having problems working in direct sunlight, I know solar panels outputs are effected when they heat up but they shouldn’t stop working altogether, most likely something is heating up and becoming disconnected.

You can see from the picture below I’m getting a voltage that should now charge the battery when the panels are not in direct sunlight.

The manufacturers of the panel, Phoenix universe did call me back and sent me some things to try that may be able to fix the panel, if that didn’t work they also offered me a new panel at trade price which is a very kind thing to do…

Just before we left Mont Dore I saw this car parked up on the street.

I can’t remember the last time I saw an old Capri 🙂

As the title of this post suggests, we were off to a naturist site. I’m not a fan of the whole naturist thing and don’t partake, I genuinely don’t ever feel the need to wander about with my twig and berries swinging in the wind, each to their own I guess.

The drive down to Cap D’agde is about 4 hours and we didn’t leave Mont Dore till about 5 so without any stops, we should have arrived at 21.00. Four hours continuously behind the wheel is a bit much for everyone so we did make a couple of stops and arrived around 22.00.

I hate arriving anywhere at night as I find it messes with your bearings and makes things generally more difficult to find, such as the booking in office. At this point I would like to mention how lovely the staff here have been. Despite arriving at ten in the evening they made sure we had somewhere to stay for as long as we needed, security we’re helpful in directing us to where we needed to be and being cool with leaving the van in a drop off only point till we were sorted. The check-in staff on the gate explained everything we needed to know and when we registered at reception the following day the same helpfulness again.

As you may have read on my blog we stopped at a naturist place in 2015, you can read about it here, I still maintain I wasn’t made fully aware that it was a naturist site! This time around I was fully aware as it was a kind of deal, I get to go to the mountains with my bike and Lolly gets to wander about in the buff getting a awesome tan.

As I mentioned earlier, we arrived at night and as such the naked crowd had got dressed, sort of…

Turns out this is a bit more than a naturist site, as we were trying to find the night office to check in I noticed a lot of people wearing what looked like S & M gear, lots of ladies wearing string dresses with nothing on underneath and a very obvious transvestite which I have nothing against but just wasn’t really expecting.

We were all knackered so I threw together a camp for us to sleep and stash our stuff while Lolly entertained Stella, when she came back she said amongst other things she came across a couple cracking on and a few people standing around them saying, mmm, yes, very good….

We had the worst nights sleep, it must have been about 30 degrees in the van, Stella kept waking up and when we left the door open to let some air through we were both sure someone stopped to see if there was any action going on, we both agreed we wouldn’t stay here for very long.

The next day we decided to give the place a chance, all we’d seen was some odd stuff going on in the evening and a rushed camp which wasn’t the best start. I setup our spot with the aim of staying for a few days because as I’m sure I have mentioned, it’s a ball ache to get everything sorted.

I also got a chance to set up the hammock and setup the washing line as we are in dire need of doing some washing!

The campsite is massive, all of the avenues are alphabetically ordered so it’s fairly easy to find your way around, all of the avenues look like this.

Some of the properties here are amazing, none of them are permanent which is mad considering how grand some of them are.

Our neighbours in the camp are from the UK and gave us the full rundown, basically this place is whatever you want it to be, for example, when you go to the beach, go right for the family side which is still fully naked or go left to the side where people have sex and other stuff on the beach while a crowd looks on, similar thing at night, if you hang around the site not much happens and nothing is in your face, however if you want some action then it’s not difficult to find so I’m told.

We decided to head to the beach but by the time we got everything together poor Stella was exhausted and fell asleep in Laurens arms..

We all had a little snooze and then went to the beach.

The beach is about a five minute ride through camp from where we are. Back home, one of my oldest friends periodically gifts a us cool things her girls have grown out of, this has been really useful for this trip and Stella absolutely loves it, thanks Steph 🙂

Being a naturist beach it’s not the done thing to start taking loads of pictures so I’ll have to describe it, obviously we went to the family side but en route came across a couple of beach bars that look awesome and are part of the resort.

The beach is sandy and the sea isn’t far away, there is a lot of people traffic by the sea, mostly naked but definitely some wandering along from other beaches to have a look at the naked people of which there are plenty to see!

I’ve noticed there seems to be a lot of penis and testicle jewellery amongst the naturist crowd which is mostly displayed on the beach. Some of it’s piercings but others are rings made of metal or leather with your twig and berries bunched up through it, some men hang chains from their necks down to their waists and then connect it up to their goods, very strange.

Periodically a bell rings which signals the ice cream man in the area, Lolly bought Stella a cone which she consumed with a good helping of a sand.

Stella wasn’t too keen on the sea and enjoyed sending daddy to and fro to fill up the smallest bucket in the world with water, she did eventually get in and was really happy when she realised she could walk in the sea by herself while holding Daddy’s hand.

After the beach we headed home and made some food, time for a family selfie!

We’d booked for two nights but might stay for a couple more, there is no requirement to actually be naked and once you get used to people walking about in the buff it’s just like any other camp site.

The one thing that does let this place down are the toilets. Each toilet block that I have found has a tiny toilet for kids, a regular toilet with no seat and squat toilets, there is no toilet roll in any of them, just a hose to wash your bits. I suspect this is because when you are naked there is no place to stash your toilet roll so it’s quite obvious you’re off for a dump (poo for non British readers) and also it means the site doesn’t have to stock them with loo roll. The showers on the other hand are excellent, they are also open and have mirrors opposite them so at some point you just can’t escape being naked.

As you can see below, Stella has no issues with being in the buff, she’s just like her mum!

At this time of year it’s hot, this is the temperature inside the van at about midday

That alone would encourage you to take all your clothes off!

A trip to the mountains

On By MashleyIn Europe, france, road trip, T4 Camper, travel

The day after Ian’s birthday was spent getting everything sorted to leave for the mountains the following day.

There are many things to be done to the house before it is shut down for a few days so Lindi and Ian cracked on with that while I sorted out the van and Lauren entertained Stella.

First thing to do was change the wheel…

Off with the old and on with the new

Once that was done I got the van hooked up to 240v, turned on the fridge to maximum so when we left it was properly cold and didn’t eat up the battery trying to reach a decent working temperature. Both Lauren and I went round the house getting all of our stuff together with the idea being when we came to leave at 11.30 the following day all we had to do was chuck a few bags in the van and we’d be good to go. That night we had a bbq and I took some awesome photos of the Milky Way, annoyingly they are on my DSLR and I don’t have a card reader to get them on to the iPad.

On the morning of our departure I noticed the van was only getting 9v from the solar panel, this is unusual, it should be getting double that. The system comprises of 2 x 50 watt panels wired in series which gives you 100w of power and I usually see about 18v from the panels. Not sure what is going on, fairly confident it’s not the wiring as if it was I’d get 0 volts as the positive is connected to one panel and the negative to the other, without a ground you’d get nothing, that’s what I think anyway, I proved this by removing the – leg from the controller and sure enough it thinks the sun has gone in and 0 volts is displayed, in my mind this proves the wiring continuity, it doesn’t however prove the solar cells. I didn’t have any more time to test as we were already late leaving.

Shortly after we left Ian stopped for fuel, I checked the solar controller and I was now getting 16.4 volts from the panels, weird…

The drive to Mont Dore took a couple of hours and we headed to the nicer of the two municipal campsites in town called Camping L’Esquiladou, it has a pool which Stella loved, facilities are good but the pitches are a kind of magnetic gravel, big though and they have electricity.

We planned to stay for a couple of nights so made our respective camps, chucked some food from Ians birthday on the BBQ, cracked open some booze and settled in for the night.

Morning came quicker than I would have liked mainly because the bread van comes through the camp hooting his horn to alert everyone to his arrival. The queue is something to behold, lots of bed head and dressing gowns. As I was now up and the sun was shining, I could appreciate a little more where we were camped, the view of the mountain is quite lovely.

Ian and I had planned to go out on out mountain bikes while Lolly, Lindi and Stella went into town.

We aimed for the Mont Dore cable car station which was only 5km away. Unfortunately, that 5km was uphill the whole way and in the midday sun, it was proper hard work but eventually we made it to the cable car.

The trip up was as pleasant as a cable car can be, it was pretty much as packed as one in the winter is.

At the top the view is spectacular, there is also a restaurant that sells beer.

Before heading off on the bikes I took the drone for a little fly about, shot some video and took some aerial shots which I’ve yet to process. As you can see from the picture above there are what appear to be lovely trails down the mountain, this was not the case.

The whole way down from top to bottom are paths made from massive bits of gravel, it’s a bit like riding down a really steep slope made of tennis balls, this photo doesn’t do it justice,

In the world of skiing, this is a blue run but in the world of mountain biking, this was rubbish. I managed to get down unscathed but Ian came off leaving a good portion of his leg on the mountain, ripping his shorts and smashing his bike helmet, I saw loads of walkers take a tumble so you can imagine what it was like on a bike. It took us about half an hour to get down and at the end we grabbed a beer, the day out on the bikes had been a massive disappointment, the best bit was coming home down the road we’d cycle up earlier. We did find a few small tracks and a luge that I had a go on, we headed home via the supermarket to grab some beer. Just up from the campsite is a pizza van with a few tables in a small garden with a lovely view over the valley, the pizzas were excellent as was the sunset, it’s bring your own booze if you ever go there.

During our time here the most mentioned word has been “Funicular” because there is one here and Lindi wanted to go on it. You can take your bikes up there and there is mention of a VTT course, Ian and I cycled to the funicular station while Lolly, Stella and Lindi took the bus, before we all left I got a lovely picture of me and the kiddo.

The funicular station is a lovely old building and the funicular carriage is quite nice too.

It takes about 5 mins or so to get to the top and is well worth going for a ride on. At the top there are all sorts of things you can do in summer, there is an rope adventure playground in the trees as well as the VTT and hiking trails.

There is also a lovely restaurant so we stopped for a nice but pretty expensive lunch.

Ian and I set off on the bikes, we found some signs for the trails but no maps. The VTT trails are referred to as circuits and the only one we found was the green which wasn’t particularly taxing and lead us back to where we started, we did come across a nice waterfall though.

We tried to find the red trail but didn’t manage to as the signs are non existent, this is also a ski resort so there should be some way you can ski or ride a trail all the way to the bottom, if there was we didn’t find it and ended up taking a fast road down to the town, Ian enjoyed it I suspect because he didn’t come off and got to fly down a hill, I was hoping for some technical trails that we didn’t find so left less impressed than Ian.

We stopped for a beer in the square, went to the supermarket to get more beer and then realised it was Sunday so the shop would be closed. Luckily we had enough to last the night.

We went for pizza again because it was nice and you don’t have to generate any washing up. Lindi wasn’t overly happy as she had a load of food in her fridge we could have eaten that was probably going to go off. That’s one of the tricky things about this whole motor home thing, you don’t really know what food options will be available when you stop so we generally cater for there being none which means some food does get wasted if there’s a nice food option at your destination.

I totally understand why Lindi was upset about the wasted food, we hate wasting food too but sometimes it just happens.

At the time of writing we have now left the campsite, the rest of the crew are down in the town looking around the spa building and I’m up the mountain trying to figure out the solar issue. I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the panels is definitely not working, the one closest to the roof box, I’m not sure if roof box is partially covering one of the cells which is causing the rest to fail or if the panel is just busted, I can’t see any obvious damage and they should last anywhere between 10 – 20 years. I’ve called the manufacturer to see what warranty the panel has as they are usually guaranteed for about 20 years as there isn’t too much that can go wrong with them. The puzzling bit is that I have definitely seen a voltage reading upwards of 15volts since I noticed there was an issue, I’ve checked all the connections, reset the controller but it’s still doing the same thing. It’s not the end of the world as we’re doing very little off grid stuff this trip but when things break it annoys me, especially if I can’t fix it myself…

The Party

On By MashleyIn france, T4 Camper, travelLeave a comment

As mentioned in the last post, it’s Lolly’s Dad Ian’s 65th birthday.

Much of the day had been spent getting the place decorated for a small soirée kicking off at about 17.30.

In true English tradition, the bunting had been rolled out!

Even the barn had bunting on it.

Loads of lovely food was prepared, I was in charge of the bbq for the day which is a bit of an honour as Ian loves to BBQ and I’m not sure he entirely trusts anyone with the job!

There are no pictures of me actually manning the BBQ so here is a picture of the BBQ and what became the smokers table.

All of the guests are local to Ian and Lindi and are friends they have made whilst renovating the house, some of their friends speak English, some don’t, one of their guests grew up in this house and lives not to far away, they’ve never been abroad, never really left the village..

It was lovely to see so many people at the house, Lolly and Stella made Ian a cake and we all sang him happy birthday.

The day flew by in no time at all and one by one the guests headed home.

The evening ended with a beautiful sunset.

Ian fell asleep in the garden, I helped with the tidying up and Lindi went on a washing up mission till three in the morning!

What started off as a pretty stressful day turned into a lovely afternoon and evening, hopefully Ian enjoyed it.

Annoying….

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

All good things must come to an end and in this case I am referring to my pleasant hassle free journey to my in-laws…

20 mins after leaving my stopover I noticed a strange noise coming from the van.

When you’ve owned a vehicle for long enough you know the difference between the weird sounds that go with it and ones you’ve not heard before, they usually indicate something is wrong, sure enough, there was…

I first tried to repair the puncture using some tyre weld but then realised there was a gaping hole in the wall at the rear so the next option was to change the wheel, one slight issue that I’ve never sorted out, no jack.

Luckily I had the sense to take out some breakdown cover prior to leaving, the cheapest I could get it for was 100 quid for a years UK breakdown cover that includes 6 weeks euro cover from Just Kampers, well worth it. I called the breakdown number and in no time at all the nice lady on the phone told me there would be a breakdown truck with me in about 30 minutes, while I waited for the truck I got the spare wheel out from under the van.

I’m pretty sure this is the original spare wheel, it’s never been used, it’s also been strapped to the bottom of the van for nearly 20 years so it’s a bit rusty, still serviceable however, in 30 minutes the truck arrived.

In no time at all the wheel was changed, I noticed the spare looked a bit flat and I couldn’t get the dust cap off so I asked the recovery dude to borrow some pliers, he brought some and had a go at removing the dust cap but as he did he must have dislodged the valve momentarily and some air came out, I’m pretty sure what he said in French was leave it alone and get as far as you can…

I drove for about 20k and wasn’t convinced the tyre would make the 180k journey in it’s current condition so I stopped off, bought a couple of pairs of pliers, got the dust cap off and topped up the tyre to the correct pressure, I then did another couple of stops every 20k or so to check the tyre wasn’t losing any air, all good and happy to sit at about 80mph without any vibrations through the steering wheel.

Lindi and Ian live in a place called Le Tourondel and it turns out there are 2 of them 50 mins drive apart, guess who has now visited both of them…

At about 17.30 I eventually arrived and was reunited with Lolly and Stella who I think were very pleased to see me, I was definitely pleased to see them!

Many cold beers were drunk and Lolly’s mum made a lovely roast which went down a treat, it’s very relaxing in Le Tourondel, it’s also dead quiet and it’s lovely to sit out the front and listen to all the wildlife. There are bats roosting in one of the buildings and right outside the house is a commune light, the light attracts insects and the insects attract the bats, you could watch them for hours….

The next day was a pretty laid back affair, Lindi and Ian had things to do in the garden ahead of Ians birthday, Lauren managed to lie in the sun for nearly 10 whole minutes without Stella putting sand on her, I made some lunch for everyone and took an aerial shot of the place..

The house with the nice grey roof is the main house, the building with the rusty roof is the barn, the building next to Bumblebee is the bat hotel and the building up at the top by the motor home is the little house which Ian has recently restored. The garden is being remodelled hence the lack of vegetation, next time we’re here I’ll take another shot to see how things have progressed.

Ian and I ventured down in to town to get the tyre fixed to find the tyre shop closed till the end of August. Ian called one of his friends who organised a new tyre for us to be fitted the following day in a town called Tulle. Lolly had organised a trip to some epic caves, Gouffre De Padirac.

Looking down the entrance is impressive…

Looking up is even more impressive…

I’ve always fascinated by underground spaces, be it tunnels, bunkers or caves and these ones are incredible, they are massive, it’s mad to think all of this has been carved out by water over millions of years.

There are numerous lakes in the caves which have been lit up beautifully.

Part of the tour takes you on a small boat along the underground river which is awesome although you aren’t allowed to take any pictures or video while on the boat.

You are given audio guides that tell you loads of interesting facts, the thing that blew me away is when the caves were discovered it was in the 1800’s, two blokes went down that entrance on a rope ladder with some candles, got as far as the river, went back up and got a canoe so they could go further. They can’t possibly have seen as much as we could until electricity came to the caves some time later.

To work out how high the halls were they got a kind of chines lantern with some string on it and sent it up to the roof, then measured the string, genius!

This picture above gives you an idea of how big the caves are, you can see people walking up the steps and this was halfway up one of the halls.

It does get cold down there so I’d recommend talking a jumper, it’s a great trip to do on a wet and rainy day, we spent two hours in the caves.

By the time we got out it was 21.30, we headed home, had a bite to eat and crashed.

The next day was get the tyre sorted day.

Unfortunately Simon hadn’t told me which tyre shop in Tulle he had made the appointment with so there was considerable cocking about while I tried to get hold of him to confirm. Turns out he thought he had sent me the address but the message didn’t send. Once I got to the shop it was to close to lunch time to get the tyre sorted so they told me to come back at 2PM after lunch.

In France, nothing gets in the way of lunch, for two hours everyone downs tools, shuts up shop and has lunch. There is also a rule that you must change either both front tyres or both rear tyres, Simon explained I only needed the one, the garage agreed but said they could not fit the wheel to the vehicle, I would have to do that myself, no worries.

We did some shopping at Noz and Decathlon, I chipped off to get the wheel and the Coups headed to Lidl to grab shopping.

Tomorrow is Ian’s 65th birthday so there is a little bit of a party going on in Le Tourondel, I can’t wait…

AND SO IT BEGINS…..

On By MashleyIn france, road trip, T4 Camper, travel, VW Campervan2 Comments

Lolly and Stella flew to France a few days back and I’m driving to her Mum and Dads place in Argentat to meet them, from there we’ll spend three weeks travelling around France staying in what will be Bumblebees last adventure with us…

Saturday morning at 9am I was all packed up and ready to roll..

The journey to Folkestone was uneventful but the satnav did take me on a rather long winded route as one of the sections of the M20 was closed, the upside was a saw some beautiful countryside I’d not seen before.

When you get on the train, driving through the carriages always reminds me of the Death Star run and I always hope a tie fighter will come screaming past me, never does 😦

It’s all very efficient on the train and with in no time at all Bumblebee was secured and we were on our way..

I took a wander down the carriages to find the loo and saw this which made me laugh

Hopefully they’ll see the funny side of it too.

From Calais the plan was to head to Oreleans and find somewhere to plot up for the night using the trusty all the Aires book, I was aiming for a place called Beaugency which is about 4.5 hours drive. It chucked it down for the entire journey and when I got there the Aire was permanently closed. I looked up another about 25 mins away, got there and also was closed. The next one you had to be a member of a camping club to get in, finally I found a little spot that was actually far more up my street.

As you can see I was the only person there, there is a serviceable toilet, the road it’s next to is reasonably quiet and it’s right opposite a lake.

Everything happens for a reason!

The van is full of stuff so I had to empty the van to get the blinds and bed setup, then find somewhere to put everything, at this point I have realised it’s unlikely we’ll be able to stay at any aires as the space I used to store most of the stuff is where Stella sleeps, we definitely need a bigger van!

As I cracked open a beer a small Mercedes Vito turned up and the owners proceeded to beach their vehicle on a concrete kerb stone, much revving and wheel spinning later they gave up trying to sort it and went to bed.

I had a great nights sleep, probably the best one I’ll have of this trip! I woke up and started to pack up the van ready to roll to Argentat. My neighbours got their van unstuck, rolled out a table and chairs and made themselves some breakfast, very civilised..

I made some tea and munched a BLT I picked up yesterday.

There’s been a lot of activity here this morning, some dog walkers, a chap fishing on the lake and what appears to be a hunting party.

There was also a couple of vans with hunting dogs go past, this place does remind me a little of Lake Crystal from Friday the 13th, I hope they’re not hunting for the local murderer!

A few trips in the UK….

On By MashleyIn 2019, England, summer, T4 Camper, travel, Urban CaravanLeave a comment

Life with a kiddo leaves little time for writing blogs and as such there have been few entries here with what we’ve been up to in our trusty VW…

Long warm sunny days out numbered by long wet days or summer as we like to call it is in full swing at the time of writing, we’ve been cramming in as many weekends as possible, you know us, we like to get away 🙂

Our first trips to acclimatise Stella to the van again was to our go to get away in Penshurst, our usual spot is at the bottom of a hill via a mud track which was still pretty soggy, we had spent a day higher up and been blown about considerably, we were also overlooked by a new thing which appears to be some kind of running / cross country event the people at kingdom put on, loads of people about the place overlooking our spot so we had a look round and found a hidden platform we could reach and was big enough for both vans…

It’s quite hidden from the main track which suited us just lovely!

This was in May and the weather was still fresh but dry enough to have a fire and cook on it..

Our next outing in the van was to Peppa Pig world for Stella’s birthday, we went with Laurens parents and her brother and his family, the in laws have an awesome motor home and Kris and Helen had a tent.

We stayed at Paultons campsite which is no more than 10 mins walk from pig world, the site caters for motor homes, camper vans, tents and caravans with generous sized pitches each with electric hook up, showers and washing facilities are excellent, there are also some quite stunning glamping options too!

Despite the weather being rubbish we all had a great time and Stella got to meet Peppa and George, she was truly star struck!

As the weather improved over the next few weeks we spent a couple of weekends back at Penshurst in our usual spot, good food, company, plenty of booze and massive fires!

For fathers day we spent the weekend in a lovely little site in Arundel called Acorns, all pitches are set in a woodland setting with quite possibly the cleanest showers and toilets I have come across..

The weather couldn’t make up it’s mind what to do, luckily we brought the drive away awning and managed to fit the whole family in it!

Not long after this, Lolly and Stella went to Morocco for 10 days leaving me to fend for myself, with a weekend free I decided to check out a place I’d been eyeing up staying at for a while, Birling gap, I went for summer solstice and parked up in the national trust car park, we are members so I didn’t have to worry about any parking charges…

I parked right by the cliff which I probably shouldn’t have done as I was wild camping but I got no bother so no harm done.

There are some table and chairs that belong to the trust cafe which was well and truly closed so I fired up the Cobb on one, opened a beer and made some food..

This was the longest day of the year and the sunset was glorious, it was lovely to be by the sea and watch the sun set..

Our next trip of note was to Volks Wealde in the grounds of Penshurst place, hands down one of the best VW festivals I have been too, not too hectic, good company as always and lots of interesting vehicles to look at, we had a lovely little spot in the corner of the site…

On the way out I grabbed a picture of the van by Penshurst place which we finally got to go and have a walk around, been meaning to do that for years!

Most recently we returned to Weymouth staying at Shortlake farm which is only open for the month of August for tents and small camper vans, it’s a great spot with no defined pitches, you find a spot and park up, toilets and showers are excellent as is the onsite shop, especially if you like local beers, fires are also encouraged, we took the fire pit.

We had a lovely view until a group arrived with two bell tents who happily told me they were going to ruin our view which they did, nice. I can’t recommend Shortlake enough and if you have kids, Eweleaze is a short walk away along a coastal path and there are all sorts of animals you can hold or touch…

There are also massive hay bales the kids can play and ponder on..

You can also reach the beach which is shingle but with a couple of lay bags it can be quite comfortable…

So far so good, we’ve had a lot of fun and Stella absolutely loves it…

Our next trip is 3 weeks around France which I hope to document a bit better than I have done our other trips.

Sadly, at the end of the trip to France Bumblebee will be up for sale simply because we need something bigger.

As you can see through this blog, we’ve had THE best time and adventures in our camper van and seen and done things we would never have without it, we hope he goes to a home that will take him to as many places as we have cause there’s plenty of life left in the old boy yet!