Category: T4 Camper

Wales 2016

On By MashleyIn T4 Camper, travel, United Kingdom, Urban Caravan, Wales1 Comment

Our first major trip of 2016 would be to Wales, 10 nights starting on the easter weekend, 3 campsites and one birthday, we set off a day late due to Lolly having the flu but to be honest that was fine by me, it meant I could take my time loading up the van and making sure we had everything we need. After a day of getting the van sorted we got up early the following morning and started our journey, Lolly took the wheel first and drove us to the M4, this was a milestone for Lolly as she doesn’t usually drive on motorways, she did really well.

IMG_5993

It took us about 4 hours or so to reach Pencelli Castle, we booked in and then drove to the start of a walk from one of our books. As soon as we neared the start point the heavens opened and the wind started to blow, the next few hours were spent wandering about in the kind of weather you usually avoid going out in and instead watch it through a window while sitting by a fire with a pint in your hand. We also got lost and walked 30 minutes in the wrong direction. We got back to the van and made for the pub down the road from our campsite, The White Hart. The pub was lovely, very welcoming and we got a table straight away, there was a good selection of ales on tap and ciders too, I had a mixed grill and Lolly had a lamb and leek curry, both were awesome.  The campsite was a 2 mile drive down the road, the site features a drying room which is kind of essential given the Welsh weather, I went to hang up our wet stuff only to find an army of soaked teenagers doing their best to get all their clothes hung up in there, they were all soaked to the skin and still had to put there tents up in the dark and rain, poor sods.

Due to the rain hammering on the roof of the van for most of the night neither of us got a particularly good sleep, this was to be a common theme throughout out trip.  We got up, made some tea and drove to Bike Park Wales, we arrived and Lolly bought us a bacon and egg roll each. Lolly had booked on an introduction to mountain biking course as she’s not as confident on her mountain bike, I got myself a day ticket with an uplift pass and we spent the day haring about the downhill trails, the weather held out and we both had a wicked day, i’d definitely go back there, proper good fun.

IMG_6008

On the way back to the site we stopped into the Royal Oak for some food, nice little pub, got a table quickly and in no time at all we were stuffing our faces, after eating we watched Deadpool in the van and crashed.

Day 3 was a walk up Pen Y Fan, for a short while I read a lot of books about the SAS, they all talked about selection and part of selection is walking up and down Pen Y Fan a few times with a heavy Bergen on your back in a ridiculously short amount of time. I wanted to walk up Pen Y Fan to see why it’s the mountain of choice for the SAS, I wasn’t planning on doing it quickly or with a ton of gear in my bag. We parked up the van and set off, there are a few different ways to go up, typically we chose the hardest, a steep long ascent on uneven ground, The weather held out again and was actually quite pleasant.

IMG_6025

It took us about three hours to walk up to the top of Pen Y Fan, the wind was mental and I lost a prop off the drone I was planning to fly at the top, it started to get cold too, the last 100 meters was in the snow, the picture below is looking up to the peak.

IMG_6027

As you approach the peak you have to climb up some frozen steps which are properly treacherous, we made it up and took a quick selfie, you can see from our choice of clothing how much the weather had changed, always be prepared!

IMG_6031

From here we walked across to Corn Du, hung out there admiring the view and then started our descent via the obelisk which is a memorial to a young lad who died at that spot on the mountain in 1900

IMG_6042

You then come across a stunning lake which we could see from the top of Corn Du

IMG_6044

From the lake there isn’t anything much more special to see, it’s just a walk over fields and roads till you get back to the van, all in all we did 8 miles and apparently burned 1000 calories. We were tired and hungry so on the way back we swerved into a pub we first saw on the way to Pen Y Fan called The Swan, it was quiet and the staff were really friendly, the food was lovely as was the beer, we both slept well that night.

We had planned to go for a bike ride on day 4 but the weather had other ideas, the rain come down like a monsoon, we made it as far as The Star Inn and spent the next there hours holed up in front of the fire waiting for the rain to stop, we did venture out again and we came across some old VW’s.

IMG_6050

IMG_6049

Shortly after discovering the VW’s the pedal arm on my bike came loose so we abandoned the ride and returned to the van, we watched Deadpool again as Lolly fell asleep halfway through it the first time, we made some pasta too.

Day 5 was our final in Pencelli, we packed up and headed off to our next location, Afan forest park. En route we stopped to do the four waterfalls walk, there are few different routes you can take, ours was circular and seemed to take in the muddiest paths possible, if you are up this way then definitely do this walk, the waterfalls and scenery is stunning, you can walk behind the waterfall below which we did, you get soaked…

IMG_6059

By the time we arrived at Afan forest it was dark, the campsite isn’t really a campsite at all, it’s more like a car park with some electric hooks ups, 24 hour toilets and a green space to pitch tents, we made some food, had a beer or two and settled in for the night.

Day 6 started with sunshine and a reminder that I was another year older, lolly made me a lovely breakfast and presented me with some new headphones, boxer shorts and a necklace. Now that it was daylight we could appreciate where we were camping, right at the foot of a bloody big hill.

IMG_6070

The plan was to spend the day on the bikes riding the trails and generally having a good time. We went to the bike shop to grab a map but were told there weren’t any, all the trails are well marked, we’d be fine without a map, I took a picture of one of the maps at the start just in case. To get to the start of the trails involves a 6K ascent, it starts off ok but very quickly the terrain you have to ride up looks like this

IMG_6072

Which meant there was a lot of this

IMG_6073

On the upside for the first time in ages we got some phone signal, I got some birthday messages from my family which was really nice, when we got to what we thought was the top we stopped for a sandwich, a drink and a bit of a rest.

IMG_6074

Shortly after that photo was taken it started to rain so we darted into the woods to get under cover, we followed the signs to the start of the trail for what seemed like an eternity but eventually we made it to the top and the sun came out again.

IMG_6077

We planned to take a trail down called whites level but after spending so much time getting up there we thought we’d do the skyline trail, have a look about and then pick up whites level and head down, didn’t quite work out like that. Most of the markers we were looking for had either moved or no longer existed, partly due to a windfarm being installed on the hillside which had changed a lot of the features, the map we took a picture of down the bottom didn’t quite match what was going on up the hill, this was the closest I had ever been to a wind farm and it was pretty impressive.

IMG_6083

After a lot of wrong turns and not knowing quite where we were Lolly got us back to the start of whites level and we started to make our descent, unfortunately the sun set pretty quickly and a lot of the decent was through forest, with the fading light and Lolly forgetting her glasses we had to abandon the trail because Lolly couldn’t see and find another way down, thanks to Lolly’s excellent map reading and sense of direction we took a forest road down into a village about 3 miles from where we were staying, it was pitch black by the time we got down, we belted back to the van along the old train track, locked up the bikes and grabbed a drink, Lolly was a bit scared and there was a really eerie vibe about the place we were staying at once the sun went down, we ate some food and decided we’d chip off first thing, i’d had an excellent birthday, a proper adventure, not likely to go back to Afan.

Our last few days were to be spent on the Gower peninsula, we were booked into a very family orientated site called Carreglwyd, there were lots of rules but none we intended to break, we were shown our spot and then left to our own devices. The weather wasn’t all that so Lolly suggested we head to the pub for a birthday meal, we went to the Ship inn and spent the next three hours eating and drinking followed by a walk along the beach, we retired to the van and watched an awful film.

The next morning we woke up and the rain was chucking it down, this picture kind of summed up the mood

IMG_6089

We spent the morning in the van with the heater on, lolly read her book and I made tea and snoozed, the rain stopped so we decided to go for a walk in Rhossili, we also arranged to meet Laurens auntie Steph.

The walk we were supposed to do takes you along the Rhossili headland, was managed about ten minutes trekking up hill before deciding we couldn’t be bothered and would much rather take a walk on the beach, the view from where we where was very nice though.

IMG_6094

We mooched down to the beach and spent the next hour or so investigating all the weird and wonderful things you find on beaches, for example, an old boat.

IMG_6098

Lots of drift wood

IMG_6100

And a shrimp

IMG_6105

Rhossili bay was award best UK beach in 2010, it’s a lovely beach even when the weather is rubbish and is popular with surfers.

IMG_6106

We left the beach and went to meet Lollys auntie Steph, we had a lovely meal at their local pub and stayed then night at their house, best nights sleep we’d had all week, was nice to have a decent shower too. We got up the next day and decided to go home, we still had a night at the campsite booked but we were both shattered and wanted a night in our comfy bed at home.

This is the first time as far as either of us can remember that we were quite looking forward to going home, I don’t know why, maybe it was weather or the tiredness. I enjoyed South Wales and next time i’d like to head north, maybe a bit later in the year when the weather is better.

Bye Bye DRL’s – Hello being able to see….

On By MashleyIn Camper van, T4 Camper, Urban Caravan, VW Campervan, vwt42 Comments

One of the things that attracted me to Bumblee when we were searching for our Urban Caravan was purely cosmetic, the lovely looking Audi style day running lights or DRL’s for short, here they being modelled by Bumblebee.

IMG_5783

Whilst they look very nice and are quite expensive to buy they are rubbish as lights. Visibility at night is dreadful, so much so we can drive around at night with the full beam on and nobody flashes us, true story. I thought it might be the bulbs so invested in a set of H1 Osram night breakers, they marginally improved the situation.

There are a number of wiring looms you can buy that allegedly improve the situation specifically for DRL’s with projector style lights by combing the side lights and full beam or by increasing voltage to the bulbs, the problem you run into is by increasing the voltage to the bulbs you raise the bulbs temperature which in turn melts the projector cover and combining the side lights and full beam is only helpful when you have your full beam on, not really a solution.

I spoke to Martyn at Travelvolts who confirmed I had done pretty much all I could do and the only way to see an improvement would be to go back to standard lights, fit an upgrade loom and night breaker bulbs so, after a year and a half of bad night time driving it was time to take the plunge.

After doing a bit of research I bought the following from eBay and Amazon.

Headlights

Indicators

Bulbs

I also bought the headlight upgrade loom kit from Travelvolts, you can buy something similar from other places but I trust Martyn and his products so I bought it from him.

First things first, out with the old, you have to remove the front grille which is held in place by four screws, two at the top and two in the lower grille, it then just pops out.

IMG_5784

 

Once this is done you can unbolt and disconnect the headlights, quick nod to the previous owner or whoever fitted these for maintaining consistency with their poor work, both headlights were held in with 2 bolts instead of four..

Undo your bolts and unclip your bulbs and the lights come out, this is what you are left with.

IMG_5785

I came across what I think are the self levelling motors for the lights, one was connected to one of the DRL’s and the other wasn’t, I removed them both as my new lights have no way to connect them. Once you remove your lights you are left with a few extra plugs, I taped them up as I felt that would be helpful.

IMG_5786

At this point I slotted together the indicators and headlights, I then fitted the bulbs and attached the wiring loom upgrade to the bulbs, this makes installing the loom a bit less fiddly. I then fitted the lights with four bolts for each, I had to pack the drivers side light out a little near the bottom with washers so it sat straight.

IMG_5787

Last thing to do was hook up the loom using the instructions I downloaded from Travelvolts and test the lights before putting the front grill back on, all working first time, marvellous.

I then took the van to the hand car wash as it was filthy.

IMG_5796

I’m really pleased with how they look, the smoked indicators tie in with the smoked rear clusters and the main lights IMO look better than the old DRL’s. I waited for nightfall and took the van out for a drive to see if the visibility had improved.

In hindsight I wish I had taken a visibility before and after picture for comparison, I cannot tell you how much of a difference this has made, dipped beam visibility has greatly increased and full beam is bonkers, you can see miles ahead, the bulbs give off a nice white light too, not quite Xenon but not far off, the light temperature also matches up with my fogs!

IMG_5800

If you are thinking about swapping out your standard lights for DRL’s my advice would be save your money and upgrade the looms and bulbs instead, maybe buy some smoked or clear indicators if you want to add a custom look.

The total cost of this came to approx £170.00, the old DRL’s will be going up on eBay and I reckon I should get £100.00 back for them so with any luck, this will only of cost 70 quid, money well spent!

 

 

Re-Insulating Bumblebee

On By MashleyIn Camper van, T4 Camper, VW Campervan, vwt4Leave a comment

One of the first things we did when we got Bumblebee was install central locking to both passenger doors and the sliding door, when me and Andy took the panel off the sliding door to fit the central locking motor and contacts we came across the worst kind of insulation you can use for a van, bog standard loft insulation aka lagging.

It’s bad for a number of reasons but the main one being it absorbs moisture, either from cooking or making tea in the van or just breathing, soaks it all up and rusts your van from the inside out, it had to go.

It’s taken me a while to crack on with it mainly because it’s a mission, every panel has to come off, the electrics have to come out, cupboards undone, rock and roll bed out, massive ball ache, however, after the leak in Seaford and an impending 11 days in Wales at the end of March where it will rain I had to fix the leak so I figured I might as well take a couple of days off work and sort it all out once and for all…

First thing to do was decide how to insulate the van, there are a number of methods to choose from, some involving bubble wrap, others using recycled plastic bottles, the cheapo option the previous owner went for or the method I chose, Thermoliner.

The principal behind Thermoliner is you stick it on your van and then put your panels back creating a void between the outside of your van and the inside, the thermoliner greatly reduces the transfer of the climate outside of your van to the inside and the climate inside of your van to the outside, I bought a roll of Thermoliner 8m x 1m from Harrisons Trim Supplies, you can read all about it and order it from here, I put my order in and it arrived the next day, sweet.

First job was to empty the van, it’s an eye opener when you take everything out of the various nooks and crannies and put it in all one pile!

IMG_5745

Next up was to get the bed out, this is held in by four bolts, the two nearest to the tailgate are easy to get out as I could hold the spanner on the bolt with one hand and use a socket to undo the nut with the other, there was no way I could do this for the two nearer the cabin, i’d need 8 foot super bendy arms and hands with grips like the jaw of a pit bull, luckily I had some g-clamps, I was quite impressed with my impromptu ingenuity!

IMG_5749

I managed to get the bed out by myself and left it on the drive and set about removing the first panel.

IMG_5763

As I suspected, full of crappy lagging, I removed that and set about replacing it with Thermoliner. I used the panel I removed as a template and marked out the amount of Thermoliner I would need. It was pretty cold and I was a bit worried the Thermoliner adhesive back wouldn’t stick, not a problem, it stuck without issue.

IMG_5766

Thermoliner is my new favourite thing, it’s really easy to work with, it’s easy to cut and sticks to anything, before I could make any further progress the cat came to inspect my work.

IMG_5755

Once she was happy she tested the tailgate to see if it could take her weight, no issue there.

IMG_5760

Once the cat jogged on I set about undoing all the electrics and unbolting the cabinet so I could access the panels behind it, as you can see there was a small bit of awful insulation, one whole panel was left completely exposed.

IMG_5768

I came across this which I think is part of the vans previous life with the AA, I have no idea what it does but disaster would probably follow if I removed it so I left it where it was.

IMG_5770

In about an hour the drivers side of the van was properly insulated.

IMG_5771

Once i’d replaced the panels on the drivers side I moved the cabinet back and secured it properly, the whole thing was held in place with 4 screws, there are also a number of internal brackets that might as well have been held together with blue tack, how none of this came apart is beyond me, I spent about an hour reinforcing all the brackets and securing the cabinet to the walls and floor of the van, it’s solid now, how it should have been in the first place!

Next up and the last job for Thursday, the roof.

Trim clips are my new least favorite thing, what a pain in the arse they are even with a trim clip removal tool.

Since we’ve owned the van there has been an ugly remnant of the Bumblebees previous life as an AA van i’ve been meaning to remove.

IMG_5773

I don’t know what this actually did but it as you can see it’s covered in filler, I guess this was supposed to seal it from the elements, didn’t really work…

IMG_5772

This is about where the drip came through when we were in Seaford, I cut out the cables and undid what ever that thing was leaving a nice hole in the roof!

IMG_5775

Ideally I would have cut out the rust and welded a plate in to cover the gaping hole however I can’t weld and didn’t have any plates hanging about so i did the next best thing, I wired brushed off the rust and sealed the hole internally with Dynamat and externally with all purpose clear silicon, should hold fine!

IMG_5776

None of the roof had been insulated, it is now !

IMG_5781

I finished up for the day and left the roof panels down overnight to dry as they were damp from the leak.

The next morning I put the roof panels back up, rewired all the electrics, insulated the tailgate and sliding door, I didn’t take any pictures as to be honest there are only so many pictures of insulated panels your readers are going to be interested in…

It took me a day to do that and I was nearing the finish line, all that was left to do was put the rock and roll bed back in along with all the stuff that lives in the van and decide what to do with the Thermoliner I had left.

I decided to insulate the cab doors, why not…

Before

IMG_5791

After

IMG_5794

Lolly helped me get the bed back in and I ferried all out “essential” stuff back to the van.

The van is now in my opinion properly insulated and should be leak free, I took a picture of all the lagging I took out of the van along with the left over AA cabling..

IMG_5782

I’m glad I finally got round to insulting the van myself, i’ve been meaning to do it for ages and I hope it keeps us nice and warm in Wales, i also feel I can put a built not bought sticker on the van as i’ve pretty much properly redone everything the previous owner put in.

If you are reading this and starting a build i’d really recommend Thermoliner for your insulation, it’s easy to work with, good value for money and delivered pronto if you order it form Harrisons.

 

 

 

Valentines camping at Seaford

On By MashleyIn Camper van, T4 Camper, travel, United Kingdom, Urban Caravan, VW Campervan, vwt4Leave a comment

What shall we do for Valentines I asked Lolly, lets go somewhere in our urban caravan she said, we’ll book Friday off and go for a long weekend, sounds like a plan I replied.

We set a rule that for short weekends away we wouldn’t travel more than an hour or so’s drive, Lolly had also mentioned visiting Beachy Head so I figured somewhere near there would be a good place to stay and so it was I came across Seaford.

I chose Seaford because i’d never heard of it, it isn’t too far from Beachy Head and there was a campsite that was taking bookings in February, most places don’t begin their season till the beginning of March, it’s also just over an hours drive from where we live, perfect.

The campsite stayed at is called Buckle Caravan Park and the description amounted to ” No frills campsite with few rules, like camping in the good old days” – that sounded alright to me.

The first thing that hits you when you arrive is the place looks a bit run down although I am sure it looks completely different if the sun is shining, it’s also a little strange that the campsite warden has built a moat around his twin static caravan and decorated the garden with scallop shells, odd garden ornaments and a concrete pig. The reception building is also a little odd looking completely out of place with everything around it, despite it all looking a bit rubbish we were warmly greeted, shown our pitch on a map, educated about the electric gate and told the shower and toilet blocks nearest to us were being repaired / renovated so we’d have to use the ones near the office, there is also a club house open on Saturday with a bar which we were more than welcome to use.

I also didn’t have enough cash on me to pay for our stay and the deposit for the key fob, no worries, pay tomorrow said the guy at reception which was nice.

We made out way to our pitch, parked up and made a brew.

img_5690

As you can see, there are a lot of caravans, most of which seem to be there all year round and as such most appeared empty, the campsite was really quiet, looking ahead is a grassy knoll and beyond that a pebble beach and the sea, it’s not that pretty so I didn’t take a picture.

I’d downloaded a walk which was the first one on this page and on the basis it was dry with no rain forecast we drove to East Dean, parked up at the Tiger Inn and set off on our walk. The guide is a quite old and a little out of date but most of the landmarks still exist and we didn’t get lost, bonus.

We stopped at a national trust spot called Birling gap, we grabbed a beer and a cider, used their wifi and then made our way to the beach which you access via metal stairs from the top of the cliff.

img_5694

There are lots of signs saying that the cliffs are a little unstable and there are also the biggest lumps of chalk that are very handy for writing on metal stairs should you feel the need to do so…

We hung about for a while, grabbed a selfie and then headed on our way..

img_5693

From here we headed uphill toward the Bell Tout lighthouse, built by a chap called Mad Jack Fuller who had an addiction for building follys he believed he finally made something useful, however he built his lighthouse on the fog line so the light didn’t shine very far when it was foggy and was useless to ships avoiding the cliffs, it’s now a B&B..

img_5696

We picked up the pace as the sun was beginning to set, from the Bell Tout chipped down a hill, along a roman road and back into East Dean where we started, our plan was for dinner at the Tiger Inn which has what appears to be a real Tigers head on the wall, i’m not a fan of stuffed animals but i’ve never seen a stuffed tigers head before and felt compelled to take a picture of it.

img_5699

The pub is on the green at East Dean, it’s a hotel as well, there are a host of locally brewed ales, a warm fire and a great menu, we had baked camembert to start and then the Tiger Inn burger, I got all excited about the local ales and drunk one of each, I was too drunk to drive home and we were going to stay in the car park, Lolly however elected to drive us home and only had 2 halfs and 2 pints of water. I’m glad we went back to the campsite as it meant I could hook us up to 240V and get the heater going, would have been a bloody cold night otherwise.

We also got to catch up with one of my old raving buddies and best mates Rob, he lives just down the road in Peacehaven and met us for a Guiness.

During the night the rain came and it didn’t stop, we woke in the morning and discovered the van has a leak coming from the roof, most likely where the AA lights were mounted. We decided we’d head home instead of staying another night as the weather wasn’t set to improve and everything are wanted to do meant we would be out in the rain. Before we left we had a shower, whilst the facilities weren’t the best looking they were clean and the water hot.

We drove into Seaford in search of breakfast and came across a place called Sub Station, what a lovely surprise, proper nice breakfast in a sub and the owner is great fun too, left him looking up on Google “was Mary Berry fit” after confirming old Mary has had a bit of botox…

Other than the nice cafe Seaford is a bit rundown, I doubt it’s on any must visit list which is why i’ve never heard of it, it’s not that far from Brighton, Hastings and Eastbourne which are more well known.

What I will say is the countryside around Seaford is really quite beautiful so it was worth staying there for that.

It was still raining when we left Sub Station, we stopped off at a place called paradise park, had a wander round there and then headed for home looking forward to sleeping in a warm bed with no leaks!

I probably wouldn’t go back to Buckle but I wouldn’t say avoid it either, 20 quid a night for a hard standing pitch right by the beach is great value and i’m sure when the sun is shining it’s a completely different place, if you fancy a cheap night away “near” Brighton and Hastings give it a go !

A trip to Coldharbour. 

On By MashleyIn Surrey, T4 Camper, travel, United Kingdom, VW CampervanLeave a comment

Last year Lolly and I bought each other a mountain bike. Whenever we go away we take them with us, occasionally we just hop in the van with the bikes on the back, drive somewhere that entertains mountain bikes and go for a ride.

About 45 mins drive from us is leith hill and just beyond that is Coldharbour, a tiny village you can easily end up at if you go for a walk or ride around Leith Hill. All around this part of the world are bridle ways and tracks for walkers and riders as well as horses and the odd crosser that’s not supposed to be there.

We started at the plough inn as you can park up there and it’s a good reference point if you are using the map below.

img_5560-2
The idea was to go and do some of the trails and then grab some lunch. Didn’t quite go to plan, the next couple of hours ended up as a kind of freestyle ride / hike with the added fun of potentially wandering into a pheasant shoot, luckily we didn’t but we did think someone might mistake us for some wildlife and crack a shot off.
We came across some pretty cool woods well worth a photo of!

img_5576
The trails on the map weren’t that well signposted and as you can see below we went a rather odd route.

img_5617-1
Before setting out I booked us a table for 15.00, past experience of the Plough Inn and trying to get a table for lunch was a bit of a failure due to it being heaving. As luck would have it our random ramble brought us back to our starting point at exactly 15.00, below is stravas account of our adventure.

img_5618

While I put the bikes back on the van lolly went to meet the two horses and their steer that rocked up about the same time as us.

img_5579

The pub was pretty quiet when went to our table but very quickly all the tables were taken. The plough does some great local ales and some pretty potent cider too, we were both fairly hungry so we dispensed with starters and went straight for mains, I had the plough inn burger with added cheese and Lolly had-the same.   The burgers were excellent, really tasty, good size portions and not particularly expensive.

We shared a chocolate brownie with chocolate ice cream for dessert, it was epic!

The Plough Inn is nice pub with a mix of walkers, cyclists, and families, there is a nice garden for when the weather is better and dogs are welcome all year round, if you’re ever in that neck of the woods give it a visit.

We had a really good day out, we’ll be back later in the year to try and find the trails and give them a good hammering.

As is customary with my travel reports, a picture of our van, bumblebee parked up near the pub, the namesake of this blog!

img_5582-3

Van-X Curtains

On By MashleyIn Camper van, T4 Camper, travel, VW CampervanLeave a comment

There are numerous options for blocking out heat and light and retaining heat in your van when you’re out in the wild. Our current solution is the thermal window blind variety with the suckers you have to lick and stick to the window.

The issue I have with them is they are a ball ache to get out and stick up. Especially if you are just crashing in the van because you got drunk or you are doing a spot of wild camping, ours fall down a lot too.

I’ve been looking at the Van-X curtains for a while and if you believe the hype then the hype says they are the best van curtains on the market.

After our trip to France and a few other spontaneous nights away I’d managed to convince Lolly that curtains in the rear and tailgate was the way forward, she agreed so I cracked on and ordered a set of the premium line T4 tailgate and side window curtains. I ordered on the Friday and they arrived on the Monday.

Christmas happened and then I got a chance to fit them.

Each curtain comes in its own box with its own fittings. I started with the window above the cooker and sink.

Here’s what it looked like before.

You have to look up the instructions online, they are pretty straight forward, these things come in handy.

As different vans have different size windows you’ll need to cut the rails to fit yours which is no real drama.

The thing I found the most difficult was getting the supplied self tapping screws into the body work, I broke two drill bits I was using as pilots but persevered and got there in the end. I also found the curtain stops that plug into the  end of the rail a pain to get in, I pushed both curtains on and left the the last screw out so I could bend the rail a bit to get the stopper in as shown below.

Once the stopper was back in I put the last screw in and pulled the second curtain back to where it should be.

The curtains also totally block out any light.

The curtains also come with a tie back, I didn’t put them in as I don’t think I need them plus the light was fading and I still had two curtains to go, this one took me an hour.

The next curtain went up fairly quick, when you do the sliding door curtain you need to pay attention to the rail.


As you can see, one channel is wider than the other, on the previous window you fix the rail with the wider channel toward the window, in this instance you fit the wider channel away from the window, you do this so you can cut a bit out for the sliding door lock.

This means the curtain can be pulled without fouling on the lock.

This one took about 40 minutes to do, a bit quicker than the last one.


The tailgate curtain has one regular rail and one that doesn’t look like any of the others, the regular rail goes at the top of the tailgate and other one goes just below the window and fixes to the wooden panel, took about half an hour to install.


I’m very happy with the way they have turned out. If I can put these in anyone can!

We tested them out a couple of days after, we went over to friends and stayed on their drive after a few beers.

The curtains lived up to the hype, they kept the cold out, the warmth in and blocked out any external light, as you can see we still have the thermal curtains in the front, more to block the light out than anything, maybe a van X cab divider curtain is the answer!

Anyways, from my experience I would gladly recommend these curtains, well priced, well made and well awesome!

Digging deep. 

On By MashleyIn Faults, T4 Camper, VW CampervanLeave a comment

So as you’ve read earlier, the starter motor went on the van as we tried to get off the Eurostar, 350 euros to replace, hopefully we’ll get that back through the warranty. 

While we were over there I also noticed the turbo wasn’t doing much and there was a horrible grinding when you turned right. I’d noticed the grinding before we left and put it down to a trashed gator which was replaced, didn’t fix the issue. 

The day after we got home I took the van to Wayne’s, after a bit of investigation he concluded it was the drive shaft at fault so it was replaced, you can see the nice new gator fitted to the old drive shaft which was a bit of waste of time and money, such is life. 

  
Below you can see all the crap inside the drive shaft that was grinding about. 

  

  
As it turned out not to be the gator Wayne fitted earlier he put the drive shaft on and didn’t charge for labour which was nice, it sorted the issue. 

The turbo problem was down to the MAF sensor, replaced that and all is well. 

This round of repairs has cost almost 500 quid though I hope to get over half of that back from the warranty claim. The point of this post is just to demonstrate that whilst the dream of owning a camper van is often a romantic one, the reality is a continual financial investment that never stops, I dread to think how much a classic camper costs to keep on the road, the price tag to buy one is enough to make your eyes water! 

Missing the train. 

On By MashleyIn Belgium, road trip, T4 Camper, travel, VW CampervanLeave a comment

Our last morning and we woke to no rain, a bit of sun and a small patch of blue sky, marvellous. We had a few things to see before we headed home so we did our usual morning things, packed up the van and parked it in the campsite car park.

Our first port of call was lidls for breakfast, 2 pain au chocolat’s each, they went down fairly sharpish and we made our way to town. We parked up our bikes by the stadhuis and headed in there to have a look at the gothic hall.


It’s a pretty impressive hall and also the only place you can get married in Bruges, I can think of worse places to tie the knot!

There is a kind of display of coins and notes but understandably, none of it is in English so we had a brief look and then made our way to the Belfry if Bruges.

The belfry is not for the faint hearted, it’s a 366 step climb to the top with a few stops on the way, the stairs are thin and windy and there is two way traffic.

I did take some pictures of the top but they are on my other camera, i’ll add them when I get home.

The highlight for me was being in the bell tower when all the bells started going off, what an amazing sound!

We still had some shopping to do, I was also trying find somewhere that sold a cool little hat I’d seen, food was also required.

After trying various beer shops i’d pretty much given up on finding my hat so we stopped off for some food at a bar we went to the day before, it’s was heaving that day so we’d given it a swerve but today it was ok, we sat at the bar and just out of curiosity I asked if they had any of the Christmas chouffes in stock and the hat you get if you drink three, they only had two left but they also had a hat, they said I could have it for drinking two, result!


We had one each and that was all I could have as I had to drive later, they’re 10% each. Lolly ordered a bush Noel with her food and I had some water. Our food was pretty good, I had Trappist cheese croquet to start followed by rabbit in prune stew with potato croquet, Lauren had scallops in a cheese sauce followed by a Flemish stew, all were lovely.

Time was against us, we still had some beer to buy, a 10 min ride to the van and then at least an hours drive to Calais.

We got the beer, made the van in ten minutes, arsed about with the sat nav and eventually got off to Calais, we missed our train despite my best efforts, no dramas though, we got put on the next one for free.

We had a great time in Bruges, the Christmas market was rubbish but the food, beer, historical stuff and atmosphere of the town was great, when I get home I will update this post with all the places we visited, meanwhile, here’s some pictures of us with beers.


This was near the end of the beer and food night, the beers are starting to take their toll !

On Lollys birthday night I had to order the weakest beer they had as I was half cut when we got there, this beer was cheaper than water….

Proper tourists. 

On By MashleyIn Belgium, T4 Camper, travel, VW CampervanLeave a comment

After a slightly less cold night in the van we got up and had our first shower of the trip, it felt amazing,  after suitable amounts of tea had been drunk we chipped off into town to see some sights and stop by lidls for some breakfast. We forgot it was Sunday and lidls was closed, no breakfast then.

First stop on our adventure was a brewery tour, the brewery is called the half moon or De Halve Maan if you are a local.  From outside the brewery look like any other old building but when you get inside you begin to realise it’s really quite a complex place.


At one time there were 300 brewery’s in Bruges and now there is only one, what’s nice about this one is they have kept mostly all of the old brewing equipment so you get an idea of old vs modern techniques, you also end up on the roof of the brewery looking out across Bruges. At the end of the tour you get a free beer, a blonde called the fool of Bruges, it’s really quite nice and easy to drink.


They’ve turned the old filling hall into a brasserie, the food looked amazing, all that remains of the past here was an old filling machine.


Stop two of the day was the chocolate museum, on arrival you pay your money for the tour and are given a bar of chocolate and invited to help yourself to some giant chocolate buttons, great start!

As you walk in the first thing you are greeted with is an epic chocolate fountain.


You then spend the next hour or so walking between floors learning about the Mayan origins of chocolate, how it fell in and out of fashion over the years and how it was mainly served as a drink before being sold in the form we’re most familiar with today. At the end of the tour there is a quick demonstration of how they make their praline chocolates and you get to eat one of those too. The museum was interesting but we both agreed there was way too much reading to do.

We’d had a late start to the day so by the time we got out of the museum and with nothing in our stomachs other than a cheeky chocolate waffle our thoughts turned to food. Our options led us to a little place that’s more like a museum than a restaurant, it was shut and not opening for 20 mins so we headed over the road to another little place for a drink.

We grabbed a drink and then noticed how they cooked the food here.


All the tables were reserved bar one, a table for two, we abandoned the other restaurant and settled in for some fire cooked grub.

Our table was as close to the fire as we could be!


There is a 3 course meat or fish menu you can have with or without beer for each course, we had one of each with beer!

The food was exceptional, in my opinion the best food we’d had so far and about 100 euros for the two of us..

The only downside to this beer with every meal idea is you end up getting smashed, even more when the couple you are chatting to buy a round, you buy them a round and then the owner buys everyone a round, we were deffo a little on the wobbly side…

For the third night running I have no real memory of the ride home, lolly got us back safely as she always does, we went to bed with full stomachs and fuzzy heads…