Category: travel

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!

Diesel heater update

On By MashleyIn Chinese diesel heater, motorhome, T4 Camper, travel, Urban Caravan, VW CampervanLeave a comment

After spending a miserable day in the snow and rain installing the heater I’ve since used it on a couple of occasions, it’s a wonderful thing having heat in your van!

As you will have read, on the day I installed the heater I picked possibly the worst day of the year to do it and as such, didn’t do as good a job as I could have. I hadn’t secured the pump as well as it could have been and with the lack of space to get to the combustion pipe work I wasn’t happy that was secure either.

My father in law is an amazing engineer, he also knows his way around cars and has everything you need to remove an engine and gearbox on your driveway, something he has done many times! He very kindly agreed to let me do the work on his drive and also jack up the van to such a degree I had sufficient room to work and it wasn’t going to drop on me, very important that last bit!

Here is a shot of the van jacked up just before work began.

What you can’t see under the van are 2 pairs of axle stands and the jack keeping the van secure.

What you can see is clear skies and sunshine, much better experience!

First job was to drop the fuel tank which is achieved by removing 5 bolts from the straps that hold it in, top tip, do this with a nearly empty fuel tank. Once that was down I could secure all of the combustion pipe work and reroute the fuel lines properly.

One thing you’ll notice with any of these heaters is when they are running you can hear the fuel pump ticking, this happens on the expensive heaters as well as the Chinese ones. The sound is caused by the solenoid in the pump actuating and then vibrating through either the nylon fuel line and / or what the pump is mounted to. You can look on google and there are many discussions in the motor home and boating world on various ways to eradicate the noise.

Webasto recommend installing 2 x 90 degree fuel line connectors either side of the fuel pump as mentioned in this article so I purchased a set. I set about disconnecting the fuel filter and pump, then reassembled using the 90 degree connectors and in the process shorten and secure the fuel lines to the chassis. I also made the install of the pump more secure in the hope that it now won’t fall off and should move around less thus reducing the noise it makes!

That’s what it all now looks like, you can see the fuel connectors in place and the pump secured to the chassis. You can also see the combustion exhaust and muffler. I highly recommend buying some extra pipe work to allow the exhaust gases to vent somewhere near the back of the van. It’s about 4 quid for a 60cm length from eBay, ships from China.

After I had reconnected the fuel lines and pump I had to prime the fuel again, when the heater fired up there was white smoke everywhere which on this occasion is a result of fuel overdosing from priming, however, I also noticed plenty of that white smoke coming into the van despite all the doors and windows being closed.

This presents a serious carbon monoxide risk (death basically) which is why you must vent the exhaust gases away from the underside of your vehicle. I’ve also invested in a carbon monoxide alarm.

Here is a better shot of how much exhaust you have to play with using the supplied exhaust and muffler before I extended the pipe work.

And here is a shot of the extended pipe work in place exiting the drivers side of the van, no more combustion fumes under the chassis…

You also need a joining pipe and a couple of jubilee clips, the joiner i used is from Webasto, about 8 quid from ebay.

I also bought a sticker to put above where the exhaust exits the van as it is quite hot..

When I got home I ran the heater for half an hour to clear any excess fuel and then switched it off. Once the carbon monoxide alarm arrived, I put it in the van, ran the heater for 30 mins or so again with all doors and windows closed and was relieved to find no carbon monoxide present.

The pump is quieter but I would be lying if I said you couldn’t hear it, you can, just not as much.

Lastly I took out the butchered seat base and replaced it with a standard T4 one that hadn’t been butchered, fits over the heater a treat….

My experience with the heater so far has been great, it does what it says on the tin and when it’s cold, which it is frequently in the UK, it’s nice to have a toasty van 🙂

Useful motorhome information for Fuerteventura

On By MashleyIn Europe, Fuerteventura, motorhome, travel, Wild Camping6 Comments

Before embarking on this trip we both tried to find motorhome specific information about Fuerteventura and quickly realised there isn’t a great deal. This is possibly because it costs so much to get from Europe to the canaries that nobody really bothers.

Having spent 10 days motorhoming around the island I hope the following is useful to anyone considering it, I’d also recommend it, I’ve never been anywhere quite like it.

CHEMICAL TOILET DISPOSAL

Lets start with the thing everyone wants to know, how do I get rid of the chemical waste. Unfortunately this Island isn’t really geared up for this aspect of motorhoming. I should imagine the caravan club would be horrified at the few official facilities, we found 3 locations which I will list and describe below.

Corralejo – GPS Co-Ordinates N 28 degrees 42.728′ W013 degrees 52.465′

You can empty both chemical waste and grey water here, there is no water to fill up your tanks, the entrance had a barrier that always appears to be open, look for a painted blue concrete square, drive onto it, empty your grey water and pour your chemical down the obvious sewer inlet, there is room to empty 2 motorhomes at once, there was never a queue.

Improve the experience by bringing food to feed the squirrels.

Near the airport – N 28 degrees25.289′ W013 degrees51.917′

This is a Disa petrol station heading away from Peurto del Rosario, pull up opposite the car wash lanes in front of the small motorhome disposal sign, head into the garage and inform the attendant you want to empty your chemical toilet, this is the phrase in Spanish.

Me gustaria vaciar mi inodoro quimico (courtesy of google)

You will either be given the pole to lift the manhole cover yourself or the attendant will do it, it’s a direct link to the sewer, pretty grim and loads of opportunity to get splashed by your own waste, there is a toilet and hand washing facilities inside the garage, you’ll probably need them. If you decide to wash your van for 1 euro you can also empty your grey water (unofficially).

You can fill up with water here too, 1 euro a go…

Tarajalejo – N 28 degrees 11.535′ W014 degrees 07.079′

These co-ordinates will take you to some rough ground that looks to be being used as a car park right by the beach, park up, take out your cassette and walk back up the street you came down until you come to a number of bins on your left, look carefully just before where the first bin starts and you’ll see a square wooden cover, lift that and you have access to the sewer and this is the official disposal site, there are no hand washing facilities but less opportunity for splash backs, I’d still wear disposable gloves.

GREY WATER

The only official place we found is mentioned above in Corralejo. The owners of the motorhome we rented advised pulling onto waste ground and emptying the tank as it’s only dirty water, we did this a couple of times, didn’t feel great about it but there were no other options, the car wash is a good way to get rid if you’d rather the water went into a proper drain, there are lots of car washes and I didn’t figure this out till the last day.

FRESH WATER

Most garages you visit have fresh water for motorhomes, some charge, some don’t, the most we ever paid was 2 euros. If it’s not immediately obvious where the water hose is, ask. Sometimes the water hose is hidden away and attached to a meter so they can measure how much you have used and charge accordingly, others you need to buy a token, usually 1 euro. We found it useful to have a couple of extra water containers to fill up so you don’t use the onboard water supply for washing up or sterilising bottle, more water for showers 🙂

CAMPING

There are no campsites on the island so you are wild camping for your stay. There are various places you can stop, we stuck to either car parks on the beach or firm rough ground near the beach, we had no-one banging on our doors and made sure we left no trace of our visit. We also headed out before midday (most of the time) so we didn’t get blocked in or cursed for taking up loads of space. The worst place we parked was in a town called Gran Tarajal, it was the spar car park and at around 22.00 about 20 vehicles turned up revving engines and blaring out tunes, we moved to a quieter location on a dirt road just away from the car park, problem solved. As there are no campsites there is nowhere to plug in for electricity so you are relying on the leisure battery in your vehicle. If you hire a vehicle for your stay it will most likely have solar which works very well, there is also usually a 240v inverter installed. In stationary use this will drain the leisure battery but if you use it while driving the alternator keeps a charge going into the battery as well as the solar. You can charge phones, tablets and go pros off the 12v leisure battery without an issue, I used the inverter to charge my drone batteries.

HIRING A MOTORHOME

Lolly took care of this bit but it’s no different to hiring a villa or hotel room, there are a number of companies on the island that will rent you a classic v dub camper, a T4 or a full blown whale like we did rented through trip advisor. Check how much they charge you if you don’t return the vehicle cleaned, it varies, some charge you 40 euros, some charge you 100 euros. We paid a 300 euro deposit on arrival and spent the last morning of our trip frantically cleaning the van, we got all our deposit back but if we hadn’t of cleaned the motorhome it would have cost 100 euro. They usually insist all the grey a black water is emptied, you can do all of this at the DISA near the airport, if you don’t it’s another 50 euro charge, check the small print.

WIND

It really is windy, when finding a place to spend the night take into account what the wind is up to and if possible find somewhere sheltered, while it’s nice to open your door to the beach, for a good nights sleep it’s sometimes better to park with your windscreen facing the beach, trust me, the wind keeps you up. Also if you have a drone keep an eye on it, I have a DJI Spark and only took it out when it wasn’t “that” windy, I didn’t lose it, bonus….

SATNAV

If you have a satnav that covers the island make sure it is up to date, there are new major roads and these didn’t show up on my satnav which I last updated about 3 years ago.

All of the above is correct at the time of writing and based on our personal experience, we hope you find it useful.

All good things must come to an end…

On By MashleyIn beach, Fuerteventura, motorhome, road trip, travel, Wild Camping2 Comments

The end of this trip is on the horizon, there wasn’t much point leaving Costa Calma as there wasn’t anywhere nearby that we wanted to go to so we elected for a beach day, we had enough water and room in the waste tank for the remainder of the trip so it made sense to stay put and relax.

The beach here is massive and when the wind isn’t blowing really quite nice, we had an umbrella up for shade and it didn’t blow away which it might well have done in other locations.

Stella absolutely loves the beach and spent most of the day eating sand and tipping the water we got for her out of the bucket.

You can’t really see it in this picture but Stella s sitting in a giant fish tail made of sand.

She also took getting sand in your face to a whole new level, some kids hate sand, Stella absolutely loves it!

We stayed on the beach till about four and then made our way up to the van, we decided to stay another night and have a BBQ, the smallest BBQ in the world.

It was really nice to sit by the sea, eat some food, drink some booze and enjoy some family time.

I left the BBQ out for the night to go out so I could dispose of it the next day. About one in the morning Lolly was concerned that the washing we had put out on the line would bow away so she went outside to bring it in, on her return she said she saw a giant guinea pig eating off the BBQ, it was probably a rat, this is the one time I regretted not getting up to go and get the washing in….

The spot we stayed at for a couple of days is the car park that overlooks the Rene Egli surf school and equipment hire.

Next morning Stella got up about sevenish which meant we got to see a lovely sunrise

We’d agreed to spend the morning and early afternoon on the beach and then when Stella was ready for an afternoon snooze, out her in the car seat and head to the nearest toilet emptying point and then to our final destination, turns out my estimation of a couple of days worth of chemical toilet space was slightly out!

It was lovely to spend 2 days on the beach soaking up rays and watching Stella play in the sand, she’s a proper beach baby which I’m sure she gets from Lolly. In what seemed like the blink of an eye it was time to hit the road to Tarajalejo to empty the toilet and then to Gran Tarajal, our last stop for the trip.

It’s a bit of a strange place is Gran Tarajal, it has a black sand beach that isn’t particularly busy and the seafront looks pretty tired, along the front are a number of restaurants, all very average, we chose one that translates to “the green dog”, I had a super oily Pizza and Lolly had a much less oily pizza. It wasn’t very busy and the curry house next door wasn’t either, then the loveliest thing happened. At about 17.30 the restaurants (apart from the curry house) started to fill up, mainly with locals, the promenades were busy with kids and families strolling along. When we finished our meal we walked out the beach and passed a kids play area which was full of kids and a few parents here and there, it was amazing. The whole front was alive with laughter and chatter, it was like the whole town headed to the beachfront, it was a lovely thing to see and be amongst.

We took Stella for one last stroll on the beach to dip her toes in the sea…

There aren’t any great places to stop for the night, we spied a few motorhomes in a car park so gravitated to them, turns out it was the local supermarket car park, not scenic in the slightest!

We had an early start in the morning, we had to drop the van off at 8am so we’d agreed on packing after we put Stella to bed. I was dreading it but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Earlier in the night over we pizza we’d questioned what all the local kids do in a town like this, about 22.00 we found out, they all come to this car park in their cars, rev their engines and play really loud music. There were abut 20 or so cars that turned up and it really wasn’t our place to stick our heads out and ask if they wouldn’t mind keeping the noise down so we elected to move, we drove very slowly round to behind the car park onto a dirt track and stayed there for the night, we also continued the discussion as to whether we were going to clean the van or forfeit 100 euros of our deposit.

After a reasonably good nights sleep we woke up and Lolly had decided that yes, we were going to clean the van and so began a frenzied van cleaning, get everything else packed, sort Stella and get on the road effort, we still had to empty the tanks and clean the outside of the vehicle. En route was the DISA you can empty chemical waste at which also has car wash, we raced there as we were already late, I emptied the toilet (got splashed in the face, not pleasant) and washed the outside of the van, I also emptied the grey water while washing the van which I thought was a stroke of genius.

Lolly did an amazing job of cleaning the van with little help from me, we handed it back to the owners who gave us the full 300 euro deposit back in cash, sweet, well worth it.

Check in was nothing to write about as was the flight home, it all went very smoothly and Lolly did and excellent job of looking after Stella while I did the bare minimum as usual, when we landed it was chucking it down, welcome home…

So was it worth it?

It was a great way to see the island but not ver relaxing, the island isn’t geared up for motorhoming but hopefully will be in years to come. I’m not in a rush to go back but if I did I’d probably book an all inclusive so we could sit by the pool and get some sun without getting blown away, we could also have a shower without worrying how much water we’d used and use the toilet with impunity 🙂

A precarious road and the windiest night yet.

On By MashleyIn Canary Islands, Fuerteventura, motorhome, travel, Wild CampingLeave a comment

We decided not to stay at Croydon on sea as the stopover opportunities weren’t that great, either a car park near one of the hotels on the beach or a windy headland, the kind of wind the daily mail would advise nobody go out in and predict many wind related deaths, the met office might even issue a yellow warning but round these parts it’s mild wind, nothing for concern…

Our next destination was the mountain town of Betancuria which is the original capital of Fuerteventura. The fact that it’s a mountain town should have given us a clue that it was in the mountains…

Usually we travel by day as you can appreciate what’s around you on the journey and scout out stop over prospects with ease.

We set off at approx 20.00, the clocks had since gone forward and we had about 30 mins or so of daylight left, we were also at sea level. The Satnav indicated the journey should take about 35 minutes but it didn’t take into account that we where driving a whale. Had the road been straight then it would have taken the approximated 35 minutes but it wasn’t, it was a long and winding road into the mountains with sheer rock on one side of the road and certain death on the other, honestly, it doesn’t bother me, I’ve driven in worse but Lolly was not impressed and basically bricked it from the time we hit the mountain road until our final resting place. I really felt for her but there was nothing I could do except get us to where we needed to be in the shortest and safest amount of time possible.

We arrived in Betancuria and Lolly remembered some advice about parking just outside the village, we’d seen a parking sign on the way on so turned round and followed the road into what was indicated as a dead end. We found a flatish spot overlooking Betancuria and fairly tucked away from the main streets and settled in for the night.

The only person that slept that night was Stella, Lolly and I spent most of the night being woken up by gale force winds battering the van, it never let up and even when we got up in the morning we were still being battered, there was also a great deal of passing traffic for a dead end. We grabbed a shower each and walked down into the village which is much more sheltered that where we had parked, the wind subsided and it was shorts and t-shirt weather. As we descended into the village the air was filled with Spanish guitar which was being provided by an old dude with a fag permanently on the go which he never let get in the way of his excellent guitaring….

I didn’t take a picture of him as lots of other people were, I did take a picture of the entrance to a museum we didn’t visit.

There were lots of nice views to enjoy as well as no wind which on this island is a massive bonus.

In the middle of the town there is a nice spot for a drink and some tapas. It was midday so we figured we’d stop and have a beer, every one around us ordered coffee and tapas, only the English ordered beer.

Stella had a lovely time standing on a chair and then migrating to the floor and quickly realising she could see people below through the decking, easily pleased is Stella.

We left our spot and continued wandering around the village, we popped into the church which had an amazing altar dating back to the 1600’s.

There is a second room to the left which has an impressive display of ceremonial silver wear and robes dating back hundreds of years, there is also a magnificent ceiling that I lay on the floor to get a picture of.

We had a nice time in Betancuria but didn’t fancy a second night of howling wind so hit the road to a beach town called Ajuy. This involved another mountain road far precarious than the first mainly because it was quite narrow. Every now and again a car would approach us and I’d have to slow our whale to a halt while the other vehicle squeezed past us, as it was daylight Lolly bricked it far less. Along the way there a couple of places you can stop to admire the view and take a picture.

You can see the thin road to the left with the massive lumps of concrete to stop you tumbling off the edge. While I was taking this picture a quite magnificent crow stopped to say hello.

He was a very pretty bird and quite forward, we gave him some bread.

The journey down to Ajuy was uneventful, we found a spot to park and made a plan to grab some food, we walked passed the first food place which didn’t look all that, walked across the beach and saw the signs for the caves so thought we would take a look at them.

Any time we visit a Spanish island it seems the done thing is to make little piles of stones.

This does not go down well with the coastal cleaning society who turned up the next day and dismantled this lot..

The path to the cave is fairly tricky and accompanied by gale force winds, we decided to walk it in flip flops or thongs to any Aussies that might be reading this. At one point the wind was so strong it nearly blew us over so we did an about turn and retreated back to town, I did get a picture of the caves we were trying to reach.

Time for some food, there is a nice little place in the bottom of the village looking out to the sea, it doesn’t look like the rest of the restaurants who clearly cater for the coach brigade, unfortunately I only got a picture of it when it was closed.

They do a fantastic tapas of local meats and cheese, incidentally I declared the cheese here the best cheese I’ve ever eaten only to find out it was goats cheese which I cannot stand, they don’t do this goats cheese in the UK, if they did I would eat it, the waitress is great too, she’s like a female version of Manuel from Fawltey Towers but in a very lovely way, also there are no high chairs for little ones, but that wasn’t a problem for us, Stella is great at eating on a lap or in a high chair.

There is a small car park by the beach, as it emptied out we moved the van down to our spot for the night.

No wind bouncing the van about and a lovely spot to watch the sunset.

We were joined by another smaller van and a car two girls were staying in so it seems this is an OK spot to spend the night.

I was conscious the following morning that the car park would fill up and we’d be stuck in a corner so I moved the van to another location, if you go out of the village to the roundabout, turn back to the village but take the dirt round instead of the tarmac round (second exit if memory serves me right) follow it down and chuck a right to what looks like a dry riverbed, this is also a popular spot for overnighters.

We left the van here for the majority of the day while the three of us went to the beach.

There are. a few sheltered coves you can hang out in and there was very little wind so our beach brolly stayed with us.

This is a lovely black sand beach and didn’t come up in any of the guide books other than to visit the caves, the sea is pretty fierce, not suitable for little ones.

There are also pigeons on this beach, I’ve never seen pigeons on a beach.

In no time at all it was time to head out, one of the latches on the cupboard had broken so I needed to visit a hardware store to try and repair the latch, we also needed to do another round of emptying and filling, I’ll add all the spots we went to in my last post but this time round it didn’t take half as long and was kind of on the way to where we were going, Costa Calma.

We arrived and I stopped at a supermarket to grab some beer, we had a look on google maps and found a place to stop.

As you can see one of Bumblebee’s older relatives has stopped for the night here too. It’s a quiet spot with little to no wind, there are no shops so make sure you are well stocked, there is also an army of mosquitos so make sure you have repellant and don’t leave any doors or windows open for too long, Lolly and I have spent about an hour hunting them and must have killed at least 15, I hate mosquitos.

El Cotillo

On By MashleyIn Canary Islands, Europe, Fuerteventura, motorhome, road trip, travel, Wild CampingLeave a comment

We set off on our way to El Cotillo but thought we’d have a drive through the valley to see what it was like.

There are a lot of these goats about the place, I haven’t investigated what they are about but we come across them a lot…

Shortly after passing the goat and no more than a quarter of a mile from where we spent the night it appeared we had left earth and landed on mars…

It’s quite incredible how the landscape can change so dramatically in such a short distance…

I took the opportunity to take an arty picture of the road ahead.

We followed the road to El Cotillo, parked up and put Stella in her stroller and walked over toward the sea, Stella started to drift off to sleep and at the same time the wind died down and the sun came out, time for a cocktail. We’d spotted a place that looks out to sea called La Ballena, it had a large sign that said cocktail which is what grabbed out attention most, in no time at all I had a beer and Lolly had a mojito.

As Stella decided to have a proper snooze we ordered lunch, Lolly had the John Dory special which was basically John Dory in a white parsley sauce with mussels, prawns and boiled potatoes and I had battered John Dory and chips, both meals were awesome, just as we were about to start Stella woke up…

We asked for a high chair and one arrived on no time at all, Lolly had brought some food for Stella so we all had lunch together. It was the first time we’d had lunch at a restaurant since we’d been away and it was bloody lovely, good food, no wind and sunshine, perfect. Once we’d finished up we moved on to the little bit of beach by the harbour.

It’s literally a splodge of sand amongst the rocks but it was a nice place to sit, soak up some late afternoon sun and there was a nice rock pool for Stella to play in…

We stayed down here till the tide came in and swallowed up most of the sand, we headed off for a walk around the village and was pleasantly surprised to find a little bay with some cute little dwellings, restaurants, bars and a dude playing solo guitar which you could hear right across the bay.

We explored some other stop over options and then went back to where we parked the van and moved to an overnight spot looking out to sea, it was right by where we had lunch. There were a few other vans parked up in the area so we thought it would be OK and as it turned out it was…

The wind was still pretty minimal and I tried to film a sunset time lapse but was foiled by a massive wall of cloud on the horizon that completely blocked the sun sinking in to the sea, I consoled myself with a beer, Lolly had some wine and we went to bed.

The next morning we planned to go and find the lagoons which weren’t far from where we were parked up. I took my drone out for a fly as I wanted to get some footage for a little holiday video, the weather was overcast, not ideal when you are trying to make a sunny holiday movie!

It was also pretty windy, the drone held up and didn’t get blown away. By the time we had put Stella down for a snooze and she had woken up again the sun had come out.

Annoyingly we had to do another round of emptying and filling which meant a 45 minute drive to Corralejo as that’s the only service point on this end of the island, we also needed to pick up supplies for the next few days and right next to the service point is a good sized supermarket so we dived in there and did a good shop.

If you like fish they have an excellent fresh fish counter.

You can buy a whole frozen Octopus too!

After grabbing everything we needed It didn’t take us too long to get back to El Cotillo and not only find the lagoons and but also a spot to park up for the nigh. It’s in a square with some apartments and a bar at one end and then a completely derelict patch of land in the middle of the square..

The view from the van however is quite different.

We went for a stroll on the beach and came across a number of rock made shelters you can sit in to keep you out of the wind, we decided to have a beach bbq so went back to the van, grabbed a bbq and some food and cracked on.

We had a lovely time and so did Stella too..

I filmed another time lapse sunset and was again foiled by cloud, more beer then and an early night, the sky did look very pretty…

WE started the next morning with some breakfast and a stroll along the beach to part of where we hadn’t been and also other vans were parked up, we took Stella for a dip in the sea.

We’d also noticed before we went for a stroll that we’d managed to run out of water again so made a plan to make our next destination near one of the other points the people we rented the van from said where service points. This was to mark the start of the crappiest day we’ve had, long story short we spent three hours looking of these service places to find that one didn’t exist at all and the other was massively un-obvious and I dismissed it as not existing. So if you are over here there is a DISA service station just past the airport heading toward Caleta de Fuste and next door to IKEA.

To the far right near the car wash area is this sign which is difficult to see when other vehicles are parked in front of it which is how I managed to miss it first time around.

Look up and write down the Spanish translation for “I need to empty my chemical toilet” and show it to whoever is behind the jump, they will then come and open a manhole you pour your cassette down, it stinks and beware of splash backs, you can’t empty grey water here but you can fill up with fresh water, again, 1 euro for decent amount.

At this point we’d been in the van for about three hours and all of us needed a break so we headed into a town called Calete de Fuste which is basically Croydon by the sea. It’s nearly as awful as Corralejo. There is an English doctors, mobility scooter hire, karaoke drifting through the air, an Aberdeen steakhouse, curry house and Chinese, if I’d have looked hard enough I’m sure there would have been a kebab shop too and there were a good amount of English bars, the dog and duck was one of them. The whole resort is designed for sun seeking brits who want the Spanglish experience without having to venture too far from their package doorstep, not my cup of tea at all, anyway…..

The beach front is pretty much owned by the Barcelo group and to be fair, a lot of the complex looked quite nice. Little self catering bungalows a stones throw form the beach, we walked past all that lot and onto the beach, there was a bar at the beach, we ordered a beer, Stella need some time out of the van too so we took her down to the sea..


At this point we turned our attention to some food, as I mentioned earlier there were some poor options available and we hadn’t set our expectations high. We did notice from the beach there was a marina amend what looked like possibly a restaurant so we took a wander in that direction. The marina is part of the Barcelo complex but you can eat there if you’re not a guest, if you do end up in this neck of the woods, visit the restaurant closest to the pirate shop, we had a lovely meal and they have high chairs for kids, we both had a starter ( I had fried octopus and a Lolly had fried goats cheese) and I had the biggest fillet steak I’ve ever had , Lolly had some really nice fresh fish, they brought a high chair for Stella and gave us hot water to warm her milk, the service and staff was excellent as was the view looking out to the marina, the meal came in at 60 euros which I thought was a bargain.

We had agreed we were going to stay the night but our options once investigated were poor, we decided to head up into the mountains to Betancuria for the night, I’ll let you know how that went next time…

A windy night and learning how to motor home….

On By MashleyIn Canary Islands, Europe, Fuerteventura, motorhome, road trip, travelLeave a comment

We woke reasonably early in Playa Blanca after a very windy night, as we’ve come to find they aren’t joking about the wind, if you’re by the coast it’s windy, it doesn’t let up either…

On the plus side however we did wake up to the sound of the ocean (twinned with the sound of howling wind) and the sun was making a concerted effort to break through the cloud…

It was shortly after taking this picture we discovered there were no mugs in the van and no kettle either (first world problems) so we made some tea in a massive saucepan and shared it, we also discovered the van water tastes rank so it’s boiled bottled water for tea from now on…

The previous nights visit to the supermarket was a grab and dash affair so we concluded we should visit another supermarket and stock up on supplies to last us at least a couple of days, buy some mugs and tea towels then head on to Corralejo.

Stella had a much better time at the supermarket

Corralejo is up near the Dunes of Corralejo national park and we had this notion that we’d be able to park up by the sea, have a bbq, watch the sun go down but that wasn’t to be, there is only roadside parking to access the dunes which probably isn’t a bad thing as this motor home would have got stuck in the sand anyway, we carried on to Corralejo which is my idea of hell, it’s like your typical Spanish tourist sea side town except it’s set back from the sea because of the wind, loads of sunburnt people sitting in English bars with their beer guts on display, sky tv everywhere and loads of shops similar to home, I spend every day in a busy city and the last place I want to be is in a busy town, there were also zero parking up options, on the way into town we saw a couple of big hotels with roads down to what we thought was the beach so we headed there looking for somewhere to stop.

The first road we turned down wasn’t a bad place to stop but we thought we’d check the road by the other hotel, tuned out to be a much better option, in no time at all we were parked up..

If you are here motorhoming and looking for an overnight stop over, this isn’t a bad option, there are 2 small supermarkets within a couple of minutes, one sells mugs and the other tea towels and BBQ’s amongst other things, the road is quiet the beach is only a few minutes walk away, it’s also inland enough not to be so windy…

As you can see it’s quite a big beach, it’s also a very windy beach not that it bothered Stella.

We tried sheltering behind some sunloungers but were pretty much sand blasted so we headed over to a beach bar to grab some shelter and a beer, they let us buy a beer as they were closing up so after about ten minutes we had to leave, we took a walk along the beach getting blown about all the way till we found a little crater, we sat down in there for a bit and it was much less sand blastery….

We mooched back to the van to feed and bath Stella, put her to bed, then make some food and test the shower out, we also had some booze and for a short period of time I convinced Lolly to wear a colander while cooking…

Right by where the van parked is a massive mobile phone mast that in the day looks quite ugly, however, with a lovely sunset and the mountains in the background it looks a bit like Tatooine…

Next morning we faffed about getting ready to leave and I made breakfast, it’s been the same thing for the last couple of days but it’s really nice, spicy meat crisped in the frying pan, then eggs scrambled in the oil from the meat served on some bread and butter as we don’t have a toaster with a slice of tomato on top..

Our destination for the day was Playa de Majanicho solely because the lady we hired the van from said it was nice. Before we got there however, we headed into my least favourite place to fill the van up with water which you do from petrol stations, some charge a euro for a timed amount of water, some don’t, some also have limited water which the Disa in Corralejo does so we had to abandon that and head out, not before Lolly saw a shoe shop and successfully purchased the pair of trainers I promised her for Christmas, I also had to pick up a lead for the satnav as I’d broke it, incidentally, if you are looking for a good satnav I can highly recommend the Garmin Nuvi 1390, you can pick one up from eBay for about 40 quid and it covers the whole of Europe inlcuding where we are now, do update it though as there are a few new roads over here which will through you off course as it did us trying to find the petrol station to fill up with water.

Before filling up we also had to empty, something we don’t have to do with Bumblebee, there are various locations across the island you can empty your grey water and toilet cassette, the owners of our chariot gave us map locations for each one which I will post up at the end of the blog. We found the service stop fairly easily and proceeded to empty the tanks.

It’s not an exciting business emptying dirty water and essentially a bucket of turds into a cesspit but it was made slightly more enjoyable by the squirrel army who are incredibly tame, every one of them came over to me, nibbled my hand to see if they could eat me and then retreated, the nibbling didn’t hurt and we gave them some dry weetabix and a breadstick Stella had chucked on the floor.

Happy squirrels.

From here we made our way to the garage to fill up on water and this is when we discovered I should have updated the satnav, we missed the new turning to our destination and ended up on a 30 minute detour, It was approaching 15.00 and we’d spent the whole day in the motorhome, this isn’t what we’d come away for. We found the garage and spent about an hour there filling up, letting Stella play outside and stocking up on beer, this is the garage, it’s in La Oliva and charges 1 euro for a good amount of fresh water.

Finally we were off and on our way to our last stop, it’s was a long and empty road…

We arrived in Majanicho to discover it’s a tiny collection of shacks frequented mainly we suspect by surfers and kite surfers, to date this is the windiest place we have been, it’s very pretty but also very very windy to the point that is’t bloody freezing outside.

This was not to be our final stop, we concluded it was not the best place for an overnight so decided to head inland up into the mountains where there is much less wind, we did take Stella to the beach before we left and I took a pano of the beach.

As you can see the beach was very quiet, everyone had been blown away.

Our stop for the night was to be a car park at the foot of a track that leads to a lookout, it’s a quiet road and car park with a stunning view of the island, particularly a sacred mountain called Tindaya.

We also constructed our first camp washing line, always travel with para chord 🙂

I tired to film a time lapse sunset but the go pro blew over half way through, I was also intending to take some Astro photos but ended up drinking loads of beer and eating a lovely fish pasta Lolly made us, we settled down for the night in a not to wind blasted van..

Next morning we woke up to sunshine and a herd of wild goats, I didn’t sleep that well as it was cold and I didn’t put the heating on, it wasn’t that cold when we went to bed.

We took Stella up to the view point, the view is much like the one we have from the van only slightly higher.

You can just see the van in the distance…

We’re now back in the van ready to eat some breakfast and head off somewhere else, most likely El Costillo….

A lovely weekend in Arundel

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

Our good friends Jez and Jo we’re throwing a moving in party even though they are now actually moving out, instead of just turning up on the day and heading home straight after, we decided to make a weekend of it, find somewhere to stay, head down on Friday night, go home Sunday.

Using the power of google I searched for campsites in Arundel, quite a few came up but the one that caught my eye was called Acorns. It caught my eye because every review was glowing and it’s set in a woodland which is the kind of thing Lolly and I like, the less commercial and more natural the better, whilst it might seem a bit pricier than other sites I checked there were no hidden extras, you pay your money and then forget about it, the price included electricity, permission to put up an awning and a generous sized pitch, if you added that all up on the other sites it’s about the same cost.

The drive down was really quite nice, we expected traffic heading to the coast but the roads were relatively clear and once we turned off the M23 the drive to Acorns was quiet to say the least, literally no cars on the road! The site is really easy to find, a turn off from the A27 and then a small signpost on the left leads you to a gate and a drive way with clear instructions of where to go and what to do on arrival. Don’t be put off that the A27 is a stones throw away, it’s not the busiest of roads and I can honestly say we never heard it once.

I’d mailed ahead and advised the owners we’d be arriving just after 20.00 and received a mail back to say that’s fine, we rocked up about 20.15, parked up, Lolly was having a panic about teething gel so we’d agreed to check in and then head off to the local supermarket and grab some. The site reception is the owners house, I rung the door bell and in no time at all was warmly greated by Albert, after signing in and being given codes for the loo’s Albert gave us the choice of two pitches, one in the shade and one in the sun, I also explained the teething gel situation and was given directions to the nearest supermarket that would be open. The reviews for the site are bang on, Albert is a very nice man and very helpful too.

As it turned out, Lolly had packed the teething gel after all so we proceeded to pitch up.


As you can see, the site wasn’t terribly busy, very well kept and each pitch is massive, another nice touch is each pitch comes with recycling and composting boxes, another tick for us 🙂

It was getting late and both Lolly and I were hungry, there is a pub a short walk from the site so we headed off there to grab some food. Unfortunately the kitchen closed at 21.00 and we got there about 21.15 so we settled for a couple of drinks and sat in the garden admiring the flowers, Stella woke up and demanded food, turns out we weren’t the only ones that were hungry. We headed back to the van and I knocked up some pesto pasta, good old Bumblebee, he always provides when we need something!

Next day was a fairly lazy affair, Stella sleeps really well in the van which means we do too. We got up and I made us breakfast, I decided that I wanted to make a breakfast hash, my ingredients were as follows:

Eggs, spinach, new potatos, chorizo, smoked bacon lardons, cherry tomatoes, salt and pepper.

Basically you par boil the potatos, while they are doing fry the chorizo and bacon, when the potatoes are done cut them into smaller chunks and throw in the pan so they soak up some of the chorizo oil, halve the cherry tomatoes and throw them in too, put the spinach on top to steam it for a bit, then stir in and add the eggs, I’d whisked them up and seasoned a bit in a separate pan beforehand, when you’re happy everything is cooked to your liking, serve it up.


It tasted lovely and was cooked on one of those 10 quid stoves with gas in a can from Decathlon.

After breakfast we jumped in the van and made our way to Jez and Jo’s, we now have a drive away awning which means we can leave a load of stuff in it and then head out in the van, it attaches to a rail my mate Rob put on the van, we can also still put the roof rack on as you can see below, we left gaps..


When you drive away this is what you are left with


You can’t see it in the picture but before I moved the van off I used a spare tent peg to mark where the front wheel should be, the idea being it would make life a lot easier to get the van lined up correctly to reconnect the awning later when it was dark.

We went straights to Jez and Jo’s, I manned the BBQ and my good mate Appy Andz spun the platters that matter


It was also a good chance for some of our friends to meet Stella


We stayed at the party till the sun went down, Lolly drove us back as I drank loads of beer, when we got back it was my job to reattach the van to the awning, despite being a bit drunk I managed to get the van and awning connected without issue, as I was in a field and not on a public highway I don’t believe I broke any drink drive laws. The peg I put in before we left was very useful as was the second peg with an LED built in I put in beside it, I knew they would come in handy when I saw them in Aldi!

I had a great nights sleep, so did Stella, she slept from 23.30 till about 07.00, Lolly on the other hand didn’t sleep so well, as a parent or maybe more accurately a mother, you soon find out that when your baby doesn’t sleep, you wish it would so you can sleep and when it does sleep you think there is something wrong, the end result is either way, you don’t get much sleep!

I made breakfast again the following morning, I made the same thing but added an onion to the ingredients. As we approached midday (checkout time) i popped off to grab a quick shower. I should mention that the toilets / shower and washing up block are quite possibly the best kept I’ve come across in this country, spotlessly clean to the point that they look brand new.


On my way back I noticed that Albert was chatting to Lolly by the awning, we’d had a fairly laid back morning and had made no effort to pack down just yet planing to leave it all to the last minute and just chuck everything in the van and go. I apologised to Albert for not checking out on time and he very kindly said don’t worry, he had no-one checking in after us so to take our time which was really nice, we got to feed and settle Stella, Lolly had a shower and I got to pack down properly without feeling we were against the clock.

We drove back to Jez and Jo’s to pick up some things we left behind and ended up staying there for a few hours, Lolly sat in the sun and I sat with Stella in the shade, we then went for a little walk round Arundel.


We had planned to grab some food from the restaurant Jez works in but time was against us and after speaking to Jez on the phone we decided to do the same as them and grab fish and chips and eat them by the river, halfway through our meal we were joined by Jez, Jo and Raph which was a really nice surprise.

We had a great time in Arundel and I cannot recommend were we stayed enough, Acorns is a lovely, well kept site with a fantastic and friendly owner, we’ll definitely be going back 🙂