Category: VW Campervan

Le dune

On By MashleyIn france, road trip, travel, VW Campervan, vwt4Leave a comment

Camping municipal Verdalle has turned out to be ok, the pitch is massive, the toilet and shower facilities are excellent, they have some strange rules like no hanging out washing after 10am and don’t use the trees to make washing lines which we’ve duly ignored. 

  
The beach was another IMO average affair, sandy and the sea was out so quite muddy too, when we returned in the evening the tide had come in and the beach looked a lot better, would have been a great place for a sunset but we missed that as I was busy cooking chicken, I didn’t bother taking a picture of the beach. 

Earlier in the day we’d taken a walk and round the corner from our campsite and average beach was a lovely little harbour. 

 

As you can see the weather has greatly improved, our first afternoon / evening in Gujan-Mestras passed fairly uneventfully, sun, average beach, walk, chicken and bed. 

The following morning we got up, ate what we had left that would pass for breakfast and jumped on the bikes, our destination being The Grand Dune of Pyla, basically a massive sand dune by the sea that’s slowly swallowing a forest. 

We got a bit lost en route although we did find a nice forest to ride through. 

  

11 miles later we arrived at the dune and it was mental, people everywhere, not quite what we had expected and to be honest, almost enough to turn us on our heels, I convinced Lolly some food and a drink would be a good idea, she was more up for grabbing a panini and buggering off but I insisted we grab a table, this is where I had my first favourite French dish, a croque Monsieur!

  

It was lovely and lolly is now convinced she can make them for me at home, bonus!

After a quick food and drink break we set off to conquer the dune, this is not something to try if you are unfit, obese, have a heart condition or are generally unwell. It’s a steep ascent in sand which is harder work than it looks, much harder, there are steps you can go up but they are equally as steep but with better footing.  It took us about 10 minutes to get to the top of the dune and that was with a couple of stops, the view out across the bay is stunning. 

  

I took some better pictures with my other camera and when I’ve edited them I’ll post them up. 

It’s nowhere near as frantic at the top of dune, almost peaceful so we hung about for an hour catching some rays and then headed down the other side to the beach and the sea, we stayed there for a few hours and I read Lolly some of the book I am reading, it’s called the Martian, a great read and now Lolly is into it I’m going to have to read her the rest of the book while we are away!

To get back to the bikes we had to climb up the dune again which took about 20 min this time as our start point was lower than before, after a lot of effort we reached the summit, chipped down the other side and made our way to the bikes, we still had an 11 mile ride home to do!

We took a different route home basically following the coast on a cycle path, about halfway we stopped at a little town square that had a few bars and restaurants, we got a corner table right by the beach.

 
I had steak and lolly had paella, both dishes were lovely and we were treated to a beautiful sunset. 

 
We made our way home mostly on the cycle path, the light faded and Lolly had no lights on her bike, mine are rechargeable and about halfway home the front one ran out of juice, the ride home was tense but we made it without getting killed!

Below is the report from Strava, I kept stopping Strava so I could see where we were on the way home so it’s not quite as accurate as it could be, I’m fairly certain we did more than 17 miles. 

  
This morning we got up, left the campsite and headed to an aire in a pine forest called Biscarrose Plage, there is a crappy toilet and that’s it, no other facilities, proper camping in the woods!

  
There is a beach about 2 mins from here we’re off to check out shortly, have fun at your desk or wherever you’re reading this from, we’ll be on the beach!

For anyone interested, so far we’ve covered 752 miles in 7 days, the van is running sweet and all the little upgrades and mods we’ve made for this trip have been totally worth it!

Le Ocean

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

We got up early Monday morning, packed up and left Ile de Re, our destination, Soulac sur mer. We should have already been there but we stayed an extra day at Il De Re, the drive down was fairly straight forward, we headed to Royan and caught the ferry across. I took a quick pic of the van in the queue, Lolly looks excited!!

  
The ferry crossing takes about 20 minutes and there isn’t much to do so I took a picture of the van on the ferry, seriously, there is that little to do! 

  
Back on the main land the drive to Camping L’Ocean is about 20 minutes, Lolly found it in the cool camping website, it’s a lovely place, right by the beach and pitches set up amongst the trees, I really liked it there, we promptly set up camp and then headed to the beach. 

  
I guess I’ve been spoilt on the beach front after spending so many years going to Ibiza, the beach at Soulac isn’t much to look at, sand, sea defence and sea. 

  
There are no bars or music playing, just a beach with surf, the surf is quite tame and I taught Lolly to body board, her face when she caught her first wave was brilliant!

We both fell asleep on the beach, luckily no major burnage as we are pretty good on the sun creme front, P20 is your friend, look it up!

Food was on the agenda so we chipped back to the van and got the BBQ on. 

 Dinner was another random meat BBQ pack I chose, it was alright but I’ve now been told I can longer choose the meat to cook, we had some drinks, read our books and crashed.

Morning came and the sun was out, we had a quick wash, packed up and headed for Arcachon. On the way we stopped off at the super market, I saw two awesome things, this bus:

 
And for Darran and Fresh Face, crack in a jar!

 We’ve arrived at Arcachon, the sun is blistering hot and the  campsite whilst being the most expensive is my least favourite, maybe it’s just our pitch.  I’ll let you know how we get on here in my next post. 

Le rain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  
Shortly after the let down BBQ we crashed out.  

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

  

A trip down to Weymouth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great stone beach, Dungeness and more wild camping!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Viva la highlands!

On By MashleyIn Scotland, T4 Camper, The Lake District, travel, VW CampervanLeave a comment

 

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We’ve returned from our trip to the Lake District and Scotland, the eagle eyed amongst will have noticed there has been little activity on the blog front.

Unfortunately the internet or mobile internet was a bit of a mystery item in all the locations we visited plus we were having so much fun I didn’t really fancy sitting down in front of a computer as I do every working day!

The trip was great and i’ve spent a bit of time writing up our adventures, i’ve broken the report up into three sections based on where we were staying, click on each link for a report.

Ullswater

Glentrool

Loch Lomond

We’ve also had a chance to road test two of the items we bought for the van, the Cobb bbq and a Duvalay mattress, click here for the Cobb and here for the Duvalay reviews.

The van ran like a dream (aside from a leakjy sunroof) and our round trip total was 1090 miles on 2 tanks of diesel.

I hope you enjoy the reports and any feedback would be great.

Nice one!

Scotland here we come !

On By MashleyIn Scotland, T4 Camper, travel, VW Campervan2 Comments

We have booked up our first proper road trip in the van, 7 nights camping around the lake district and Scotland.

We’ll be going to:

Ullswater

Galloway Forest

Loch lomond

Each of these locations offers some awesome walks, mountain bike rides, stunning views and hopefully some astro photography as at least one place we are staying at has been designated a dark sky park, can’t do much about clouds though.

We are really excited (me especially) and I will be spending my 40th tearing about on my bike if it’s not chucking it down, amazing!

As always I’ll write up a report of each place we visit and we’ll also have a chance to test out our Cobb BBQ and Duvalay, check out the goodies section for a write up on each.

First road trip of 2015!

On By MashleyIn road trip, Scotland, T4 Camper, VW Campervan2 Comments

With my 40th just round the corner we’ve decided to take the whole week off and go on a road trip.

The trip is in the early stages of planning but i’m so excited I thought I should post something!

Looking like we’ll be heading to the lake district first and the to galloway forest, then following a scenic drive to Oban, thats as far as i’ve got but as I mentioned before, so excited…

Been wanting to go to Scotland for ages and now it’s happening, woo hoo !!!

Updates February 2015

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

Hello faithful followers !

Whilst not much has been happening on the blog lots of things have been going on in the background and i’ve now had a chance to update and add what we’ve been up to.

There’s been some fairly extensive work been done on the van, if you are interested check out the sticky clutch and bike rack posts.

On the travel front we haven’t really been too far but we have had a day out at Bedgebury Forest on our new bikes, full report of the days escapdes can be found here.

I’ve just booked three weeks holiday so we’ll be starting to plan our trip to Ibiza very soon, proper excited about that.

Also this Friday 20th February i’m playing b2b with K-Complex at I Love Hard Beats 3rd birthday bash in London with Kevin Energy heading back to the wheels of steel after some time away from the scene, you can find all the info about the even by heading to facebook via this link, it’s gonna be an awesome night out !

Thats all for now !