Tag: sunshine

Le Beach

On By MashleyIn beach, Europe, france, holiday, travelLeave a comment

After a few days at Lac Du Parloup it was time to pack up and head south. Before we came out here I fitted a bike rack so we could bring out bikes and a trailer for Arielle, the idea being that when we got down near the beach we could use the bikes to venture out if we wanted to. Clearly I am not used to how long this additional item makes the van and I managed to snag my rear wheel on a tree.

I’m not going to lie, I did swear and was really annoyed at myself. It transpires that 26” MTB wheels are extremely difficult to come by so that was my bike and the trailer out of action for the rest of the trip.

The drive to where we were staying next, Dunes Et Soleil Marseillan plage took a couple of hours, the kids were well behaved even when we stopped at Lidl, the temperature was noticeably warmer.

Check in was easy and we’d initially booked for a few nights, within no time at all we were setup.

The beach here is lovely, entry to the sea is a very gentle slope and you can wander out a long way and still be only up to your waist which is great for the kids, finally they got an ice cream from the man who walks along the beach with an ice cream trolley, Stella remembered this from the last time we came to France and she was dead set on getting one!

We ended up extending our stay here for another 4 nights at a cost of 70 Euros which is great value. There is an onsite bar that does amazing burgers and Pizzas plus the main drag is well within walking distance as is the local fairground I suppose is the best way to describe it.

There were plenty of rides for the kids and at around 22.00 they’d spent all their tokens and we headed home to be greeted by our first storm.

I wasn’t as prepared as I could have been, the water wasn’t an issue but the wind whipped up pretty quickly, luckily Lolly saw what was going on and came out and held on to the awning while I put some straps in to stop it blowing away, that did the trick and next day everything’s was as it should be, still attached to the van!

We had a great time here and probably would have ended up staying till we went home, we had lovely neighbours from Germany, Belgium and the UK and I even found a working three way fridge someone had chucked which came in well handy for keeping my beer cold!

What we didn’t have was a pool. I don’t mind hanging at the beach but the pool is a nice thing to mix it up for the kids so after seven nights we packed up again and headed to Vias Plage.

Summer..

On By MashleyIn Camper van, England, summer, T4 Camper, Wild Camping3 Comments

What an amazing summer we’ve had here in England, as a family we’ve made the most of getting out and about in Bumblebee for as many weekends away as possible. Our daughter Stella is now walking which has put a whole different slant on the camping experience!

This year we’ve made a few changes to our setup.

Firstly we have replaced the little life arc 2 with a sun essentials baby / toddler pop up UV sleep shade.

It’s about a third smaller than the little life arc 2 which means it’s a lot easier to get in the van once the cab bunk is in place, we’ve also padded out the camp bunk with two pillows and hard plastic sheets to create a flatter base. As its a bit smaller it leaves a good bit of space on the cab bunk we have some extra storage and Stella sleeps well in it, you can buy them new but I’d have a look on ebay, I won this one for £7.50 and they are £80.00 new!

Another small addition we have made to Stella’s sleeping arrangements has been a cab curtain, ordered from Van-X.

It was very easy to fit and means that when Stella goes to bed we can draw the curtain and she not’s visually disturbed by us should we need to get anything out of the van, like beer from the fridge for instance! We used to put a cover over the Arc2 a bit like you do a cover over a birdcage, the problem with that is it severely restricts airflow which isn’t a suffocation concern, more a heat concern, now with the curtain Stella benefits from all the air circulation in the cab, happy baby means happy parents!

Whenever we travelled we used to take a drive away awning with us to put all our stuff in, most of our summer weekends have been spent at a lovely little place we found in Penshurst, it’s not a well publicised site and has very little in way of facilities, there is one shower and toilet a short walk away, it’s easier to bring your own so more akin to off grid wild camping.

We’ve spent pretty much every other weekend there over the summer with our friends and we’ve had the best weather for it, very lazy days with food and fires at night

As we’ve been parked up for the weekend we’ve swapped the drive away awning for a Khyam sun canopy, we also invested in a Kampa commander field kitchen so we can have a kitchen setup under the awning which you can kind of see from this photo.

It’s nice to be able to stand up while making a cup of tea and it also means I can cook bacon without making the van smell like the local cafe! The setup works well in the drive away awning too, I’ve set it up beside a door I don’t use which I open while cooking to ventilate. Two clear Perspex curver boxes fit nicely on the shelf underneath the stove and if you don’t put the shelves up the 36ltr soft cool box from decathlon fits under there perfectly. I can’t recommend one of these cool boxes enough, has kept all our food cooler for longer that a traditional hard case box and when your down it folds down to a fifth of it’s size to store.

2018 also saw the formation of our very own VW / camping club know as the VeeDub McDubFace club. The main reason for this was to secure a club camping spot at bugjam as we had over 20 people in various vehicles coming away for the weekend. The weather was glorious compared to last years washout and i think it’s safe to say everyone had a great weekend, roll on next year!

Our final trip of summer was a visit to Cornwall and Devon, for the first part of the trip we rolled out the big awning as the weather was very changeable..

I also took an electric blow heater with me which came in handy on more than one occasion keeping as all warm in the awning. It’s a great awning but it’s also a mission to put up and take down, more accurately, pegging down is what takes the time. We had a great time in Bude catching up with friends, going out on a fishing boat and cooking fresh lobster and mackerel caught that day on the cobb BBQ ,thank you Stuart!

The weather in Devon got off to a cooler start but that didn’t stop us going to the beach

The weather improved considerably over the coming days and I even went in the sea, up to my knees at least!

It really has been a great summer and it’s been great being away with the family, if you have a small child or two and want to try camping in a tent or motorhome, do it, by far it’s the best part of our year and Stella absolutely loves being outside, she’s experienced so many things she wouldn’t have done being stuck by a pool or being indoors watching endless repeats of Duggee, I hope our adventures inspire you on to adventures of your own and if you have any questions about life in a campervan with a small child, drop me a line 🙂

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 mobile home adventure in Fuerteventura

On By MashleyIn Canary Islands, easyjet, Europe, Fuerteventura, motorhome, road tripLeave a comment

As our regular readers know, nearly all the holidays we take are in our van, Bumblebee. We wanted to get away before Lolly’s maternity leave expired and ideally, somewhere hot, that ruled out anywhere in England and a good part of France. We had thought about getting a ferry with Bumblebee to southern Spain with a stop in the Pyrenees to do some mountain biking, problem is, at this time of year they are still covered in snow, not ideal and definitely not hot..

Also, with Stella at the age she is we are limited to 2 hours travelling time as that’s about the max she can spend in a car seat so the “experts” say so we wouldn’t really get very far and certainly nowhere that warm before we had to turn back and come home…

Thankfully, Lolly had a plan, how about we fly to the Canary Islands, rent a motor home and spend 10 days exploring the island, then be back home for my birthday so I could go out somewhere on my downhill bike, I’d made a big deal about that last bit so bless Lolly for coming up with a solution that meant we could all go on holiday somewhere hot in a van / motorhome and I could still go out on my bike, she’s the best.

Lolly did all the research and it came down to 3 motor home providers, 2 established companies and one who to us seemed like the small business who we would much rather give our money to, the company we chose is called Ventura van, the cost for a proper motorhome with shower, wc, baby seat and pickup / drop off at the airport was about £990.00 GBP, flights with easy jet from Gatwick for all 3 of us was £440 GBP return.

Lolly booked it all and once that was done it was time to do some research about motorhoming on the island which brings me to why I’m writing about a trip not in Bumblebee. There is very little information about the motorhome experience on Fuerteventura other than a few blogs saying how expensive it is to get your van / motorhome there. There are no recommendations of places to stay or park up so I thought if I write about our experience it might give others not not an insight but inspiration to do the same.

In no time at all our departure day was upon us, we’d just returned from a weekend in Chichester where it had snowed for the entire weekend, England was very cold so a trip to somewhere warm was most welcome.

We’ve never taken Stella on a plane before and personally I was dreading it, I had visions of her screaming all the way and us upsetting every passenger on the plane, I was also worried we might not get on the flight as while we were in Chichester she broke out in what we thought was chickenpox but was actually hand foot and mouth, anyway, I couldn’t have been more wrong about the flight, Stella took the whole thing in her stride and raised lots of smiles every time I took her for a wander up and down the aisle, as you can see, Stella was having a lovely time..

The flight was about 4 hours and as I mentioned earlier was with EasyJet, I have to say, it was a great flight and the staff at EasyJet were fantastic, they helped us check in all our baggage and extra items correctly and I’d like to think made sure we had 3 seats to ourselves when we’d only paid for 2.

On arrival our home on wheels was still on it’s way so we grabbed a quick beer and remarked on how windy it was, the sun was out however so who cares about the wind!

Our ride turned up, introductions took place, the owners of the van talked to Stella a lot in Spanish and she just smiled like she usually does, we hopped in and made our way to a car park in Puerto Rosario where we were briefed in how to work the motorhome, given a list of places we could empty the grey water and toilet cassette, handed over the cash deposit and then told good luck, see you in 10 days…

This is our chariot….

Now what???

There are no campsites on the Island, not one so it’s ten days of wild camping, for those of you not familiar with what that means, basically find somewhere safe to stop for the night and hope you don’t get told to move on. One of the things I had read about the island is that wild camping is massively encouraged because there just aren’t any campsites and it’s the best way to see the island, sure you can rent an apartment and get a car but at the end of the day you will always have to drive home whereas this way you can get your driving done early doors, park up and stay for a day or two and head to the next place.

I had researched a few places to go but after the flight and being handed the keys to a behemoth vehicle I had never driven on the wrong side of the road in I did’t really fancy venturing far, we’d seen a few vans parked up by the sea so agreed to head to the supermarket, grab some food and then find a spot to stay. At this point poor Stella was shattered and we dragged her round the supermarket as we had to get food for us and her.

As soon as we got out of the supermarket we strapped Stella into her car seat and before Lauren had finished strapping her in she was soundo…

We headed back toward the airport as that is where we saw the vans parked up by the sea, before we saw them we saw a sign for Playa Blanca and swerved in there. As you come off the motorway there is a sizeable hotel, if you turn left at the roundabout before the hotel there is a dirt road with plenty of places to park up which is where we stopped, rear door facing the sea. We had planned on making something lovely for dinner but it had been a proper long day so we put Stella to bed and settled for bread, Aioli and beer, we shut up the van, set the bed up and crashed for the night…..

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 🙂

Chilling in the sun

On By MashleyIn Camper van, England, Isle of Wight, T4 CamperLeave a comment

Sunday morning was  another lazy start, the sun was out and we made a decision fairly quickly to not venture anywhere in the van and instead hang out, walk the other way along the coast and have a BBQ, for the best part of the morning we just sat about outside the van catching rays and then made breakfast, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toast. 

While I was making tea I took a shot from inside the van looking out,


As you can see Lolly is very pregnant, 31 weeks to be precise and still up for an adventure in the van, top wife!

After breakfast we walked to the village and got everything we needed for our BBQ later, mincemeat to make our own burgers, sausages, halloumi, salad and beer. We stashed our goodies, put our walking shoes on and set off along the coast.

This probably the least eventful walk we have been on, just walking along the coast path, sea to the left and the military road to the right with the occasional super bike or jap sports car hooning past. We walked for an hour, sat down for a bit and then made our way back which took about an hour.

Lolly made us 2 fat burger patties, and I got the cobb on the go, the great thing about the cobb is once you set fire to one of the cobblestones it takes about 5 mins to go off and then you’re ready to cook.


For most of what you cook on the Cobb it’s great that it doesn’t pass any of the fuels flavour to the food, however on this occasion I wish we had brought some charcoal so we could have used used the BBQ grill attachments, although we seasoned the burgers the meat tasted a bit bland, would have been better with a bit of BBQ taste, they looked the part though!


The sausages and halloumi however were amazing, the sausages were from a local farm and Lolly added oil and garlic to the halloumi which completely transformed it.

After we ate I took an arty pic of the van for my instagram account.


I also took one of Lolly by the van watching the beautiful sunset.


After a few drinks (me) the sun set, I did the washing up and we settled in for the night with a movie, Jackie with Natalie Portman. I lasted about 15 mins before I declared this was the worst film I had ever seen and Ms Portman voice was truly annoying, Lolly agreed, we switched it off, best thing for it.

While Lolly turned in I grabbed my camera and took some pictures of the van under the stars, at the time of writing I haven’t edited them but they don’t look too shabby raw, I’ll post them up when they are done.

This was our last night on the Island, home the following day at some point.

Happy birthday me!

On By MashleyIn Camper van, England, Isle of Wight, T4 Camper, travelLeave a comment

We awoke on Friday morning to a slightly overcast day, it was also my birthday so we made tea, opened cards and ate Star Wars biscuits that Lolly made me especially for my birthday.


She bought an amazing tin for them to go in, she’s the best wife 🙂


We had planned to make breakfast in the van but decided we’d go in search of a cafe instead, by the time we got ready to roll the clouds and cleared and the sun was shining.


We headed off in search of a place called Sevens but couldn’t find it, we then found out there was a cafe at the pearl centre so we made our way there. The pearl centre is basically a pearl showroom where you can buy all manner of jewellery so long as it has pearls on it, you can even pick your own pearl from a live oyster though I’m sure the oyster doesn’t see the appeal in this. As you can imagine, the clientele was of the older generation, Lolly and I had the least grey hair.

My expectations for breakfast were not high, this was no greasy spoon, more your department store kind of cafe / restaurant, I was pleasantly surprised to see croque monsieurs on the menu but then spotted what turned out to be the most spectacular surprise breakfast.


I can’t actually remember what this is called but I shall call it the Breakfast Ciabatta, basically most of the ciabatta has been scooped out and replaced by bacon lardons, chopped sausage, beans, chopped egg all mixed in a kind of bechemal sauce topped with melted cheese and a fried egg, it was awesome, we had one each, the chef even came out to ask us what we thought, thumbs up five stars smiley face, or words to that effect.

Our destination for the remainder of the day was the Needles which are the furthest West Point of the Island and just off the coast of Alum Bay. There is a kind of theme park thing which has lots for kids to do and you can buy a book of tickets that saves you money on each attraction, we were only interested in the chairlift to take us down to the beach, you can walk but for three quid you might as well experience the chairlift, I’ve only ever been up with a snowboard attached on a chairlift so going down was a new experience for me, it’s quite steep!


You hop off the bottom and there is a shingle beach you can walk along the coastline here is quite dramatic.


The cliffs are also all different colours, once upon a time you used to be able to scrape the different colours off the cliffs and take them home in a jar but you’re not allowed to anymore, they are really beautiful colours, especially on a bright sunny day.


We walked along the beach and then found an alternative route back up to the top, you can take the chairlift or walk up some steps but we decided to hike up a land slip instead, fair play to Lolly, she made up to the top despite being 32 weeks pregnant!


I’d like to add that on several occasions I did suggest we head back down but Lolly was having none of it. In the distance of the picture above you can see The Needles, three bits of rock sticking out of the sea that look like needles with a light house on the end. There is also an old military battery which is free to visit if you are a national trust member, we are so we made our way over. 

En route we stopped by a little house that has a quite incredible amount of ornaments on display in it’s garden.


The walk to the battery is along the cliff tops and takes about 20 mins, there are options if you are disabled to get you there quicker. For a pound you can buy a guide book that tells you all about the battery and the different rooms and every room has information on what it was used for and what life was like there.


There is also a really cool tunnel.


This leads to the old searchlight room.


Look where the search light was made!


We had a really great time at the Battery, it’s well worth a visit.

Our next stop was over to an old school friends who owns a hotel on the island, Lyon Court in Shankhill.


If you are looking for somewhere to stay on the Island his place is excellent and I’m not just saying that because he’s a mate, he’s just renovated the ground floor flat which sleeps 8 people, it’s so nice I’d live there!

We went for food at a restaurant on Shankhill seafront called Steamers, we both had amazing burgers and Dan treated us which was really nice, thanks Dan.

The kids made me a lovely chocolate birthday cake, we lit candles, sang happy birthday and then carried on drinking till 2.30 in the morning, well, me and Dan did, the girls went to bed way earlier.

I had an excellent birthday and the sun shone all day which was most unusual!

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.