On Monday 16th, after a big breakfast, we walked down the road from Woodlands Campsite to the Devils Bridge. It is the strangest bridge I’ve ever seen, in fact it’s not just one bridge, it is actually three bridges, one built on top of the other over the Mynach Gorge. The bottom one […]
With the promise of the only dry and potentially sunny day for the next seven days, we bunged a load of clothes in the washing machine and spent the morning waiting for it to dry. How exciting life can be on the road…. After lunch we drove Eileen down to Newquay as we didn’t
Mid-morning, on Friday the thirteenth (I refuse to be superstitious), we parked Eileen at Whitesands Beach and walked out to the craggy tip of St David’s Head. It was a shorter walk than the previous day, but equally scenic. Standing out on the farthest point, looking out across the ocean towards Ireland, certainly
Our day started in proper retirement mode; a slow breakfast, a bit of newspaper reading (3 days old) and no urgency to our day. We watched as caravans, motorhomes and tents packed up and left, leaving us all alone at our end of field number three. But with the rain holding off, and not really
From Tenby, or should I say Dinbych-y-Pysgod, we headed west through Skrinkle Haven (what a great name) to Manorbier where we pulled up on a hill above the beach. Parked directly in front of us was a small van and to add a bit of sparkle to my day, a man hopped out, stripped naked
I wanted one more look at Rhossili beach and to show Rodney the classic side view of Worms Head before we left the Gower Peninsula, so after checking out of the campsite, we drove across to Broughton Burrow just north west of Llangennith. We traipsed up the highest sand dune and marvelled at the wonderful
Heather, harebells, blackberries, butterflies and two dead sheep all made for an interesting walk along the edge of the Gower Peninsula. We were in search of the Worms Head, a big one, the one at the end of Rhossili Beach. To start the walk we needed to get down to Port Eynon Beach and then
We started this trip in April and then suddenly we’ve looked up and it’s September. The days are getting shorter and we can actually say we will be back in Sydney next month. But before then we have 57 days to visit Wales, Cornwall, prepare Eileen for another winter in East Grinstead and then spend
When we arrived at Caroline and Steve’s in Horsham on Monday afternoon, their previous visitors were still there, so the eight of us sat in the sunshine having lunch in the garden. Before they left, young Jamie set Skype up on Caroline’s laptop which then put Caroline into a crazy new world. She skyped us
A few weeks were spent shuffling here, there and everywhere across England and Eileen shuffled between Chris’s warehouse yard, Doug’s car-yard and out on the open road. It’s been all very confusing; continually packing and unpacking, one week in her, the next week not. I can’t wait to get back properly in our little mobile
Our route north to Hertford took us via Seaford, Polegate, Horsham, Leighton Buzzard and Dunstable; each stop off being a visit to family or friends. When we arrived in Hertford, late on Sunday 28 July, we did a quick calculation; in the four days since arriving in England we had managed to catch up with
Rodney was disappointed that the 9:45am train wasn’t a steam engine, but the lady driver set a cracking pace along the 13.5 miles / 22 kilometres of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, the smallest public railway in the world. We passed our campsite and a couple of farms, we crossed level crossings and waved to a
We both woke up early on Monday morning and, as we had a big drive ahead, we got up and got packing. By 9:15am we were at the local supermarket, then we filled up on diesel and before 10am we were on the motorway and heading in to Belgium. We travelled all the way up
On Sunday morning, after locating Rodney’s second pair of missing sunglasses, we caught the bus in to Luxembourg City Centre. I think I managed to confuse the bus driver and many other locals later on, with my complete muddle of languages; I’m really not sure what I’m even supposed to be speaking in Luxembourg, it
Only one week left travelling around Europe in Eileen; now we’ll be counting the days and not the weeks. We packed up fairly early and left Eberbach to drive beside the Neckar River towards Heidelberg. At Ziegelhausen we turned north across country to Schriesheim. It would probably have been quicker to go closer to Heidelberg
When we boarded the 9:29am train at Eberbach, it was full, with students sprawled all over the seats and the floor, but amongst the chaos we managed to find two spare seats. At the next stop some people got on with bicycles and a group of students who were playing an amusingly intensive game of
At 9:15am we were all packed up and driving out of the Detwang campsite. We joined the motorway heading south……south ?!!! Aren’t we heading in the general direction of Calais? No Rodney fancied checking out Schwäbisch Hall, before aiming for Heidelberg. Schwäbisch Hall turned out to be an unusual town; a mix of mediaeval, baroque
On Friday we got up really late, at 9:15; brilliant !!! I spent what was left of the morning catching up on computer stuff and when Rodney finished his breakfast at 11:15am, he gave Eileen a bit of clean outside. A short walk around the tiny village of Detwang and along the river was about
Day one of week fourteen started with mushrooms on toast and then we left the campsite at Winkl, drove down to Berchtesgaden and then up a very steep hill to the Hintereck car park for a trip up to Kehlsteinhaus, also known as Eagle’s Nest. The building is situated right on the top of a
Having said goodbye to our Scottish neighbours and Rodney’s German man, who he had befriended the night before, we left the campsite-with-the-longest-name. It only took us an hour to drive to Salzburg and arriving at 10:45am at Panorama Camping Stadtblick, must be the earliest check-in we have done yet! The campsite is high on
Thursday morning started with low clouds hanging around the campsite; perhaps a good day to sit in Eileen and travel 150kms to the next campsite. We left at 9:20am and just as we got on to the main road heading out of Zel- Am-See we hit a short traffic jam. This was quickly followed by
On Monday we woke up to the most brilliant, bright blue sky, so we were definitely going to go up another mountain. We left Camping Mayrhofen and drove up to Hintertux, at the end of the Tuxertal Valley. We filled a rucksack with all the warm clothes in our wardrobe, fleecies, scarves, gloves, hats, padded
Friday was a flat day. We spent most of our time hanging around in Eileen while the weather just couldn’t make its mind up. Rodney went for a short walk in between showers, while I caught up on some emails, then after lunch we took our books and beach towels over to the
Oh dear, it rained all night and all morning, so day one of week twelve turned in to a nothing day. No photos, no walks, no anything. We blobbed around in Eileen all day, got everything washed during a four-hour marathon of queuing for the one washing machine and then the one tumble dryer. We
When the rain finally stopped, at some time in the middle of the night, we wondered what we might be waking up to, because snow had been forecast. I was the first one out of the door in the morning and found us surrounded by only puddles. However, on walking back from the shower block,
The sky was full of fog when we woke up, but by the time the eggs had boiled, it had completely cleared to a beautiful clear morning. We cycled to St Moritz railway station and found we had 45 minutes to wait for the next train, dang! But because all the trains start in St
Now I know why we don’t ski at St Moritz; the only shops we could find were Chanel, Prada, Aspreys, Tom Ford, Dolce & Gabbana, etc. Oh, and two cups of hot chocolate and a shared slice of carrot cake costs SFr 17, about AU$20 or £12, so we’re slumming it in the campsite. But
On Friday morning we woke up to a beautiful sunny day with almost no humidity; perhaps we shouldn’t leave the Italian Lakes just yet…..? But then again we only have 32 days left before our ferry back over the Channel to England and there’s still all of Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium to get
At 9:15am we left Feriolo and headed north up the motorway. When we reached Gravellona Toce we found ourselves in a wide valley with impressive steep sides and very soon the valley narrowed and we were seeing snow covered caps on the mountains ahead. Rodney wriggled, settled back and enjoyed the drive up to Domodossola.
Can anyone explain to me why a cuckoo needs to practise the only two notes in its repertoire at 5:22am? Maybe it was trying to tell me it was going to be another very hazy morning? Eating breakfast under Eileen’s awning just didn’t provide the same view on Saturday morning as we had enjoyed on
On day two of week ten we left high security Camping Bella Italia at 10am. We handed over our paperwork, wrist tags, personal passes and proved that we had paid the bill the previous day. It was harder than leaving France! We did a little detour via Sirmione for a quick peek and then joined
The Monday night disco next door must have kept awake every camper at our end of the campsite, it was so loud, but ‘rentacrowd’ would have loved it as it was a cover band playing seventies hits……though not too well. I’ll bet there were a lot of grumpy Germans trying to sleep, or resorting to
After five nights in one spot, it felt strange packing up and moving on. Eileen was filled up on diesel and LPG and then we headed out east to the Lido di Jesolo. For most of the drive the altimeter told us that we were at sea level, or only one or two metres above
Well, if you weren’t lucky enough to be swanning around Europe then you were no doubt at the gala celebrations in Sydney for Ivan Blake’s 65th birthday. A great night appeared to be had by all, if the following photos are any indication. Also, apologies to Rodney and Laura for hijacking their blog but after
In the morning, when one wanders over to the shower block, you really need to be awake and have all your marbles about you, or there can be tricky consequences……. I’ve found that it helps to have my bag, with everything I need, packed ready by the door the night before. Rodney prefers the grab-it-on-the-way-out
The start of Rodney’s birthday on Tuesday was not quite as we had hoped. We both woke up feeling rather ill and only a hot shower and some breakfast outside in the sunshine made us both feel slightly more human. We wandered over to the bus stop later in the morning and the no. 19
I could feel the warmth of the sun at 7:30am when I wandered over to the shower block on Saturday morning; nice. We waved goodbye to the campsite manager, Mr Lupi Dino (great name) and headed back to the huge supermarket where I bought a basket for the front of my bike, plus lots of
When the rain stopped, we left the campsite in Levanto and headed up the bendy, twisty road. It is a really lovely drive past all the tiny bunches of pastel coloured villages scattered over the green hills and with lots of pink valerian clinging to the rock walls. Half way up the valley we crossed
On Tuesday we fancied a boat ride to Portovenere, but it didn’t happen. We walked to the tourist office to get tickets and check that the 10am boat would run; the weather was a bit indifferent, though the sea did look fairly calm and it wasn’t windy. We were told to walk to the other
Mr Campsite cheered me up on Friday by delivering a free pot plant to our campervan, it’s a beautiful marguerite daisy in a soft shade of pink. We weren’t special to him, he actually delivered one to every plot on the campsite and we think that’s a really lovely touch. We’re not sure how often
On day one of week seven there was a great plan in place: Get up to date on computer stuff, read books and The Daily Telegraph magazine, swim in the pool for some exercise, cycle in to Antibes late afternoon for a final mooch around and a dinner somewhere nice. That plan never happened. Day
It’s a Tuesday, it’s not a public holiday, it’s not a Sunday, so we should be able to get a bus and yes, we had a choice of two arriving at the same time. We had to wait a while at the train station as all the trains were running late; do trains ever run
We had no idea of where we were, though we knew that the campsite we were in, was not far from Antibes, but the question was, were we up on a hill? As it was a Sunday we assumed that the buses would be fairly irregular, so we bit the bullet, and after repairing another
Another day of rain and we’re starting to play the ‘Glad Game’ just a little too much. We’re glad we’re not in a tent. We’re glad we’re not on a motorbike. We’re glad we’re cosy and dry inside Eileen. We’re glad it’s not too cold. We’re glad we have our own loo. We’re glad we
On Wednesday morning, with the grumpy folk next door packing up and Rodney, sort of, nursing a slightly aching brain (it was only one bottle of wine, must have been a cheap one), we decided to stay another day. After two loads of washing and a huge number of emails typed up, we sat outside
It took us a while to leave the campsite at La Tour Fondue because you ‘re not allowed to unplug your electricity connection; it’s locked in a box. After packing everything up and paying up, we had to wait for half an hour before someone came over to disconnect us. We’d never come across this
Moving from a fully booked campsite in the middle of a very long public holiday weekend (Wednesday off, Thursday off, Saturday and Sunday….is anyone likely to actually work on the Friday?) was worrying us a little as to where we might be staying on Thursday night. So I was in the shower by 7am and
As we drove out of the campsite on Monday morning, we realised that we had actually been parked almost under the Trois Sautets Bridge which was much favoured by Cezanne; he used to paint many pictures of the bathers in the water and on the beach below. It’s now a rather built up area, with
Friday turned in to a wonderful catch-up day and we both felt all the more relaxed for it. We spent most of the day sitting outside under the awning reading our books. Eileen received a good wash down and she now looks a lot smarter without all the mud and grime all over her. All
It is now week four and our bikes are still firmly strapped to the back of Eileen. When we packed up to leave Avignon in the pouring rain, we noticed that the bag, which is covering our bikes was full of water, so we opened the bottom of the bag and watched a small waterfall