The campsite at Avignon had a loud speaker warning system for in case of flooding. On arrival, the Rhône River had looked very high and, worryingly, the rain continued to fall all evening and all night. I half expected to be issued with life-jackets at check in! My nightmares on Sunday night included being thrown
Saturday morning saw us shifting on again, but not very far and in awful conditions. It had rained all night and was still coming down fairly heavily. When I opened the door to walk over to the showers, we were sitting in puddles and all the daisies were underwater. A German couple in a large
Day one of week three started with fresh chocolate croissants and became another rest day. We got two loads of washing hung out in the sunshine, Rodney iced his ankle a bit more, and we got all the photos up to date. I plucked up the courage to relive and type up the blog about
It took us both a bit of time to work out if our bodies were going to move when we woke up the next morning. But after breakfast and another hot shower, we said our farewells to the Dutch campsite owner and drove in to Vallon Pont d’ Arc. We found the post office and
With loaded ambition of it being a sunny day and perhaps warm, we drove in to Vallon Pont d’ Arc, made up a baguette full of tuna with salad and then checked in at Aigue Vive for the experience of a lifetime. We were told that the Ardèche River at Vallon is the most
Despite a still swollen foot, Rodney opted to drive us on to our next destination…….wherever that might be. The rain during the night had woken us both up, but by breakfast time it had stopped. Unfortunately, when we finally got around to leaving the campsite around 10:30am it had started again and the temperature had
Day one of week two started slowly, we really must factor in more of these……. With one load of washing done, we strung a line from a nearby tree to one of Eileen’s wing mirrors to get it all dry. Rodney spent the morning catching up on the news on the free internet and then
Travelling by campervan through the French countryside in Spring is to live life at heavenly pace. With my first pot of wildflowers; cowslips, speedwell, daisies and muscari, tucked into a non spillage situation, we set off down to Vėzelay. This quiet, little town is built on the top of a hill with nice views of
Whatever you are, be a good one… We checked out of the Amiens campsite at 10:15am and headed south east past Roye and Noyen on an incredibly long, straight, presumably ex-Roman road. From Noyen we wiggled on down to Soissons and then directly south down the much faster D1 to Chateau-Thierry where we found a
A new world was opening up to us. Of course, it had always been there, all around us, every day, but travelling in Eileen really had made that phrase mean something to us. Around 2pm on Wednesday 10 April we left Calais and struck out south easterly to Amiens, stopping only to fill up Eileen
Life is what happens to you when you are making other plans After a chilly seven days in Switzerland, we found it just as cold back in England and we still needed to wear the ski jackets and gloves. There were a few soggy patches of snow in the fields and under hedges around
On Thursday 21st March, after dropping off Eileen for her annual check-up and service we walked to the local ‘greasy spoon’ in Hertford. The Rose Café does a fine selection of everything that should be on the menu, at a traditional ‘English Breakfast’ eatery. Eileen came up trumps; though she did need four new tyres
The suitcases were packed. Everything that we couldn’t take with us went back in to storage. Vanea and Peter drove us to Sydney airport, we said our farewells on the pavement and confirmed “our booking for November” with them. We cannot thank you both enough, Vanea and Peter. You do so much for us and
Back in Sydney we did go to the beach a few times and then, between all the socialising and the farewells, we started to think about what we needed to take to Europe and what would need to pack back in to storage. And so started our final week in Sydney……. Add to this: haircuts,
Despite reports of major flooding in northern NSW and the Pacific Highway (the main road to Queensland) closed in various places, we decided to drive up there anyway. It was to be a 2,000 kms round trip, in unknown conditions, but when the sun is shining on you in Sydney, it’s hard to imagine that
The first half of February was spent house-sitting for Louise and Geoff while they were cruising on a yacht off the coast of Tasmania near Hobart. We settled in nicely at the Wilsons and anticipated lots of walks in the nearby Lane Cove National Park which unfortunately never actually happened. But it felt rather luxurious having
Well, here we are back in Sydney, but not back in our home. I thought I might struggle after so long on the road, with most of the time spent living out of a suitcase, but, surprisingly, we’ve both managed very well. It could be because our first residence was at Mark & Fiona’s apartment
It was very hot in Brunei, Vietnam and Singapore, so I didn’t need to wear my scarf so much. There were some very different sights to see here on my travels….. It was an exciting journey through Asia and although I’m now even tattier than I was 30 years
Oh my goodness! A beautiful apartment all to ourselves for two weeks, a bedroom with a view over the swimming pool, Mary (the maid) popping in three times a week, bicycles, TV, a comfy sofa and……what more could we want for a fabulous, relaxing, perfect end to 2012. Kenn, Pla and little Casse headed off
There was something gloomy about the low misty grey cloud that never managed to lift all day on Wednesday 12/12/12. It felt like it was signalling the end of something; maybe it was because we were just finishing our trip around, what I considered, the best bit of Vietnam. The bus took us back to
At 8am on Monday morning our minibus arrived to transfer us to the city of Ha Long. It stopped halfway at an enormous building full of sections of goods for sale, lacquerware, embroidery, silk clothing, wood carvings, etc and surrounding the building were hundreds of stone carvings; some only small but most were enormous. Most
The flight to Hanoi was on a small 66-seater ATR72 plane with just two propellers. It always feels a bit unnerving when you’re so used to flying everywhere on huge planes. With the little planes, you feel every bump and the right-hand propeller was right next to my window; it felt a little too close
On Thursday lunchtime, we left Saigon and South Vietnam without seeing one single bike, taxi, car, bus, motorbike, scooter, or pedestrian collide, or even touch each other. We decided that it’s a bit like watching insects buzzing about and never falling out of the sky. I think I’d train them up as Formula 1 racing
In Mui Ne, our first big buffet breakfast was followed by hours spent by the pool reading, dozing and then eating fresh spring rolls (the non-fried ones) for our lunch. Having spent most of the day being thoroughly lazy, we decided to make ourselves go for a long walk, so we got a taxi
After a long wait and the very kind help of the restaurant owner in Cai Be, we were finally picked up at 2:30pm and driven back to Ho Chi Minh City. With the return journey being on the same bumpy roads, we both stayed awake and watched Vietnamese daily life pass us by on the
Unlike other countries of the world, in Vietnam the minority of vehicles, after scooters, motor bikes, taxis and buses, are cars. And it seems the majority of those cars are large four-wheel drive vehicles. On Monday morning, all we wanted was a minibus to take us to the Mekong Delta, the Nine Dragon River Delta.
The ‘Kenn Factor’ caught us again on Friday, how does it still astound us every time? We thought he was dropping us at Changi airport, but no. He drove us west out to Jurong at the Malaysian border to pick up an anchor. Rodney felt like he was going back to work……bit of a shock
We must have been to Singapore too much, because when we travelled in the taxi to Kenn & Pla’s apartment on Sentosa Island, we almost felt like we were heading home. We spent our first day wandering around a bit and then had a yummy Asian lunch with chilled lime juice at the Raffles café
Our European sojourn for 2012 is almost at an end. We’ve said our goodbyes to all our friends in Hertford and Watton-At-Stone. Andy & Carole are probably pleased to see the back of us and all our ‘stuff’; thank you so much again, guys. We’ve spent a couple of days wandering around the east end of
On Tuesday morning we woke up late from our last night spent in a campsite for this year. Campsite mornings in the UK have us mystified; even when there are a large number of campervans and caravans on site, there are very few people moving about or in the shower blocks. Even when we leave
On Saturday we decided to give Eileen a day off and we caught the bus into Stirling. We walked up the steep streets to the castle which sits on the top of a hill of volcanic rock. Four and a half hours were spent wandering around the various rooms, exhibits, and along the rampart walls.
Crikey, it’s freezing !!! Just before 8am, I dashed to the shower block across crispy white grass. I checked the thermometer that I had hung on Eileen’s wing mirror: -7°c (20f)……that’s well below freezing! Overnight the puddles all around the campsite had become skating rinks for pixies. Happily, the shower block was warm and the
On Saturday we watched the mizzly weather outside and faffed around inside all morning. Then, when the clouds began to lift a little in the west, we decided to catch the train from Fort William to Mallaig which is supposed to be one of the most scenic railway journeys in the world. Despite arriving half
We awoke to another dry day; I hope you can imagine how joyful that makes us. Two days in a row and not a drop of rain, yippee! We spent the day driving right round the Totternish Peninsula, the most northern part of Skye. We took the road up the west coast through Uig, Balgown,
We said goodbye to Eileen’s latest beautiful view and pulled out of the Inverewe campsite at 10:30am, while the rain came down again. We were so glad that we had managed to see such a beautiful place with the sun on it yesterday. We stopped off at the tiny supermarket in Gairloch; so tiny that even though
Monday morning started without rain……no not really…..it was still pouring. Officially fed up with the persistent rain, we sadly decided to give up on the West Coast and Skye, so we packed up and left our beautiful spot on Loch Linhhe. We drove north, just past Fort William to see Neptune’s Staircase at Banavie. It
We start this blog with a day spent totally at the campsite. We did leave the campervan to walk across to the shower block and to collect some more freshwater, but we never walked outside the gates. We spent the day playing scrabble, preparing emails, reading and watching two episodes of Downton Abbey. All day
On Wednesday 19th of September we woke early, showered, filled our bellies with food, filled our backpacks with more food and set off across the fields outside Coniston village. We crossed to the woods on the other side of the A593 and picked our way along the exceedingly muddy footpath to the common above. Avoiding
Yes, we are finally on our way ‘up north’, excited to be back on our campervan travels. Our first stop was Peterborough, for lunch with stepmother Val and then an overnight stop at a campsite at Newark. The next morning, the thirteenth, didn’t start too well. The grey water tap lever snapped off as Rodney was shutting
After criticism of the lack of news from some folk out there, I have been persuaded to get blogging again. This page will be a summary of what has happened over the last eight weeks, since we got back from France. There is drama, excitement, generous friends, weight gain and late nights. Eileen has had her
I’ve been a very lucky pig, I went to the 2012 London Olympics! The beach volleyball was great fun and I could see Nelson’s Column from my seat in the stadium. The sand looked nice, but it did make me miss the beaches in Sydney. I couldn’t find any sea nearby…… I
Piglet has now been travelling through France and Switzerland for 12 weeks and he seems to be missing out on having his photos included, so he would like to have his own blog page. He’s looking very worn out at the ripe old age of 30. He has yellow heels from standing on the ochre
My day started badly by queuing in the cold for croissants and bread for fifteen minutes with wet hair, gad dammit! But the croissants were good and after the crowded campsite had mostly cleared, we set off west in to the town of Arras. We found our way to Place de la Vacquerie and Place de
Showers, boiled eggs, fix bike, clean bikes, check emails, check weather report, hop on bubbles my bike and off we went, in to Chalons en Champagne, at last. We cycled around and around, saw more brilliant roundabouts, including one that had a very impressive dancing water fountain. We did stop for a two-course lunch at
After three nights at Campéole Le Brabois we packed up, emptied Eileen’s bowels and set off back into Nancy to find the Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy. It’s only a tiny museum set inside a pretty house built by Eugène Corbin in 1911 and contains some fine furniture and beautiful glassware from the Art Nouveau
On Monday, a sleep in our bed until 9am was definitely a good way to start the day and recharge some inner batteries, actually I can’t believe we really did sleep for 10 ½ hours. This resulted in a rather late breakfast, which we ate outside, though with a chill in the air I could
At 10:30pm last night, we strolled in to the centre of town, along with what seemed like the whole of Obernai’s population and we mingled in the car park next to the city wall. There was a live band playing rather Germanic sounding music and lots of people were waltzing around in front of the
When we woke up this morning we both still felt fat. Last night’s fabulous dinner was the biggest we have eaten while we have been travelling, but Max insisted we meet him in their beautiful, new breakfast room. Thankfully it’s a buffet service, so we only ate a couple of mouthfuls and then embarked on
Our tour guide extraordinaire, Maxime, had too much work with the hotel re-opening today, but he very generously lent us his car and sent us off to Strasbourg with a map. Rodney and I both found it really strange being on the right side of the road, but with our front-seat positions reversed. With Rodney