28th November on the way home :(

Sadly all too quickly it was time to head home. I think we have a strange sat nav it always gets us there but often in a very round about way and true to form we had a very interesting journey from Amsterdam to Calais, via small towns, bridges and a six kilometer tunnel.

We had read in the camper van blogs that you can park over night for free at the Cite de Europe. We wanted to shop at the huge Carrafour super market for some goodies for Christmas so decided to give the overnight parking a try.

We found the "Camping Car" sign and area very easily, there were two other very large camper vans there and so set up for the night. The torrential rain all night really tested the van roof and we are relieved to say not a drip got through.

The next morning we were entertained by the people in the two white vans moving boxes of "stuff" from one van to the other......

After another cooked breakfast we crossed the car park and went into the shopping centre and stocked up on drink and food stuff.
We caught site of a french newspaper that seems to say that firemen were working in the tunnel and it was still closed!!!! luckily our french isn't that good because on arrival at the tunnel everything was as normal and we checked in to wait for our crossing back.

(devil eyed woman clutching her duty free!)

                          The overnight stop was really good we will definitely do that again.

Camping Zeeburg

21st November we arrived at Camping Zeeburg, we have been there before, but this was the first with our van.

We had a very friendly welcome and were shown our pitch. The bar and restaurant area is being refurbished so this was closed but the shop was still open and as always the toilet and shower blocks were clean and very warm!
We were surprised that there were several people in tents, even this time of year and a few camper vans. 
We parked and set up the awning...

We don't have a photo but there were about 12 chickens roaming the camp site and one managed to find her way under our awning.

Everything worked brilliantly in the Van, especially the heater! We have a few ideas to improve things for next time and definitely do not need to take so much stuff!! 

During our stay in Amsterdam we visited the Heineken Experience ...

The Tropen and Rijks Museum, took a walk to the beach and around the main shopping centre Dam Square

We had a brilliant time and already planning our next trip! 

Our first trip abroad in our Van

November and it's our Summer Holiday! and at last we are really off in the Van. 
Sunday 18th November we set off for Stoke on Trent to see Joan Armatrading.

Following a brilliant concert we set off Tuesday, via Milton Keynes for Harwich to catch the overnight ferry to the Hook of Holland. 
I was a bit worried about sailing in November, but it was a very smooth crossing and after a good nights sleep we disembarked to a glorious sunrise.

The first thing we needed to do was fine somewhere to cook our first breakfast......once we drove out of the built up area we saw a picnic sign and headed for that, we followed a tiny little road that ended up in a lovely wooded area with car park and walks and of course the obligatory cycle paths, so we stopped to cook egg and bacon for breakfast.

This was the sign we followed and later found out it was a naturist park! sadly it was really cold so we didn't see any local sights!!!!

Second trip away 31st Aug &1st September

Following our first weekend away we couldn't wait to go again! so two weeks later we were off again. This time we decided to travel north in to the next county Lincolnshire and headed for Mablethorpe.

Again we found a lovely little campsite West End Farm, Great Carlton. This time we were prepared with our hook up extension, electric kettle and toaster!  Once again we had a good nights sleep and set off the next day to explore Mablethorpe.

Our Van made a friend in the car park!

After chatting over breakfast  to the owner of the campsite and his partner who owned an Orange VW Van, we set off to find the beach.
After a rather "hairy" long very narrow rode with ditches either side we found a fabulous beach, with miles of sand and what we think (after tasting it) was an abundance of samphire growing.

Oh! I forgot to mention we also bought an awning, a usual purchase from ebay, but as things are always meant to be ...the person selling it only lived 8 miles from the campsite, so after many, many slightly strange phone calls on the way we finally rendezvoused and collected the latest thing from the "things to get for the van" list.
Another very successful lovely weekend in our Van :)

Our first weekend sleeping in our Van 17th &18th August

At last!! we could get away in our Van and test it out. Packed with what we thought would be all we needed we set off. We were only going a short distance to Cambridgeshire (dropping our son off at Papworth on the way)
The first thing we did was make a pact with each other that this was a "fact finding mission" the first time out things were bound to go a little wrong but we were not going to have any "hissy fits" just take it all in our stride and learn as we go!

We found a lovely little campsite Roseberry Tourist Park at Willingham and the first thing we found was the electric hook up we had was not long enough to reach the socket..... no worries at all the campsite owners let us borrow an extension....this was the first thing to go on our " things to get for the van list".

We set up and brewed up!

Our first meal cooked in our van went down a treat and with a couple of bottles of San Miguel we were ready for our first sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Although we both woke early we had had a great nights sleep, cup of tea in bed followed by bacon and eggs for breakfast made our first night in the van a great success .....bring on the rest!!

A very important ride! 10th August

Friday 10th August. The first important trip our van had to do was take our son to is wedding! Neil spent several hours cleaning and polishing and then trimmed with a white ribbon and bow, our van transported us all in style for the Big Day!

VW Day how it all started!ll

So, after paying into an Insurance policy for over twenty five years you would think the day it matured would be a day of celebration.......wrong! for us it was the start of week long worry and sleepless nights. For many many years we have always said," when our policy matures we will buy a camper van". Life long dream, etc etc ... and that was so easy to say, but once we had the money the guilt struck big time. Should we, shouldn't we, things need doing on the house, we should bank it for a rainy day ha!!  (for those of you reading this later we had just had weeks and weeks of rain) 

But! we had seen this fabulous orange VW T5 van for sale on the internet and it was just what we had dreamed of, newly fitted, air con, flat screen tv, leather seats etc etc ... it was so cool.

We decided to go and look, no harm in that, if it did not turn out to be that good we didn't have to buy it........ we didn't have to buy it! we kept telling each other that.

The only day we could visit was Sunday the 1st July and thinking...if we did like it we would want to purchase it we arranged to take the money out of the bank (easier said than done! you would think we were robbing them!) Any how we drove all the way to Bristol to "just look" at this van.

Love at first sight! we both fell in love with this orangey orange van. It was a good as the description, if not better, so after an hour and half of drooling over it we shook hands. The only problem was we had to travel back the next Thursday to pick it up ....long story.

But at last we had made that terrifying decision to not be sensible and put all our money into a VW van and spend the rest of our lives travelling as far and wide as possible ( we still have the grins on our faces)