I have no idea:) I got a shock when I looked at the last blog date...so terribly sorry yáll...it's been far too long. :) I think the last blog was about Edinburgh...we went back there because it's a brilliant city ...buzzing.... I was quite intent on finding a strip of beach, because I saw on the map that Edinburgh was near the coast (duhhhh), up till then we had mainly been going to the Fringe Festival which was in the middle of the city, so when we jumped in the van and tried finding the "waterfront" I wasnt impressed to find is was mainly a harbour, but 5mins out of the city we arrived at a strecth of beach...and ended up playing soccer on the sand with the kids, eating fish and chips and leaving at about 5pm, with a few hours of daylight still to kill. We made our way from Edinburgh to Coldstream, about an hours drive, intent on attending a Mass Band day at Floors castle the following day, which we eventually did.... was great....toured the castle, watched the piper bands, falconry display, ....and Jesse even volunteered to run down the field, eagle descending on him from the sky to fetch a piece of meat he was holding on a plate above his head while he ran.....it was hysterical! The eagle dived, Jesse dived, and almost had his head taken off, but all was good fun and no harm done.
We left Coldstream and travelled 3hours the next day to a small village called Kircubrite, on the coast of Scotland. Not much in the village, but a real community vibe. They had a small military Tattoo that evening, which we REALLY enjoyed, with Scottish dancing in the street, the Welsh Guards military band ( really smart) and a Welsh choir. The local "parish" had donated the chairs for the evening...a nice touch. They had all the kids walking up and down with flags of the world, with Thomas the steam engine leading them... Tanner got the SA flag, but I noticed Jesse had swiped it from him by the end of the parade...:)
We stayed at "Cur-coo-bree" 2 nights and then I found some events we want to attend, on the web....a jousting tournament in Stevenage, a motorway event with drag bikes, in the middle of England somewhere(I forget) and an airshow on the west coast, 75% up England. (jee whizz I need to improve my memory/geography.!)
To get to the jousting, we have spend a night behind a farmhouse in Buxton, in the Peak district...lots of beautiful scenery. I saw a horse getting new horse shoes this morning while emptying the grey water for the van....a task which involves putting a bucket under the van, opening a handvalve, letting the bucket fill, and then carrying it to the drain area. In most campsites these areas are centralised, but on a farm they can be anywhere....although most CLs are really good.
We have decided that we need to jack up our website of travels thus far, so the plan is as follows:
1. To stick up a big map.
2. To put numbers for each area we have info on.
3. You click on a number, and a list of photos will load up.
On the technical side, we want to have a load of technical info (plug point pics etc) on a different section of the site, for people who want to see this type of info. We'll load our site blog and pics on a few travelling forums, and capitalise on selling advertising banners on various sections of the site. :)
We left Scotland yesterday....and saw a sign saying Welcome to England. It was a bit depressing. Scotland for us, is a brilliant place...we loved the towns, the people, and the culture. Nothing wrong with England at all..but Scotland has a special place in our hearts. Och Eyeeee!!!
Friday, 31 August 2007
Wednesday, 22 August 2007
Parked / Laundry
M is doing laundry in a launderette in an Edinburgh suburb while I'm parked with the kids in the van in the street. We moved things around again yesterday. The kids, and the tv, are now back in the bed area above the cab, and Jetan has his own "room" in the small area at the back. This leaves the central eating area as M and my evening chill out area, which converts to a bed...not the most comfortable, since in the middle of the night Jetan ends up shoving inbetween us, and I end up curled on one side....but, at least all the kids can be sent to their "rooms" when I need them out of our hair. It seems to work well...according to the past 12hrs anyway :) Living in a van is all about management ;-)
We're back in Edinburgh, and looking forward to see-ing more of the Fringe Festival which runs all week, then we go down to Keslo for a mass band competition with pipers and dancing, and another at Kirkubrite on the coast on the 27th. We'll most likely travel right down to Wales for a few days, and Cornwall area and back across to London around the 5Sept, and across to France around the 10th. Later than we had planned, but we can make it up later. Internet access in France is our biggest worry...if we cant find it, we wont stay long....but campsites should provide it if we do proper Internet searches.....
I must say that none of the actual itinerary plans we made before leaving have actually worked out :) Mostly because when you get to an area, your tastes at the time change. We dont really want to see another castle for instance.:) Lakes...seen those. Stone buildings.....done that. We're having a great time, but it is difficult to see something new every day, when you travel for so long..Things become familiar quite quickly, so you start seeking out things that are really different... like EURODISNEY. We havent booked yet, but going to soon. I'm looking forward to our next 2 weeks, but dont really know what to expect of France at all. Does it have anything that England, Scotland and Wales dont have for instance. Oh Yes....it has the French :) That should be something to grasp...the language gap. I can just see myself... excusem moi??? Wherrrreee du eyeee finddd La der Internetttt connectioneee Sil vu Ple?
ok, M is back with the clean clothes. Gotta go. Bye.
D
We're back in Edinburgh, and looking forward to see-ing more of the Fringe Festival which runs all week, then we go down to Keslo for a mass band competition with pipers and dancing, and another at Kirkubrite on the coast on the 27th. We'll most likely travel right down to Wales for a few days, and Cornwall area and back across to London around the 5Sept, and across to France around the 10th. Later than we had planned, but we can make it up later. Internet access in France is our biggest worry...if we cant find it, we wont stay long....but campsites should provide it if we do proper Internet searches.....
I must say that none of the actual itinerary plans we made before leaving have actually worked out :) Mostly because when you get to an area, your tastes at the time change. We dont really want to see another castle for instance.:) Lakes...seen those. Stone buildings.....done that. We're having a great time, but it is difficult to see something new every day, when you travel for so long..Things become familiar quite quickly, so you start seeking out things that are really different... like EURODISNEY. We havent booked yet, but going to soon. I'm looking forward to our next 2 weeks, but dont really know what to expect of France at all. Does it have anything that England, Scotland and Wales dont have for instance. Oh Yes....it has the French :) That should be something to grasp...the language gap. I can just see myself... excusem moi??? Wherrrreee du eyeee finddd La der Internetttt connectioneee Sil vu Ple?
ok, M is back with the clean clothes. Gotta go. Bye.
D
Monday, 20 August 2007
Aaaaah A nice hot shower.
Welcome back loyal blog readers:) THANKS FOR THE COMMENTS. Sorry if we dont email anyone back individually, but between managing the workings of the van, maps, gps, business, fun, kids etc, we are really bushed at the end of each day, and even writing a single mail to a single friend becomes a difficult thing. Living in a camper is a bit of an experience. Each day you have to balance the input (tyre air, oil,diesel,water,gas) of the van, the output(old shower and washing water, toilet stuff) as well as the input (food,dry clothes) and outputs (toilet times, showers, eating, clothes washing) all around the same 5x3metre area, inhabited by 5 bodies. On top of this, roles change, and furniture arrangements change depending on time of day, and our location in the world is adjusted day by day. It all makes for a VERY interesting existance, VERY different to the normal life in a house back home. After spending about 60days travelling , we have done well adjusting to this mobile existance, but can be honest and say it takes a very special mentality to cope:) Luckily as you all know, Marielle and I have probably spent the past few years working together within the same office space, even at home, so we have learned to live together without killing each other. I wouldnt suggest anyone try this without first locking themselves into a room with their spouse for an entire weekend, and see-ing how it goes...and I dont mean any hanky panky.....get your minds out the gutters!
We spent the morning walking up a beautiful forest pathway leading to an old stone tower, overlooking Perth. The kids had a great time riding on their bikes, but on the way down decided not to heed our cautions, and Tanner ended up sliding into a patch of stinging nettles, which grow wild here. Fun fun fun.
ok, I have to go shower. Here is M to take over the blog for today :)
Hi everyone! Talking about showering, I have just had a really nice hot shower for a whole 5 minutes. It cost me 20p (R3.50) but was worth every cent. Showering AND dressing in a space that's just over a metre squared each night is NOT my idea of fun. This is how it goes each night: Spray with the shower hose (that is dribbling most of the time), switch hose off, lather, rinse, dry. By now that's not that easy cause the floor is wet!When it comes time to brushing teeth: it's rinse brush, switch tap off, put toothpaste on brush, brush teeth, put tap back on, rinse mouth out, switch tap off. Of course this is all done hoping that the water tank doesn't run out of water mid-way. Fun Fun Fun!
Dean mentioned that we walked in a forest area today. It was absolutely stunning so you can imagine how disappointed I was when my camera battery went flat. I managed to get one or two photos of us walking up but couldn't take anything when we reached the tower. Of course I wouldn't have had much time because between trying to feed the boys (yup, we carted the rolls, ham etc... up with us) and stopping Jetan from running along the clifftop, taking photographs wouldn't have been top priority anyway.
We are at CL in a place called Upper Largo (East coast of Scotland), the view is beautiful however we are parked rather close to the main house which is a bed and breakfast - we kinda like the places where we've stayed and we've been in a farmer's field. Dean STILL hasn't bought levelers for the van, so we are currently on a slight slope which is not fun at all. Supper was Roast chicken and pasta for the boys and some healthy cous cous for us grownups. I really need to start laying off the junk we are eating. Junk food i.e. biscuits are WAY to affordable here... AND everything is like 3 for a pound etc... I decided to buy some water to drink today which I have been seriously neglecting to drink but our 3 year old!!!!!!! yup he turned 3 a few days ago, decided the grass needed watering. So down went 3 bottles of the water.
At this moment I am not sure of our plans for tomorrow. Oh yes, Dean is just reminding me, we've run out of gas so Kircaldy is the one place we can get a new bottle (according to the internet). So that is where we are heading. We drove over an hour to get here today and haven't actually seen anything in this little town so I think that we may explore tomorrow otherwise it's been a waste to come here. I am just feeling so exhausted though and I must be honest and say I LONG for my king size bed back home and my Friday night TV. Sob!
Well on that note. It's time to go to sleep. Boys are still awake but not for long. I am hoping that we can watch the dvd "The Queen"now.
We'd love to hear from you all. Till Next Time then.....
Sunday, 19 August 2007
From a wet Scotland patch of grass
Well ello everyone. We've pulled in for the night at a CL site in Perth, Scotland with no real plans for the next few days, but to restore some energy, and then attack Glasgow with recharged batteries. Of course the kids dont suffer from this affliction, and right now find our need to settle in one place for longer than 3 hours, a bit of a bore. Luckily they can play Playstation in the campervan, since we are hooked up on 220V for the night. (something that has obviously become more important to them since we borrowed the tv from our friends in England). Yes, we know we might be bad parents allowing them to play tv games while sitting under a lovely Scottish rock cliff with a castle perched on the brim, BUT, YOU try spending 24x7 with our 3 lovely lads, and believe you me, you would have considered buying them each PSPs by now...a temptation we have successfully avoided...so far....ha ha ha ...aarrghhh.
ok, some info on the past 2 days? We visited the Loch Lomond area, Stirling, Stirling castle, the old jail, Crieff, and walked behind a mass piper band as it moved down the high street of the town, police cars leading with flashing lights. Tanner looked like a camoflaged Smurf, since it was pouring with rain and we were all decked out in our plastic ponchos. (spot the tourists!) Of course we were the only ones who walked to the top of the street and proceded to join the back of the band. This was purely to extract every ounce of entertainment from the rain-sodden day, no worries that we had to walk a hell of a long way up the hill to start with...just to come back down again....:)
The old jail in Stirling was cool, ....they had a live jailer/actor who popped out unexpectedly and we almost peed ourselves :) ( did you read our last blog about the pee-ing misunderstanding?)
Which brings me to the next subject. Pee-ing. Our camper van toilet is almost over-flowing. CLs, dont have toilet discharge points, so it is getting a little cramped. Tanner keeps needing to peee. We keep telling him, he cant! Next minute, kid number 2, needs a number 2. We tell them, you cant!
They are looking kind of bloated this evening :) We hope to deliver our natural products back to nature in the near future, but we can guarantee, we have only digested chocolate biscuits, bran cereals, and a few chemically enhanced foodstuffs.
Marielle has told me to move off this crappy subject, so without getting myself deeper into it, we shall trudge on.
We are still in Scotland. We are not leaving Scotland, ever.....until Marielle has had her fill of Pipe bands and short kilts. We estimate that we'll be leaving this beautiful part of the world, in about a week, after seeing 200 pipe bands in Kelso, do their thing :)
We peeked into a caravan today. It had a full size bathroom with a glass shower door. That might not sound special to you lot, but after making do in a cramped shower/toilet/dressing room, the caravan looked VERY enticing. Yes, there were lots of reasons to go for a motorhome in the first place, but having travelled from SA, the exchange rate meant we had to lose some of the luxuries. (Please send donations, so we can buy a bigger van :))
We are all doing fine. Kids are in good health. I have the sniffles and a bit of a cold, but M is well. Tomorrow we head for the Fife area just to do some sightsee-ing. (east coast of Scotland).
missing friends and family, but having a grooovy time :)
bye for now.
d
ps...pleaseeeee mail us.
ok, some info on the past 2 days? We visited the Loch Lomond area, Stirling, Stirling castle, the old jail, Crieff, and walked behind a mass piper band as it moved down the high street of the town, police cars leading with flashing lights. Tanner looked like a camoflaged Smurf, since it was pouring with rain and we were all decked out in our plastic ponchos. (spot the tourists!) Of course we were the only ones who walked to the top of the street and proceded to join the back of the band. This was purely to extract every ounce of entertainment from the rain-sodden day, no worries that we had to walk a hell of a long way up the hill to start with...just to come back down again....:)
The old jail in Stirling was cool, ....they had a live jailer/actor who popped out unexpectedly and we almost peed ourselves :) ( did you read our last blog about the pee-ing misunderstanding?)
Which brings me to the next subject. Pee-ing. Our camper van toilet is almost over-flowing. CLs, dont have toilet discharge points, so it is getting a little cramped. Tanner keeps needing to peee. We keep telling him, he cant! Next minute, kid number 2, needs a number 2. We tell them, you cant!
They are looking kind of bloated this evening :) We hope to deliver our natural products back to nature in the near future, but we can guarantee, we have only digested chocolate biscuits, bran cereals, and a few chemically enhanced foodstuffs.
Marielle has told me to move off this crappy subject, so without getting myself deeper into it, we shall trudge on.
We are still in Scotland. We are not leaving Scotland, ever.....until Marielle has had her fill of Pipe bands and short kilts. We estimate that we'll be leaving this beautiful part of the world, in about a week, after seeing 200 pipe bands in Kelso, do their thing :)
We peeked into a caravan today. It had a full size bathroom with a glass shower door. That might not sound special to you lot, but after making do in a cramped shower/toilet/dressing room, the caravan looked VERY enticing. Yes, there were lots of reasons to go for a motorhome in the first place, but having travelled from SA, the exchange rate meant we had to lose some of the luxuries. (Please send donations, so we can buy a bigger van :))
We are all doing fine. Kids are in good health. I have the sniffles and a bit of a cold, but M is well. Tomorrow we head for the Fife area just to do some sightsee-ing. (east coast of Scotland).
missing friends and family, but having a grooovy time :)
bye for now.
d
ps...pleaseeeee mail us.
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
Marielle 14Aug Blog :)
Hi All. My turn to blog. It's 11:45 our time now and Dean has passed out. Yup, can you believe he is sleeping before I am.
Before I move on to what we did today I have a little story to tell which Dean didn't mention in his last blog.
The morning after we had stayed on the Rugby Field in Alnwick, Dean had gone for a walk out the van leaving me tucked up in the upper bed cab with the 3 kids squabbling over something or another. He had been gone a few minutes when there was a knock at the camper door. I asked Jesse to open the window to see who it was. The man on the other side of the window promptly looked up at Jesse and said "have you pee'd yet?" - Jesse dropped the curtain and gave me this really blank confused look. So I told him to ask the man what he said, so the man said "have you pee'd yet?", now at this moment (while I'm laying up in the bed), I think, gosh this man is either being just rude or is joking with the kids. So I stick my head down through the window and say "No I have not" - still wondering what on earth is he going on about (of course you now know what I am thinking). He then says "well I think it's about time you do"- I don't know what he thought when he saw the shocked look on my face, but then the penny did drop - he was asking me "have you paid yet?" to which I promptly said, yes my husband did last night"- All I can think of is he must have been thinking - "these foreigners!!!!"- when he left I was in absolute hysterics and couldn't wait to tell Dean.
Okay back to today.
Today we got off to a fairly late start, Dean had some work to do, then we had to find a place to do some laundry - well 2 hours later and after the kids had done some schoolwork we finally made our way back into Edinburgh and parked our vat at 4pm. Ridiculous I know!
We walked into the main city centre. This time of year in Edinburgh is absolutely amazing. There is a festival called the FRINGE Festival (don't know what it stands for) and it includes, street mimes; music in the streets; balancing acts and so much more. There is something new every which way you turn and about every 30 metres. We have taken lots of photos which we hope to share with you soon. Of course my favourite. is the bag piping, sadly though I have note seen any full band processions just a lonesome piper on the side of the road.
Edinburgh is a beautiful city - very dark, because all the buildings are dark, but the buildings are absolutely stunning. The weather is also another story altogether. One minute the sun is shining and the next minute it is raining, then in the next minute it's shining again with not a single cloud in sight. We are very glad we bought our raincoat ponchos before we left the U.K. the first time. We look like something like the Adams family with them on but they are keeping us dry.
Our two days in Edinburgh have left us with wanting to stay longer but we know that we have to move on.
Today we stayed from 4pm until 9:30pm walking around and really just enjoying ourselves. We stopped for a bit to have some supper. Treated ourselves to a meal out - K.F.C. - whoopee!!!! and we sat for about 45 minutes while we ate but other than that we have walked a slow pace all day.
We eventually walked back to our van at about 9:45pm, made the boys some tea and made up the beds and headed back to the CL (Certified Location) that we were staying at hoping that they had kept a place for us. We got here at about 10:30pm only to find there was place but we could not reach the electricity plug point.
The boys are fast asleep which is where I am about headed.
Oh just one more thing.
As we reach the camper van tonight after our long walk, I'm about to take Jetan out his pram and he looks up at me and says "Have you pee'd yet?"- Well this just finished us off and kept us chuckling all the way back to the farm.
I hope you've enjoyed reading this, Dean will blog soon I am sure.
Before I move on to what we did today I have a little story to tell which Dean didn't mention in his last blog.
The morning after we had stayed on the Rugby Field in Alnwick, Dean had gone for a walk out the van leaving me tucked up in the upper bed cab with the 3 kids squabbling over something or another. He had been gone a few minutes when there was a knock at the camper door. I asked Jesse to open the window to see who it was. The man on the other side of the window promptly looked up at Jesse and said "have you pee'd yet?" - Jesse dropped the curtain and gave me this really blank confused look. So I told him to ask the man what he said, so the man said "have you pee'd yet?", now at this moment (while I'm laying up in the bed), I think, gosh this man is either being just rude or is joking with the kids. So I stick my head down through the window and say "No I have not" - still wondering what on earth is he going on about (of course you now know what I am thinking). He then says "well I think it's about time you do"- I don't know what he thought when he saw the shocked look on my face, but then the penny did drop - he was asking me "have you paid yet?" to which I promptly said, yes my husband did last night"- All I can think of is he must have been thinking - "these foreigners!!!!"- when he left I was in absolute hysterics and couldn't wait to tell Dean.
Okay back to today.
Today we got off to a fairly late start, Dean had some work to do, then we had to find a place to do some laundry - well 2 hours later and after the kids had done some schoolwork we finally made our way back into Edinburgh and parked our vat at 4pm. Ridiculous I know!
We walked into the main city centre. This time of year in Edinburgh is absolutely amazing. There is a festival called the FRINGE Festival (don't know what it stands for) and it includes, street mimes; music in the streets; balancing acts and so much more. There is something new every which way you turn and about every 30 metres. We have taken lots of photos which we hope to share with you soon. Of course my favourite. is the bag piping, sadly though I have note seen any full band processions just a lonesome piper on the side of the road.
Edinburgh is a beautiful city - very dark, because all the buildings are dark, but the buildings are absolutely stunning. The weather is also another story altogether. One minute the sun is shining and the next minute it is raining, then in the next minute it's shining again with not a single cloud in sight. We are very glad we bought our raincoat ponchos before we left the U.K. the first time. We look like something like the Adams family with them on but they are keeping us dry.
Our two days in Edinburgh have left us with wanting to stay longer but we know that we have to move on.
Today we stayed from 4pm until 9:30pm walking around and really just enjoying ourselves. We stopped for a bit to have some supper. Treated ourselves to a meal out - K.F.C. - whoopee!!!! and we sat for about 45 minutes while we ate but other than that we have walked a slow pace all day.
We eventually walked back to our van at about 9:45pm, made the boys some tea and made up the beds and headed back to the CL (Certified Location) that we were staying at hoping that they had kept a place for us. We got here at about 10:30pm only to find there was place but we could not reach the electricity plug point.
The boys are fast asleep which is where I am about headed.
Oh just one more thing.
As we reach the camper van tonight after our long walk, I'm about to take Jetan out his pram and he looks up at me and says "Have you pee'd yet?"- Well this just finished us off and kept us chuckling all the way back to the farm.
I hope you've enjoyed reading this, Dean will blog soon I am sure.
Sunday, 12 August 2007
Dean's Catchup Blog - North to Scotland
ello ello ello :)
Well, we attended the long awaited wedding of Sam and Matthew in Norton, Stockton-on Tees, and spent a wonderful 2 weeks recharging, making new friends, and fixing up the camper van. I made a few changes to make our lives on the road a little more comfortable, like bolting the invertor behind one of the chairs, re-assigning storage places for the outside table and chairs, sectioned off the shower/toilet floor so water no longer gets caught under the toilet if the van is on a slope, and put in two new speakers for the sound system so we can enjoy better sound quality. I built a small shelving area for the kids playstation games, and small DVD player we bought. (Silly actually...because we have ended up playing DVDs on the laptop anyway.)
We left Norton 2 days ago, first stop was Durham, and Olde Worlde medievil town with a beautiful river, and an even more awesome cathedral, built a thousand years ago, and still operating today as a church, with services every week. I had the feeling that just as some people travel to Mecca for their spiritual needs, this Cathedral was, for me, one of those places...a place where people have prayed for a thousand years. The awesomeness of the building itself, was greater than the Eifel tower. The ceilings , pillars, and carvings were from another time. It was one of the highlights of my trip.
We stayed overnight on a CL near Durham, and woke the next morning at 10am. It was a farmers field with haybales strewn all over, so the kids had a lot of fun. Left at 2pm, and made our way further north, drove through Newcastle, but decided we didnt want to walk through city streets at this point, so we carried on driving, and reached Alnwick, another small old town. We found a bunch of motorhomes and caravans on the local rugy fields, and paid 8pounds for the luxury of a spot alongside them. The van leisure battery was by now starting to fade fast (kids insisted on playing playstation while the van was on the road), so luckily I quickly grabbed a spare electrical point when an early leaver packed up their tent, and the battery recharged before we left. We booked in at a CL in Scotland, in Haddington. Looking out our window right now, we can see fields of wheat, a stallion in a field, an angry goose, and ten motherly hens. Marielle is cleaning up the remains of some dirty dishes, and the kids are banished to sit and wait, till cereal is served. Glad to say we still have Internet access in Scotland, although the weather has gotten a bit chilly. We decided to stay here 2 nights, and begin a few days of seeing Edinburgh. No rush to leave this part of the country. It is really beautiful and my expectations are high.
more from me soon:)
D
Well, we attended the long awaited wedding of Sam and Matthew in Norton, Stockton-on Tees, and spent a wonderful 2 weeks recharging, making new friends, and fixing up the camper van. I made a few changes to make our lives on the road a little more comfortable, like bolting the invertor behind one of the chairs, re-assigning storage places for the outside table and chairs, sectioned off the shower/toilet floor so water no longer gets caught under the toilet if the van is on a slope, and put in two new speakers for the sound system so we can enjoy better sound quality. I built a small shelving area for the kids playstation games, and small DVD player we bought. (Silly actually...because we have ended up playing DVDs on the laptop anyway.)
We left Norton 2 days ago, first stop was Durham, and Olde Worlde medievil town with a beautiful river, and an even more awesome cathedral, built a thousand years ago, and still operating today as a church, with services every week. I had the feeling that just as some people travel to Mecca for their spiritual needs, this Cathedral was, for me, one of those places...a place where people have prayed for a thousand years. The awesomeness of the building itself, was greater than the Eifel tower. The ceilings , pillars, and carvings were from another time. It was one of the highlights of my trip.
We stayed overnight on a CL near Durham, and woke the next morning at 10am. It was a farmers field with haybales strewn all over, so the kids had a lot of fun. Left at 2pm, and made our way further north, drove through Newcastle, but decided we didnt want to walk through city streets at this point, so we carried on driving, and reached Alnwick, another small old town. We found a bunch of motorhomes and caravans on the local rugy fields, and paid 8pounds for the luxury of a spot alongside them. The van leisure battery was by now starting to fade fast (kids insisted on playing playstation while the van was on the road), so luckily I quickly grabbed a spare electrical point when an early leaver packed up their tent, and the battery recharged before we left. We booked in at a CL in Scotland, in Haddington. Looking out our window right now, we can see fields of wheat, a stallion in a field, an angry goose, and ten motherly hens. Marielle is cleaning up the remains of some dirty dishes, and the kids are banished to sit and wait, till cereal is served. Glad to say we still have Internet access in Scotland, although the weather has gotten a bit chilly. We decided to stay here 2 nights, and begin a few days of seeing Edinburgh. No rush to leave this part of the country. It is really beautiful and my expectations are high.
more from me soon:)
D
Friday, 10 August 2007
Marielle's catchup blog - about the 20July.
Well Dean has rambled on and on about his shower experience tonight so I have decided to update you on what we've been up to.
The last time I blogged, I left off when we were goint to drive down to South Hampton. The next 3 days or so are going to be very brief because I actually can't remember everything, as we have stopped at so many places. SO here goes.
Tuesday night - Haven't got a clue where we stayed!!!
On Wednesday we went to Portsmouth and went to the Historic dockyard. This was a lot of fun especially the tour on the HMS Victory. This is the ship on which Lord Nelson died during the battle of Trafalgar. The kids enjoyed this day out. We also went on a ferry ride around the harbour. Later that day we were once again on the hunt for a place to sleep. We eventually found a little farm in a place called Chichester. It was just an open field but we had electricity so that was good.
On Thursday we had decided to drive through The New Forest. This was beautiful and we would recommend it to anyone. Lining the roads were cows and sheep and horses all living as one happy family. I must say that the cows were very bold and promptly came right up to the van and just stared at us. We were able to get out the van and sit about 1m away from the cows. We were a bit nervous at first until we saw a little old lady walking amongst the cows with her little dog.
On Thursday night we parked the van at another CL - Sorry can't remember where! . In the morning, we decided to empty our toilet but this was easier said than done. The waste "bin" was not the same as the ones we are used to (normally you can just drive over them and empty your bin directly into the ground), this one was slightly elevated off the ground, so we had the problem of having to find something to lay on the ground that Dean could drive onto in order to make the van higher. Well this never worked. It had rained a lot the night before and as Dean tried to reverse, the tyres spun round and round and the harder he tried to either go backwards and forewards he just kept on sinking deeper. So he says to me - can I please go to the back of the van and push!!!! I stared at him open-mouthed but decided I had better do what he says - of course my attempts were futile. We eventually decide that I am going to push from the front and Jesse and Tanner jump out to help. We manage to push the van back and then quickly jump out the way so that Dean can accelerate forward. Well we never got to dispose of the contents of our toilet that day.
We found a CL to stay the night on Friday night in a place called Brockenhurst.. Unfortunately we could not have electricity for the night as these sites were all taken up. It poured with rain and we were pretty much housebound or should I say Car-bound.
Dean woke up at 6am in the morning and drove from Chichester to Weston-Super-Mare.By now I was desperate to do some washing in a machine and NOT by hand so I insist on sleeping in a proper camping site for the night. We make our way to one and are told that they have no hardstands left and cannot accommodate us because the ground is too mushy. After our experience the day before, we don't argue but they are kind enough to let us go in and use the laundry facilities. This takes about 2 hrs in total and about R75.00 later I come out smiling with clean and dry laundry.
We finally make our way to Bristol which is bringing us closer to our destination which is Bath.
In the last 6 days we have stayed at a different place each night, with last night being the first time we have chosen to stay in the same place for 2 nights. I guess I kinda insisted on this as the moving about each day was getting a bit tiring especially for Jetan as this has really intereferred with any routines. Okay to go back a bit...
Yesterday we arrived in a part of Bristol called Weston.... We found a CL here called Gorselands (this is a cheaper version of a campsite and you can camp here if you are part of the Caravan Club. Still pricey at 10 pounds a night but much better than spending 22 - 30 pounds in a caravan parkThis is a nice CL as it does have a toilet/shower block as you would have already heard about in Dean's blog which he has just posted tonight.
Today we woke up at about 9:30am - terrible I know!!! and Dean made us scrambled eggs and bacon - (I guess we can expect some snow very soon). At about 1:30pm we decided we had better visit a bit of this town. We headed towards the beach and found a parking. Overseas you pay for ALL parking, even if it is not covered parking. This one today cost us 1 pound per hour - that's R15.00!!! When we were in the Netherlands, someone complained that they had to pay 20cents (R2.00 per hour) for parking. Well they would get a big shock if they came to the U.K BUT at least in the U.K. the jolly toilets don't cost an arm and a leg like they do in the Netherlands. Anyway back to today..... The parking we found already had quite a few camper vans parked but boy were they GORGEOUS vans. Some of them looked like a hotel on wheels.
We took a walk to what they call the Grand Pier. This pier was lovely and the tide was about 300-400 m out. Will ask Dean to upload pics of today. We spent a few hours walking around and eventually came home - well that's a joke, HOME was parked in the parking lot :) Decided to cook a decent supper at about 7:30 pm and now all our little "angels" are fast asleep. It is now 1am and Dean and I are both sitting with our Pc's playing catch up.
Tomorrow we need to empty our loo (proving to be rather difficult if not staying in a caravan park) and then we head for Bath and thereafter Cardiff in Walesnand by Thursday we will be making our way back up to Stockton-on-Tees. Need to be there by Friday for Sam's bridal shower.
The last time I blogged, I left off when we were goint to drive down to South Hampton. The next 3 days or so are going to be very brief because I actually can't remember everything, as we have stopped at so many places. SO here goes.
Tuesday night - Haven't got a clue where we stayed!!!
On Wednesday we went to Portsmouth and went to the Historic dockyard. This was a lot of fun especially the tour on the HMS Victory. This is the ship on which Lord Nelson died during the battle of Trafalgar. The kids enjoyed this day out. We also went on a ferry ride around the harbour. Later that day we were once again on the hunt for a place to sleep. We eventually found a little farm in a place called Chichester. It was just an open field but we had electricity so that was good.
On Thursday we had decided to drive through The New Forest. This was beautiful and we would recommend it to anyone. Lining the roads were cows and sheep and horses all living as one happy family. I must say that the cows were very bold and promptly came right up to the van and just stared at us. We were able to get out the van and sit about 1m away from the cows. We were a bit nervous at first until we saw a little old lady walking amongst the cows with her little dog.
On Thursday night we parked the van at another CL - Sorry can't remember where! . In the morning, we decided to empty our toilet but this was easier said than done. The waste "bin" was not the same as the ones we are used to (normally you can just drive over them and empty your bin directly into the ground), this one was slightly elevated off the ground, so we had the problem of having to find something to lay on the ground that Dean could drive onto in order to make the van higher. Well this never worked. It had rained a lot the night before and as Dean tried to reverse, the tyres spun round and round and the harder he tried to either go backwards and forewards he just kept on sinking deeper. So he says to me - can I please go to the back of the van and push!!!! I stared at him open-mouthed but decided I had better do what he says - of course my attempts were futile. We eventually decide that I am going to push from the front and Jesse and Tanner jump out to help. We manage to push the van back and then quickly jump out the way so that Dean can accelerate forward. Well we never got to dispose of the contents of our toilet that day.
We found a CL to stay the night on Friday night in a place called Brockenhurst.. Unfortunately we could not have electricity for the night as these sites were all taken up. It poured with rain and we were pretty much housebound or should I say Car-bound.
Dean woke up at 6am in the morning and drove from Chichester to Weston-Super-Mare.By now I was desperate to do some washing in a machine and NOT by hand so I insist on sleeping in a proper camping site for the night. We make our way to one and are told that they have no hardstands left and cannot accommodate us because the ground is too mushy. After our experience the day before, we don't argue but they are kind enough to let us go in and use the laundry facilities. This takes about 2 hrs in total and about R75.00 later I come out smiling with clean and dry laundry.
We finally make our way to Bristol which is bringing us closer to our destination which is Bath.
In the last 6 days we have stayed at a different place each night, with last night being the first time we have chosen to stay in the same place for 2 nights. I guess I kinda insisted on this as the moving about each day was getting a bit tiring especially for Jetan as this has really intereferred with any routines. Okay to go back a bit...
Yesterday we arrived in a part of Bristol called Weston.... We found a CL here called Gorselands (this is a cheaper version of a campsite and you can camp here if you are part of the Caravan Club. Still pricey at 10 pounds a night but much better than spending 22 - 30 pounds in a caravan parkThis is a nice CL as it does have a toilet/shower block as you would have already heard about in Dean's blog which he has just posted tonight.
Today we woke up at about 9:30am - terrible I know!!! and Dean made us scrambled eggs and bacon - (I guess we can expect some snow very soon). At about 1:30pm we decided we had better visit a bit of this town. We headed towards the beach and found a parking. Overseas you pay for ALL parking, even if it is not covered parking. This one today cost us 1 pound per hour - that's R15.00!!! When we were in the Netherlands, someone complained that they had to pay 20cents (R2.00 per hour) for parking. Well they would get a big shock if they came to the U.K BUT at least in the U.K. the jolly toilets don't cost an arm and a leg like they do in the Netherlands. Anyway back to today..... The parking we found already had quite a few camper vans parked but boy were they GORGEOUS vans. Some of them looked like a hotel on wheels.
We took a walk to what they call the Grand Pier. This pier was lovely and the tide was about 300-400 m out. Will ask Dean to upload pics of today. We spent a few hours walking around and eventually came home - well that's a joke, HOME was parked in the parking lot :) Decided to cook a decent supper at about 7:30 pm and now all our little "angels" are fast asleep. It is now 1am and Dean and I are both sitting with our Pc's playing catch up.
Tomorrow we need to empty our loo (proving to be rather difficult if not staying in a caravan park) and then we head for Bath and thereafter Cardiff in Walesnand by Thursday we will be making our way back up to Stockton-on-Tees. Need to be there by Friday for Sam's bridal shower.
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