Category Archives: The Big Trip – Getting Ready

Time to smell the roses

On display at Cass
On display at Cass

In the foyer of the building where I work, there’s a Tony Cragg sculpture. I think of this when asked about our big trip which starts very soon. ‘Where are you looking forward to going to most of all?’ is a frequent question.

Why I’m reminded of the sculpture is because  I first heard of Cragg a couple of years back just after we bought the van. We took it out for a drive into deepest Surrey and stumbled upon the Cass Sculpture Foundation in Goodwood. It’s an amazing place and we idled a pleasant few hours wandering through the parkland dotted with  massive sculptures, including some by Cragg. Reading up about him in the visitor centre, I discovered he had a piece on display in my office block. Really?

So that Monday I went through the foyer as usual but this time looked around me and there it was – an enormous stainless steel construction spiralling up the ceiling. I’d been passing it every morning without seeing it, while doing the commuter juggle of  walking, texting, fumbling in bag for security pass and sipping skinny americano.

Eerie statues in the woods..more from Cass
Eerie statues in the woods..more from Cass

I went up to it, read that it was called Constant Change, studied it for a few minutes and thought about how important it is to just stop sometimes and smell the flowers and how it had taken the van to bring us to a place miles away to see something I’d been oblivious to every morning of my working week.

Back at my desk I passed on this deep, philosophical insight to my colleague. ‘Oh yeah,  the thing with all the faces,’ he said. ‘Faces? Really?  I say. I went back to have another look.

Anyway, that’s the answer to the question what are we looking forward to seeing most on our van journey which will cover 21 countries. It’s wherever we happen to be. Except now we will have time to stop and see.

Ok enough of that.

Still life with van
Still life with van – Molly at Cass

 

Pink Tasks or Blue Tasks – division of labour VW-style

I can’t remember whose campervan blog we read which divided everything that needs to be done in the van into ‘blue’ and ‘pink’ tasks. Apologies but we’ve shamelessly copied it for what we need to do preparing for 12 months on the road.
Just over two weeks to D* day and Stuart’s list (that’s the blue one if you are too young to remember when boy babies were automatically dressed in blue) has an impressive number of crossed out completed tasks. My pink list is still a healthy length. As well as the admin stuff involved in leaving your house/job/life behind for a year, my van tasks involve stocking the kitchen cupboard with equipment and staple ingredients – in a post-feminist ironic sort of way obviously.
Anything to do with this...definitely a Blue task
Anything to do with this…definitely a blue task

 

Our different pace to working through our respective lists reminds me of an exercise we had to do on a work training course – the sort you go on to transform you from sloth to dynamo in 4 hours including introductions and a lunch break. The  course leader asked us to imagine we had a project you knew took three days  and the deadline was the 30th of the month. Then pointing to the back wall she said ‘. ‘Now go stand beside the day you’d start working on it’.
We obediently swung round to see that the width of the back wall was plastered with a strip of post it notes numbered 1-30. After a moment’s hesitation at day 27, I settled on day 25. One brave soul stood at day 28. ‘I’ll do an all nighter.” she said. Bafflingly at least 3 people stood beside  day 1. What’s that about? Didn’t they have any other work to do? Most huddled round no 15- 17. I reckon if Stuart did the course that’s where he’d be standing.
Testing the new drive away awning - a pink task
Testing the new drive away awning – a pink task

 

All now positioned by our chosen Post Its we looked expectantly at the trainer for the ‘right’ answer. Turns out there wasn’t one. As long as the job gets done, it shouldn’t matter when you start. The aim of the exercise was simply to highlight how challenging it must be if you are  a ‘day 2’ person managing a ‘day 18-er’ or more stress-inducingly a ‘day 28-er’. I remind Stuart of this ‘no right answer’ message when he looks anxiously at my list. Sure there’s plenty of time yet. Dinnae fash yersel.
*departure date 28 September sailing from Portsmouth to Bilbao
Tethering the drive away awning to terra firma in the face of the gale blowing in from the Atlantic to Clifden - a blue task. Also blue, the task of throwing the awning away when the wind ripped a hole through it making it unusable.
Tethering the drive away awning to terra firma in the face of the gale blowing in from the Atlantic to Clifden – a blue task. Also blue, the task of throwing the awning away when the wind ripped a hole through it making it unusable.

 

All tasks relating to cooking are Pink tasks..like this Remoska casserole
All tasks relating to cooking are Pink tasks..like this Remoska casserole

 

..and this fish supper.
..and this fish supper.
..and this boudin blanc dish. Another use for the Remoska.
..and this boudin blanc dish. Another use for the Remoska.
All the driving is a blue task
All the driving is a blue task

 

And all the navigation is pink
And all the navigation is pink, subject to the understanding that on the road there are no wrong turns and no such concept as ‘lost’.

Into The Wild (camp shower)

Wild camping will be challenging in our T25 because while our van has many wonderful qualities, an en-suite bathroom is not one of them. Drawing a discreet veil over toilet arrangements, here’s how we propose to keep clean when we are out in the wilderness or staying on a campsite where the facilities are a tad basic. It’s a shower kit we’ve just bought from www.campervanculture.com for about £150. Continue reading Into The Wild (camp shower)

Journey’s End – Planning it Already?

So we booked the start of our journey some time ago, a Brittany Ferries trip from Portsmouth to Bilbao departing in late September. (Less than 90 days to go and counting). And now we have also booked our ferry for the end of the trip (well almost) to take us from Denmark to Iceland and back.

If you’ve seen Trapped, the recent Scandi-noir thriller set in Iceland (very good), then you’ll already be familiar with the MS Norrona as it plays a key role in the drama. It is the only ferry to Iceland and it looks very large and the Icelandic port looks very small. Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (he is very large too) will soon be a household name- well perhaps not.image

Randi, our Smyril Line Travel Consultant has been very helpful with suggesting options and pricing so we’ve opted to go for the stop over in the Faroes and the luxury of a cabin with a window. We now have a confirmed booking to depart in August 2017  from Hirtshals at the top of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark, stopping at Toshavn and spending a week in the Faroes and then on to Seydisfjodur in Iceland for two weeks. Then it’s a direct sail back to Denmark giving us three nights aboard. Plenty of time to reflect on the year of travel that will be almost over by then.

At about 2500 euros plus meals (and perhaps the occasional beverage) this is by far the most expensive part of our trip but we reckon well worth it and the trip will be a great way to end our year. After all, how many people do you know who have campervanned in the Faroes?
Posted by Stuart

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CSI Van-style

 

The beautifying of the van continues….this week’s task was to remove the really skanky carpet in the footwells and around the gear stick and replace it with black rubber. Here’s how:

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Step 1

Pull up the carpet from around the gear stick. Stop a moment to admire how smart the footwells look now they’ve been covered. Don’t angst too much over the hole you accidentally poked in the rubber bit around the gear stick with the scissors. Not sure what that does anyway.

Step 2

Lay the carpet over the rubber and draw a rough template in chalk CSI-style. Cut out and glue down.

A triumph. (Vauxhall actually)

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Pattern cutting on the patio
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The chalked out template
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The finished work – especially for you Colin 🙂

 

The capsule wardrobe challenge is looming

 

I’ve never quite managed the art of the ‘capsule’ holiday wardrobe – you know the sort of packing advice you get in women’s mags where you are assured that with a few carefully co-ordinated pieces you can glide from beach to poolside cocktail party with one artful twist of a sarong and an accent colour cardi. But the big trip is getting closer and the challenge involved in packing enough clothes for a year on the road with no space is clear. So how do I get this….
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..into this?
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With all the other stuff we’ve got to carry inside the van, it is looking like my clothes storage is going to consist of one and possibly half of another of these plastic boxes. That ain’t much. Apparently the secret is to squash everything into these Tardis-like Eagle Creek zip up holders. We’ll see.