The Grand Tour of Europe
WITH the prospect of becoming an old age pensioner looming closer (it's only a matter of days away now) Gina and I thought we'd do something to mark the occasion.
For the first time in our married life, all forty-three years of it, we're taking an extended break from our day-to-day routine and heading off in our campervan without any fixed plan for an objective or final destination.
We've been using campervans virtually all of our married lives, espcially when our two sons were growing up, and in the past few years we 'progressed' from an old Renault Traffic home conversion to a brand new Romahome R40 and then an ever larger Elddis motorhome.
The disatrous Romahome R40
We loved the Romahome's lay-out but the Romahome didn't love us so much and it behaved badly almost from day one. It ended up costing us thousands and the company only made the R40 model for a couple of years which would suggest they got it wrong in the first place.
Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, from having to renew all the habitation electronics to virtually renewing the internal heater. Every trip away became a test of nerves, wondering what would go wrong this time?
When we thought we had replaced just about everything we sold it and I'm delighted that the couple who bought it appear to be more favoured than we were. They're loving it...
The Elddis - too big for highland roads
We then bought a larger motorhome, but it was a bit of a disaster too. We both felt it was too big, especially for narrow highland roads and we only kept it for a few months before part exchanging it for our present camper, our Hyundai 1800 Wellhouse conversion.
Compared with the problem-ridden Romahome the Hyundai is a joy. It's smaller, drives like a car and can be parked like a car. The 2.5 turbo diesel engine means it's no slouch on motorways and inside it has all the comfort we need, including a porta-potty, a fridge, a grill and oven and a pop-up roof.
It's definitely not a motorhome - it's campervan, and there's a huge difference between the two.
The iconic campervan is of course the VW Transpoirter, celebrating its 60th year in production. We've had a few VW's in our time but the iconic status tends to go hand in hand with cost. VW's are not cheap and our Hyundai offers all the benefits of a VW sized campervan but at a much rediced price.
Additionally the Wellhouse conversion is quite superb - marvellous craftmanship that is lacking in many of the ad-hoc conversions that you see in VW's today.
Our current pride and joy - a similar size to the iconic VW Transporter
We've taken campervans to Europe before, but usually just to the Alps. This time we want to go further afield. We thought we'd mix a bit of old and new so we'll be visiting places we've been before - Bruges, the Julian Alps of Slovenia, the Alps and in particular Chamonix and Zermatt (although I doubt if I'll get up the Matterhorn again) with some new destinations like Germany, Austria (the Tyrol) Croatia and the Italian Lakes.
It all sounds like a pensioner's Grand Tour but we'll be hiking as often as we can and hiring bikes whenever we can.
But more than anything we just want to be campervanman and woman for a few weeks. We just love the lifestyle. Choosing where to stop for the night, eating outside in the sun or having a barbeque with a bottle of wine before a relaxed evening of reading or watching dvds. Next morning it can be an early start or a more relaxed approach to the day, depending on how far we want to travel that day. Often we won't travel at all but simply go for a walk, ride a bike or simply become tourists for the day and take photographs.
For those of you who think I've abandoned wild camping in a tent I can assure you I haven't. That's enjoyed mostly on a bike these days, but the campervan allows me to journey on roads less travelled, roads that take me to special out-of-the-way places where I can walk, bike or packraft. It's just another way of exploring the wild places of our land, and further afield.
And it would be wrong of me not to tell you that my knees and feet are not what they were a few years ago when 15-20 mile day after day were the norm. Sometimes you just have to accept increasing age as a concept and adapt to it, and using a campervan has allowed me to do that.
All going well I'll keep a blog of the trip and bore you all with tales of wall to wall sunshine, high temperatures and good food, but there again, Sod's Law being what it is, the weather in Scotland will probably improve dramatically as soon as we leave these shores and I'm as aware as anyone that when the weather is good in Scotland, there's nowhere in the world can beat it.
However, after a miserably cold, wet and windy winter and spring my ageing bones are longing for warmth and sunshine. Hopefully we'll get some in Europe...
