A New Adventure in France

Well, 4 months travelling in a campervan didn’t put us off last year and, in fact, it made us think seriously about how we could do some more long-term travelling as and when that becomes possible. So we bit the bullet and decided that Claire would give up work to enable that to happen. Not a decision to be taken lightly but we decided to grab the opportunity while we can. So Claire finished work at the end of May and, with Joe’s usual eagerness to be off and underway, we were on the road on 1st June. At present we’re obviously limited pretty much to UK travel but we hope that we’ll get to Europe sometime later this year – more of that to come. For our UK trip we’re starting in Cornwall, coming back via Devon then Somerset and other locations up the West coast. We have sites booked but can be flexible depending on how other plans work out.

Last year’s travels gave us time to think about our ‘outfit’, i.e the campervan, trailer, etc and how they all worked for us. We thought about the options of a larger Motorhome but decided that we like the flexibility and nimbleness of our VW camper van which has a good spec and powerful engine – important for towing the motorbike. The turbo problem that reared its head while we were in France didn’t go away so we had the turbo replaced and, fingers crossed, the van runs sweetly. Having seen on various French campsites how other people travelled with motorbikes, etc. we decided to buy a streamlined lightweight Debon box trailer which provides more protection for the bike plus additional storage down the sides of the bike for awning and accessories, camp beds, bike clothing, inflatable kayak, cuddly toy, etc! That allowed us to do away with the roof box and keeps the van much emptier for overnight stops en route. Otherwise we’re pretty much following the formula from last year. We had the opportunity to test everything out with a week away in Yorkshire in May and we’re very pleased with how it all worked and how the trailer towed.

So, first stop Cornwall…