England – Page 2 – Vicki & Scot in Europe

Double Trouble

I don’t like to post negative things on the blog but its all part of the experience. We have run Into trouble with the van after we decided we should get a habitation check (gas, electricity, appliances etc) done before we leave England as it runs out In 4 months and we didn’t want the hassle of getting one done in Scandinavia. We organised one in Harrogate. We have been told the gas can’t have been checked in 12 years as there is no test valve so we cant quite understand how it has been ticked off in the past. However this is being rectified tomorrow so the gas system can be tested fully before we head to Europe. Also had the side wall of the van pull away from the toilet and cupboards inside. We were told the side of the van could fall off if not fixed . I don’t think the weather lends itself to open air living here and I don’t fancy being caught on the loo in the open either so we are in the process of doing some fixes for this. We are confident it will all be resolved this coming week. We didn’t expect to have a problem free vehicle either as it is 15 years old and one can’t expect it to be perfect.

We still love our van and have had the best sleep in years. It got down to 2 degrees last night (and will be 1 deg tonight) and its warm as toast (or as warm as English beer…lol). Scot has been cooking up a storm. Tonight is seafood chowder….can’t wait..yumm.

The silver lining of having to stay in Harrogate are the beautiful flower gardens and old buildings. Scot is happy because he gets to try all the English beer and guess what Ruth he’s having a black sheep right now. Harrogate is such a clean non-graffitied town and obviously everyone seems to have a lot of pride in it. I adore the flowers – they are so colourful and brighten everything up. We had our first day of rain/drizzle yesterday but today is back to blue skies and sunshine …but cold only 10 degrees.

We love Whitby and would loved to have stayed longer but we’ll be back one day. We went to Cooks museum which was a little disappointing as it seemed to be a little sparse on information about Cooks actual life. Had scrumptious Whitby fish and chips and a lovely local man sat down to firstly check that we weren’t feeding the seagulls and secondly to find out where our accent was from. The abbey was amazing….this is where we got in free just because we were Kiwis. I don’t think they get many Kiwis visiting somehow but it saved us £20 which Scot spent on beer.

We are going to try for London this coming weekend all going well and will then book the ferry to France.

Warm spring days

I don’t believe all the stories about England being cold wet and bleak. We have had 10 days of mostly sunshine and no rain. Today in York it was about 18-20, a beautiful spring day. We’ve either been really lucky or its all lies☺ We have just about finished all the shopping we need to do for the van and we can get on with the job of being tourists. We’ve bought tools, wheel lock, food stuffs and containers etc. We are limited on space but I reckon we are here for 12 months and there are some things I wont do without.

Everyone up this way seems to want to chat to us and find out whether we’re Aussies or Kiwis so we find ourselves talking to random people all over- very friendly people.

We are staying in the Ashfield caravan park in Dunnington just outside York for the 3rd night and we’re off to Whitby in the morning – Captain Cooks birthplace.

Highlights today: Organised some van appointments for Thursday (with a kiwi fellow) when we had been told we would have to wait till end of May.

Lowlights today: Going into a really cool looking pub for a beer only to find it really ordinary inside…bummer!

Our first days in England

Well we made it to England despite a few setbacks, like delayed planes, trains and automobiles. We stayed our first two nights in Kings Cross, where it looks like the area is being made into a trendy upbeat place. It certainly was buzzing while we were there.

We met up with our niece Lauren in London and spent the day at the Bricklaying markets and tried a variety of scrumptious food which was great. What a glorious sunny day.

On Monday we took the train up to Bridlington and met up with the motorhome owners who had been incredibly kind and trusting to keep it until we arrived here. The motorhome was everything we had expected and is absolutely perfect for our travels. The owners have left in all bedding, crockery, cookware, camp chairs, table etc which is a godsend with us not having to worry about buying everything. We are staying in a b&b in Bridlington at the moment and tomorrow (16/4 Thursday) we are taking our hire car back to Hull and coming back up to Bridlington and picking the campervan up to start our true adventure.

We had hoped to be over in France for Anzac day, but we now think it would be wise to stay in England for a couple of weeks to get a feel for the van as it has a lot of different things that we didn’t learn about when we hired the campervan in NZ last year. Plus we are thinking we want to do a couple of things to the van like a bike rack etc and talk to a Puegot expert about some of the things in the van. I have posted some photos of the van. Next blog once we are officially on the road.