Onward Edward

Back at work I was bored to the bone so I spent most of my time drawing up hundreds of possible holiday routes on Googlemaps. We tentatively decided that we should try to drive from Edinburgh around the north and eastern coasts of the UK, spend a week or so in the Netherlands, then slowly make our way to Lapland in northern Sweden where we would volunteer for a week or so. Hopefully we'd see the northern lights then carry on down through Finland and the Baltics, Poland, Germany, then hoof it back to London. 16,000km in total. 14 countries if you count the different flags in the UK. Ambitious.

So I finally finished work at the end of July and drove back up to Edinburgh to start our holiday. We stayed a few extra nights as Amanda was a bit sick, but this meant that we had a chance to see some more of the city. I'll say it again. Edinburgh is mint. We went to a sea bird colony and saw some puffins, seals and thousands of gannets. It was incredible, but if you've ever been lucky enough to play sniff the urinal sponge you'll know how ridiculous it smelt. David Attenborough describes the sanctuary as one of the seven wonders of the natural world, my friend Lilly calls is bird shit island. Both are fair descriptions. After a few days Amanda was feeling okay so we drove a bit further north to Pitlochry. Lilly and Jimmy, our mates from Dunedin, were living and working in his parents B&B. We were lucky as they had no guests so we got to stay in a lovely 4 star room and live the non-camping life for two nights. Pints in the sun, paasha for tea and a great game of boozey putt putt in the pitch dark on the practise green next door. Jimmy was a great host, and passed on some awesome local knowledge for the rest of our trip around the UK. 

Jimmy and I having a beer in the secret rotunda

 A mean spot for a picnic near Pitlochry

These two were having more fun than the dolphins

We spent the next week or so driving around the coast of Scotland and the Isle of Skye. A highlight for me had to be seeing dolphins cruising in Moray Firth near Inverness. The low: suffering hordes of ferocious midges. At the time I didn't realise that they were biting, infact I pulled the hard man routine and refused repellent knowing that I am all that is man and midges hate me. The real barstard is that it took about 3 days for them to really itch, so I thought I actually hadn't been bitten and happily continued the hardman routine until I was eventually fatally crippled by the burn. Midges suck almost as much as Six60. We ran out of diesel somewhere on the Isle Of Sky. After attempting to hitch for about forty five minutes we waved down a bus and Amanda did a mission to the nearest town for some diesel. She scored a ride back with a buzzy linesman who was wearing a sweet poncho and baggy trousers. That was awesome... 

Shoe lace fail on Ol Man Of Storr, Isle of Sky

When we got to Glasgow we had our first mechanical drama. I had replaced the brake pads and discs a month earlier as I thought the discs were warped. They were warped, but this was being caused by a faulty brake calliper. So by Glasgow the discs were warped again and every time I used the brakes Edward would do the Macarena. We had to have them replaced, along with a brake caliper and two tyres that had been punished in the process. So all that cost us what I payed for the van in the first place. Stink.

Since we'd lost a bit of travel time we made a dash down the east coast of England. We stopped in Blackpool for a look. It was pretty tacky and full of obese tourists  who were spending money on bad casino games with shitty prizes. We sped through Liverpool, which was basically a ghost town because of the recent riots, and camped somewhere in the north of Wales. Waking up to some rare sun we meandered around the Welsh countryside. The valleys are very very cool. We ended up in Hay On Why, a cute little town that straddles the border with England. It's famous for having heaps of books. There was an awesome honesty box book shop in a ruined castle. A few nights later we stayed near Cardiff with Amanda's friend's grandparents, Idris and Melvina. We were spoilt rotten and enjoyed some great yarns and great food. They kindly dropped us to the ferry in Swansea and let us leave Edward in their locked yard.

Panda sheep in Wales

Nice horsies on the common

Our crossing to Cork on the ferry was mint! Big waves, high winds and hardly any passengers. I don't hold much of a kite string to Ireland, but entering Cork harbour really stirred something up inside me. It was pretty spectacular at 7am, with the low morning sun spraying the sky a dazzling shade of red and the hills an indescribable green. I felt like I was heading home. It was my third time in Cork. Ireland is always great but this visit was pretty special with a bunch of family over to see my brother's brand new son, Donnacha. The party after Donnacha's christening was brilliant! I played a few classic hits to warm everyone up, my uncle sang a Maori blessing and Mike (my brother), boyed up with plenty of Guiness and New Zealand wine, performed a seriously amazing haka! A few Irish cats got a wee fright when he started yelling for no apparrent reason and thought maybe he was upset about something. Everyone was in great form. It was sad to have to say goodbye after only a few days. The return crossing was mellow and Idris picked us up in Swansea and took us home to a big breakfast and some more great stories. We packed up Edward and headed towards the tourist trap that is Stone Henge. It was fine. Just so bloody busy. There were so many gymies and jeans tourists that it was hard to get the Druidic vibe going. We found a nice common marshland near Salisbury to camp that night. While Amanda was cooking a mean chicken chilli on our trusty camping stove, some horses came over to see what we were up to. They were so nice and friendly and loved a good pat. In the morning we woke up to a bunch of cars and horse floats making a racket. I thought we were going to get a pasting by the locals for camping there but they were all very friendly and maybe just thought we were a bit crazy. It turned out that over night one of the horses had been stung by a swarm of wasps and was found up to it's neck in a river. What a commotion. The horse was fine, more scared than hurt. Poor horsey. 

Blockhaus D'Eperlecques

I was dreading the drive into London. I hate traffic, and I hate traffic jams. Dunedin is bliss. But actually the trip wasn't so bad. We only drove as far as Putney; that's as close as you get to central London with free parking. After meeting up with Mum, Dad and my Aunties in Victoria, we all got the tube over to Camden. They hadn't been on the tube yet (there isn't one in Ashburton), so it was a blast. We had a good look around the touristy market in Camden lock and went for a cheap pub feed at the local Wetherspoons. If your prepared to forego atmosphere and music then the Wetherspoons chain have some pretty cheap pub food. When I first arrived in the UK I was astounded at what £2.50 could get me for breakfast at Wetherspoons; never could shake that tacky vibe though. We said another sad goodbye and headed south to Dover and Folkeston. The route we chose turned out great aside from the 3 hours it took to clear greater London. Classic country side with narrow lanes and thatched roof houses everywhere. The midnight channel tunnel crossing was hassle free and we slept in a car park near Calais. In Eperlecques there's an old secret Nazi weapons factory and V2 rocket launch site so we spent most of the next day there. Bit of a mind melt. One of Hitler's two hundred odd launch sites for sending death to London. On our way through Belgium we stopped at a few war graves in Flanders and looked over the names. So many young lads from home who died in Europe. We carried on to Brugge where we had stayed earlier in the year, had a burger and a walk around the town then slept  in the van down a dark back street next to some windmills. We were woken by what I thought was the Police banging on the windows to give us a ticket for illegal camping. Turns out it was massively loud thunder and a great lightning storm. I love electrical storms. They make me feel tiny.

We had been to Amsterdam on our last trip to Holland so gave it a miss this time around and drove straight on to Langedijk, where a bunch of Amanda's relatives live. This lot know how to have a good time and within a few hours of arriving we were well fed, well clean, well drunk and having a cracking time at a bowling alley. Turns out Amanda is quite good at pub sports (darts, bowling, pool) and I am useless. I think I got one strike. Consistency is not my forte.

Edward Gets Road Tested

In early July 2011 Amanda arrived from New Zealand and I was pretty excited, not just to see her after four months apart but also to get Edward on the road to see how he actually functioned as a camper. Amanda arrived at Heathrow and we checked in to a cheap hotel in Hammersmith then headed out for a meal with some friends. We went to a Thai restaurant somewhere in west London. Food in London is usually pretty reasonably priced. Decent dine-in Indian is around £15 a head with drinks. So I hadn't counted on the £250 bill to be shared between six of us. For Amanda and I this meant £85 for a shared starter, a mains each (£4 rice not included), and one drink each. Hell!! $170 nz for dinner. It was good, but maybe not that good.

 

Amanda took a few photos on her Golden Half film camera. They were poorly scanned by some lazy photolab operator when we were in Estonia. Left is Paul and Mems who were pretty delighted with their £30 Lobster, and right is a reasonably plastered Rodgers getting ready to hit on our 'hot' waitress (who was 16 and had a moustache) before trying to pay the whole £250 bill.

Not a great start to our attempts at travelling on a tight budget. Suffering from jetlag and a bank account hang over we returned to our cheaper than a Thai meal hotel and slept the pain away. This was the only nights accomodation we payed for in the next four months.


The next day we took the train to Aylesbury, the town where I had been working about an hour northwest of London, and Amanda finally met Edward. 'It's a bit smaller than I expected'... oh dear. It was a great couple of days for driving. 25 degrees and blue sky. We'd turned off motorways on the satnav so we ended up taking a pretty interesting route towards Edinburgh. One highlight was Claxton, a tiny little villiage in the middle of nowhere near York. It's a personal joke. Something to do with Left Or Right being hackers, having clackers and living in Claxton. As we followed the signs to Claxton we saw some travellers (or gypsies/knackers/tinkers) parked on the side of the road with a sign up offering building and labouring services. A young boy of maybe 10 or 11 was standing there in what appeared to be nappies... that's a hacker. 

Finding a camping spot in North York was a litlle bit of a mission, I think we spent an hour trying to find a nice place to sleep.  We wondered if we were setting a precident for the rest of our trip...? Eventually we just gave up and parked on a farmers lane just off a country road. The actual sleeping part went well. I patted myself on the back for camper conversion success.


Carrying on North the next day we went through a small fishing village called Whitby where we grabbed some bacon rolls for breakfast. Bacon rolls are awesome and cheapish and perfect for an occasional travelling treat. It was already hot and muggy outside. Inside the van with black interior and no air con it became relatively uncomfortable. We found a nice beach just north of Whitby and I had a quick dunk in the North Sea to cool down. I realised it was the first time I'd swum in the sea for over a year. 

About 5pm we arrived in Edinburgh and Amanda got settled into her new flat. For the next month she'd be studying TESOL (teaching english to speakers of other languages) at summer school in Edinburgh while I went back to Aylesbury to try and cash up for our holiday. But for the next few days I was on a break. Amanda was flat out with school right from the get go so I spent my few days in Edinburgh busking, drinking beer and watching Wimbledon in pubs or on tele. Edinburgh kicks arse. I didn't make a whole lot of money busking but scraped together enough for a few beers each day and met some pretty classic local buskers. There are so many in Edinburgh that it's impossible to stand out just playing guitar. I generally played songs by bands from Dunedin, not citing any references in the hope people might think I was a clever songwriter. Some people did, one guy even offered me a spot in a singer songwriters night that week. I had to come clean and tell him that my songs are rubbish, so I was playing my friends songs. Obviously this meant I didn't meet the criteria for singer songwriters night. I gave him the names of the artists who I'd been stealing from and told him to buy their stuff. I hope he did.


One afternoon while breaking a sweat busking in the uncannily balmy Edinburgh summer, I saw a familiar face checking me out. It took a while to click that it was my old band mate Matt Bodman. Bizzare. Matt was on holiday with his girlfriend and here I was playing songs by Tono, who we used to be in a band with. Buzzy times. We caught up over a coffee on the royal mile, and pondered the odds of such meetings. The coffee was forgettable which leads me to a rant on coffee in the UK. It's generally quite average. In New Zealand there are hundreds of cafes specializing in coffee, with barristers working the machines. In the UK there are thousands of cafes specializing in cheap greasy breakfasts and weak arse coffee, employing grumpy old bags with turkey necks that shudder when their jaw drops if I ask for an espresso. It probably wouldn't bother me so much, and I may have never mentioned it if those working in cafes didn't insist on calling espresso 'eXspresso'! What a wanker I am. Getting my whine on. The tea is bangin' though.


While I was in Edinburgh we caught up with our buddies Lilly and Jimmy who were living up the road in Pitlochry. We had a few drinks at their hotel room and went to see a pretty awesome Fleet Foxes gig at the Corn Exchange. The Fleet Foxes avoided most of their boring new crap, and kept the attention of a few thousand standing drunk Scots for over two hours.


So Amanda had settled in and was up to her eyeballs in assignments. I tried to be a good boyfriend and help, but I'm terrible at grammer and all things lingual so the best I could do was cook dinner as much as possible. A few nights in I had to leave Amanda to it and head back to work. Seven hours on the motorway, one stop at BK and a sore rump later I'd made it back to Aylesbury. Edward broke some records. Averaging about 110kph/70mph and using less than one tank of diesel for the whole 750km trip left me pleased. Shame about the price of Diesel, and those carbon emissions....

Introducing Edward - Our loyal travelling companion

"You're all jealous. Edward's better than all of you"

"You're right, Duck. Edward's old but he'll surprise us all!"

Duck and BoCo defending Edward, Edward's Exploit, second season Thomas The Tank Engine

In mid April 2011 I laid my eyes on a suspiciously cheap blue Citroen C15D for sale on ebay. It was crazy cheap, it was French and it looked like Postman Pat's van holding it's breath. I fell in love. My fiancée Amanda and I were planning on buying a van and road tripping around Europe once she eventually made it over from New Zealand. So I emailed Amanda some pictures and convinced her I could turn it into a camper, albeit a very small and sneaky stealth camper. I took a bus to Oxford to check it out only to find out that the one advertised had been sold. But the construction company who advertised it had a couple more going, only in slightly worse nick. Blinded by excitement I handed over £350 for a rust filled, noisy, brake broken, un-taxed and un-MOT'd van. Check it out!

 How rad is that?

Our future bedroom - Note the little skylights...ew

So as you can see I had a bit of work ahead of me just to make it legal, and a fair bit more work to build a bed space in the back. Over the next month I filled in all the rust holes, had the seized rear brakes reconditioned, sanded off the builders sign writing and sprayed some paint here and there. I have a habit of giving all my cars names. Amanda suggested Edward, as in the little old blue train from Thomas the Tank Engine. Perfect! 

Sparkly and no longer water absorbent

Now all Edward needed to be the coolest stealth camper in all the land, was some interior decorating. First things first; hifi. We were planning a giant long term trip in this van so audio was going to be crucial to our continuing sanity. I got a bargain Kenwood CD/line in stereo off ebay and some mid range speakers from Halfords and tripled the chance of having the van nicked. 


Next job on the list was bed construction. By buying only off cuts and hitting up businesses for left over pallets and boxing, I managed to get all the wood needed for the construction for about £10. I also found two bedside cabinets from a charity shop for £15. I bought some rubbish tools (drill, saw, measuring tape) from Tesco for another £10 and got to work. Using line of sight and as little planning as possible I somehow succeeded in building a platform about 30cm above the floor. The centre piece could be removed to make it easier to get things out of the drawers in the front. I also built a hinged flap behind the front seats. At night with the seats forward and the flap up we had a full two metres of bed to sleep on. Edward was lacking somewhere to mount my new stereo speakers so I also built a shelf above the two front seats and put them in there. The speaker shelf had the added value of being a storage shelf in general terms. Much crap was stored here during our trip. I managed to score a cheap inner sprung mattress from another charity shop and spent a few hours hacking it into four pieces so we could rearrange the bed as needed.


Decoration is a crucial part of any home, so I set about covering up all the awfully cold white metal panelling with some hard board, sexy op shop wallpaper, and sweet orange paisley curtain fabric. I've uncovered my secret subconscious love of all things brown and orange.

Sans mattress

Travelling mode

Bed mode

Pretty proud of my handy work. Soon I'll start sifting through our diary to try to remember our trip and post whatever I can recall.