The last Blog - Journey's end

Our Journey’s End – plus a few statistics and some Camper van factoids.

On the Esbjerg to Harwich ferry we opened a bottle of Prosecco we had been carrying around in the van for the past 4 weeks, sat on the floor of our rather bizarre 6 berth cabin, and took turns at recalling our best bits from our 13 weeks away.

Hungary  - Cycling on the river levee cycle paths in the evening sun;  Faroe Isles - Mykines and the puffins; Romania - sitting on back of the Danube ferry going to the mouth of the river in the hot sun;  Romania – the painted decorative graveyard and camping alone in the field in the Maramores; Austria – wild camping in the Alps; Iceland – all of it; Greece – chilling out on the hot beaches; Albania – its difference from the rest of Europe; Norway  - Eddie and Claire’s, diving and kayaking on the fjord, walking up to Pulpit rock; Croatia – the house, pool and being with mum and dad; Romania – a proper steam train in the mountains; Czech – camping in Prague......

However the very best part of it all has been being able to spend so much proper time with Susan and Charlie and then later with Katie and Jack and in doing so enjoy so many different places and experiences.

20% of the blog is about enabling our families to track where we are, the rest is pretty selfish and is about capturing all the special times we have had forever. Charlie is only 4 and the reality is that in 10 years he will have forgotten 99% + of what we did, the blog he may well look at when he is older, I know we will. Katie will no doubt be off to Uni in a few weeks and so to get a month away with her has been fantastic as it has with Jack although I have missed Tom not being able to make it as I know if he would have loved it - he was in Iceland working at a Festival in June and loved the country.

May 9th, 2014

August 7th, 2014 - 8330 miles later

We have pretty much stuck to our loose plan. The van has been phenomenal. 8300 miles and it has not required a drop of oil or a top up of the radiator water. One new tyre, no breakdowns and nothing failed...I took it places I wouldn't dream of taking my other cars and I am pretty much certain it has survived better than they would have on a similar trip. It may well need some cash spent on the suspension but that's a small price to pay for the service it has provided. Even the cooking gas was burning strong on the very last day of the trip.

Thanks to those who commented on the blog, it was at times a pain in the arse to write but I am glad I stuck at it.

Thank you Susan for 'just going with it' time and time again...I love you x

Journey:-

13,446 Km ( about 8300 miles) on land

4,300 Km on ferries

21 countries visited ( 90 nights)

Holland (0), Germany (4) , Czech (2), Poland( 3), Slovakia (2), Hungary (2), Romania (10), Bulgaria (2), Turkey (2), Greece (6), Albania (4), Montenegro(6), Croatia (10), Bosnia (0), Italy (0), Slovenia (4), Austria (1), Denmark (4), Norway (5), Iceland (14), Faroes (3)....Ferries (6)

 1332 litres of fuel at a total cost of £1720 which means the Van does  exactly 10 Km/litre – approx 27 miles to the gallon.

Van driven on 69 days of the 91 and fuelled at 53 different garages

Longest journey in a day  - 1099 Km  - South Germany to Denmark

Accommodation

 90 nights away from home

-          54 in the Van

-          6 on ferries

-          4 at friends  - ( Noway)

-          9 in Hotels – (Poland, Romania, Bulgaria)

-          17 in self catering – ( Montenegro, Croatia, Iceland)

Cheapest accommodation – Wild camping

Camping costs from £7 Romania to £65 Denmark

Van factoids

For those who do a lot of camping you will fully understand that one of the best bits about having a camper van is the fridge – cold wine, beer, decent food, butter that looks like butter. It’s so damn clever it works off a 12V battery such that when you are stopped it still produces the goods.

So the little van has an extra ( leisure) battery ( to the normal car battery) such that the fridge doesn’t keep churning out ice cold tasty beverages whilst quietly robbing the starter motor of any electrical power to turn it over to get the engine going. This leisure battery also powers 4 internal lights at the back of the van and that is all it does however in a stinking hot country the poor fridge is flat out and 24 hours just about drains the battery. The clever camper van people thought about that such that we plug our electrical umbilical cable in at camp sites – this gives us 240 V ac to 2 standard double sockets and also a charger unit that keeps the leisure battery ( and more importantly the fridge) going indefinitely.

The van also has a tap and sink served from a 15 litre tank, a 2 ring stove and a grill. It also has a portaloo cunningly hidden in a removable box piece of furniture that doubles up as a double seat to enable 4 to sit comfortably in the back and also serves as our outside table. It is blessed with curtains all round the rear of the van and each night we attach blackout thermal covers to the inside of the windscreen and driver and passenger windows to darken the area Charlie sleeps in.

all in all ...a great little van..

mmaculatley ~8000 Ft) was the high