On Thursday 21st July, 2016 we will set off via ferry from Dover to Calais at the start of our gap year tour of Europe. Timing is everything and we have managed to time our adventure to begin just a few weeks after Britain voted to leave the EU! A surprise result and I wouldn't blame the other EU countries for not feeling very kindly towards the British at this time. Let's face it, half of the British don't feel very kindly towards the other half either! We're seriously thinking we should have some 'Don't blame me, I voted remain' badges made to wear on our travels.
Our 'rig' for the tour is a modest one. A VW Passat S TDI Auto Diesel Estate (2009) pulling an Eriba Puck 230GT touring caravan. We've always loved camping, beginning the season at the end of March and going through to early November, but we started to feel a wee bit creaky for all year around camping in a tent in the English climate, so succumbed to caravanning in September 2010.
As you can see, the Puck is a very modest sprite being no wider than the car and offering no on-board toileting facilities. She is, however, to our minds, entirely perfect in every way. Her name is Titania; a nod to the Puck reference and because with luck we had hoped she (and we) would spend much of the time in leafy glades once she was ours. This has been the case. We love that outdoors, back to nature,simple life and this caravan, with the pop up roof with canvas sides, offers us a compromise for 'proper' camping.
For us, living outdoors is living the dream. I'm sure some people will think our accommodation shockingly small for two people to live in together for a year but there is something very cleansing about living life simply.
"Simplicity is making the journey of life with just baggage enough"
Charles Dudley Warner
This is us on 12th July, 2003. More recent pictures of us looking older, greyer and wider to follow.
13 years, lucky for us.
Cheers!!
