About Us


We are both retired  and about to set off on another life adventure. Our children have grown up, flown the nest and we are ready to enjoy our retirement! Quite where the journey will take us, we are not sure yet, but we hope it will be exciting and any readers we may pick up along the way are welcome to come along for the ride.

We have camped for around 30 years or even more, progressing through a trailer tent, 
VW transporter with tents ( for the kids), through four motor homes.  We started our blog about Billie Bailey, our Bailey 740 SE motor home in 2012. For any interested parties here's the link to our blog about Billie's Adventures.

Bailey About!

We finally decided that it was the time to move on and go back to basics. We  traded Billie for a new IH panel van conversion and we took delivery in April 2015. The birth of a new van April. It's a girl!

In October 2015 we made our first truly exciting journey, camping in the wilds of Botswana, in a hired 4 wheel self drive camper, with a tent on the roof. We travelled with my husband's  adventurous sister and brother-in-law who live in South Africa. It was a mind blowing trip and far removed from our usual jaunts. We travelled through the Kalahari and stopped at camp sites which were really just trees in the desert. We saw elephants, literally by the hundreds and watched African Wild dogs with pups relaxing in the bush. We encountered blister beetles, hyenas, hippos and crocodiles whilst we drove through thorn bushes, sand dunes and along gravel tracks. We experienced sun, sun, blistering heat and the chilling desert winds. We stood under sausage trees, drank endless cold cokes and listened to animals in the wild under the stars with the electrical buzzing of insects in the trees and then silence. We stood by the Vic Falls in the cooling spray and wondered at the fishermen brave enough to risk the torrents of the mighty Zambezi for a fish and pondered on the stupidity of tourists risking life and limb for a selfie.

Check out the 2015 Beautiful Botswana bits of the blog posts. Sorry it's in 4 Parts.

In November 2017 we set off on another African adventure, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia, this time by ourselves courtesy of the The Worldwide Motorhoming Holidays from The Camping & Caravanning Club . The escorted tour was full so we decided we would do the same route, solo. Knowing what roads in Africa were like, we opted for the 4 x 4 vehicle which was a Toyota Hilux, with roof tent. We survived 37 nights on the road and returned still married! A tough trip but so much fun, certainly made many memories.  Read our full blog for all the details and pictures.

Along the way we completed some amazing trips including driving into St Petersburg that was with the Camping & Caravanning Club's first trip to The Baltic States in May/June 2018. We did Greece in the Summer of  2018, again with the club. We loved it so much we have been back twice on our own doing camping on board with Anek Lines.

 The Covid year of 2020 saw us in Spain and Portugal for the winter January, February into March. We just made it back a week before the first lock down. The Covid lull in August meant we could escape and go back to Italy and Greece. Again, we luckily made it back via Germany just in time for another lockdown. 

Covid for us has meant a new home, moving from the suburbs to the country and our new rural retreat. April our van has happily morphed into Krystal our Vantage Neo van, already 4 years old and fairly well travelled. We hope Krystal is a "keeper" but who knows? Life moves on and some times changes unexpectedly.

More adventures to follow. A Chinese proverb says "Every journey starts with one small step". Follow our small step, who knows where it may end?

Lots of fun to come!! Who knows what's down the next road?

Denis & Lesley




4 comments:

  1. Love the number plate, jip I think you don"t need to worry about absolution blocks in Botswana as I think where we are going there isnt any so that takes that worry away :-)
    I am naughty but unfortunately the trip Harry has done does not include nice things like a toilet , I am trying to wist his arm to a tiny bit of civilization so lets see what the adventure brings xxxxxxxxxxx

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  2. Hi Denis and Lesley, we also have an IH slate grey PVC with a fixed rear panel, I'm looking into fitting a tow bar (detachable swan neck), purely to put a bike rack on, and was going to buy the Thule rack, but noticed your comments on the Bosil rack. Does the tilting Thule rack allow the boot to fully open? Any comments / feedback you could give us would be most appreciated.

    Regards

    James

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  3. Hi can I ask why you changed from the ih to the neo
    Thanks

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    1. Sorry for the delay in replying but we are in Greece at the moment! We liked the idea of a panel van and went for the IH as we got a good deal on a trade in. The main issues for us were build quality ( we had lots of issues and the van went back a few times ) After sales was good but lots of the problems should never have happened! Lack of space in kitchen, position of oven, drop down sink in bathroom...we hated it! Lift up kitchen tap, a real pain are just a few things we didn't like. We love our new Vantage and the build quality has been excellent. Insulation is much better than the IH. If you are considering a PVC look at IH and Vantage we know which we prefer!

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