We take delivery of Davide and prepare for the off.

8th Sept – 22nd Sept 2023

We landed back in the UK at Manchester Airport just after dawn on the 8th of September. Our trip back from Seattle had been a bit complicated, as only modern airline travel can be. A delayed, then cancelled, then rebooked flight had us boots on the ground and back on track, but with a couple of nights of lost sleep. We had arranged to go straight to the motorhome dealer from the airport, a 3 hour train journey away in Nottingham. We were taking delivery of ‘Davide’, a 7 metre ‘low profile’, class C motorhome, on a Ford Transit chassis – our new wheels and defacto home. Despite having been ordered back in February there had been a tense few weeks recently when we thought that he would not be ready for us to collect on our return. He was delivered to the dealership later than planned and it required a flurry of activity at the last minute to fit (most of) our optional extras which happily had him ready on our arrival after lunch. Panic over.

Our handover was a bit of a blur. We were knackered. We tried to pay attention as all his systems were explained and eventually, after a card payment of epic proportions went through worryingly easily, we hit the road. We now had a 3 hour drive back to my parent’s place back in Shropshire. It was unseasonably hot, it was rush hour, it was an unfamiliar vehicle. Nick drove, my job was to keep him awake. The journey went well in the end. Davide got to stretch his legs a bit and proved himself quite fleet of wheel on the motorways and suprisingly agile around the endless multitude of roundabouts on the Shrewsbury ringroad. We made it back without incident and with perfect timing for a much needed gin & tonic. Our base, in my folks’ spare rooom, is hugely appreciated and makes it possible to be in a state of voluntary ‘homelessness’. Their bemused agreement to facilitate our lifestyle choices, whilst thinking we are mad, is what makes the next adventure possible. So thank you, Dad and Tina!

We had given ourselves about 12 days on UK soil before our planned ferry crossing to France on the 20th Sept. Our quick turn around was governed by the fact that we had secured some tickets to the Rugby World Cup. In this nearly two weeks we spent some quality time with family, caught up with friends, had eyetests, collected bulk prescriptions, unpacked and sorted our USA stuff, raided the storage unit for the stuff that we had set aside from the house for Davide and did the mother of all Amazon shops for the rest. There was so much stuff that we had had in the USA that we had let go and now needed replacing in some form or other.

Our largest purchase were a couple of ebikes. We went for folding ones to make them a bit lighter and smaller for not only transporting on our rear bike carrrier, but also to potentially be easier to get on and off trains and into a hotel room if needed. They even fit into a handy shoulder bag, as modelled below. Our vision for Europe is to be whizzing in and out of small hilltop villages and through the narrow streets of medieval towns and cities on our new wheels, rather than trying to do the same manouvres in a brick of a vehicle. The ‘cool index’ rating of a folding bike does start at a low point, but fat 20″ tires and seatpost batteries do help ours to look moderately less ‘saddo’ than most! Our inaugaural outing around the lanes of Shropshire was a success and we are definitely ‘lithium assist’ coverts.

Our departure date soon came round and the day prior we were finally fully loaded, packed and ready for the off. We nipped into town to the local weigh station to see what our total weight was. At this stage we are technically a maximum 3500kg vehicle. Without me in it, because I was in the office paying for it, we were 3460kg. Which is fine because I’m only 40kg, obviously. Uprating our payload to 4000kg is merely a paper exercise, so this will be done so that we can carry more wine/toys/guff around with us legally.

As a shakedown measure we spent our first night aboard on the yard at my parents place. This mainly taught us that there were many LEDs that needed either dimming or covering up so as to not completely disrupt our circadian rhythmns, but otherwise we were comfy, and warm and happy. The next day we set off. Our first stop was East Sussex. This was about a 4 hour journey down to friends’, Toby & Em’s place. They live in a cottage on the family farm and have a perfect Davide-sized parking spot. We arrived just as Toby arrived home with their two young boys and we sat and caught up with him in the melée that only a 5 year old and a 3 year old can create. Em was home soon after that and after pizzas for dinner, more chat and a bottle of wine, we all had an early night.

This second night signified the start of a 3 day block of quite rough weather which was a less than glorious start to our big adventure. After breakfast with our hosts we said our good byes and headed off on the 40 min journey to Newhaven ferry port. I love this as an alternative to Dover. It is so small and low key. We arrived in very good time, quizzed as to our possession of weapons and nothing else and joined the multiple other motor homes in the queue. Lots of people with the same idea, it seems. I was pretty sure that my poor sea legs were going to take a battering on our 4 hour ferry crossing, so I dosed up with anti-nausea meds and after a cup of tea we were loaded. In the end the crossing wasn’t as rough as advertised, and I slept through most of it – a happy side effect of the pills. We arrived in Dieppe and we realised that we were going to be the very first vehicle off the ferry so we quickly got back to Davide to be ready for the ‘off’. And then he wouldn’t start. Our all singing, all dancing fancy alarm/tracker/immobiser system had immobilised him. One of the things that we hadn’t got a good handle on when we took ownership in our jetlagged blur was this. The monitoring company called us straight away to check in and we got a quick lesson in how to use the system and how to get him started, managing to get going again before we had delayed the whole ferry from disembarking.

We were in France! Hoorah! We cleared immigration in the blink of an eye, entering the Schengen Area on our New Zealand passports. This, in theory, will allow us to spend more than the miserly allowance of 90 days in every 180 days permitted to us as post-Brexit, UK citizens. Many moons ago the NZ government negotiated bilateral agreements with about 2/3 of the Schengen Area countries to allow NZ citizens to spend 90 days in those countries independent of the Schengen Area allowance. The water-tightness of this arrangement is not 100% and apparently is dependant on the knowledge/decision/mood of the individual immigration officer involved on the day. Nice to have certainty in our lives! Anyway, we are here now and we can tackle this issue down the line.

As is the case with most exits from ports of arrival, be it by sea or air, the complex intenal roading system spits you out into the local environment with minimal signage or time to decide where you want to go. We were slingshotted into the one-way system of Dieppe, got our heads into driving on the right again and almost instantly stopped at a supermarket that we spotted. We had a two hour drive to our first camp, but needed supplies of all those things that we were told that we couldn’t transport across the border – like meat and dairy products – but that nobody seemed to give a rat’s arse about. Shopping done we hit the road and headed East, staying north of Paris. It was dreary, rainy and windy. First stop was in a place called Cappy, a small village on the river Somme. This was an aire, a basic, unmanned campsite that had a security barrier, power and water. We parked at the water fill station and came upon our first problem. We didn’t have the right connection for our hosepipe. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink…. I scoured the camp for another British registered camper and went to see if I could borrow a connector. I quickly found a kind chap who unpacked his entire garage in the rain to find me what I needed and our first challenge was overcome! Shopping list addition: hose attachments.

The next day was a long driving day. Not something we usually plan or do, but we had a tight time frame to get to our destination, Lyon. We dumped our waste water and our excess freshwater -no point schlepping the excess weight- and headed out. Our route took us across country for a while, to get to the main road. These were the fields of the Somme battles. It was flat, it was wet, it was muddy. The echos of the horrors of 1916 were quiet but present. We passed a few cemeteries. The french system of pèages, or tolled motorways, is magnifique! You get what you pay for: uncluttered, well maintained carrigeways with plenty of rest areas. We paid our money and hit the road south. The weather was officially foul. It was relentlessly windy and rained almost the whole way to our next stop, just north of Dijon. Even I was exhausted, and I didn’t do any driving. We stopped at another aire after a quick stop at a bricolage – or hardware store – We bought our hose connectors and a door mat to try and contain some of the wet and dirt due to the inclemment weather. Our aire was another security barrier controlled parking area with power hook-ups. We had pre-purchased and credited a card and payment, a princely €11 was on exit. A simple and effective sytem, and incredibly cheap compared to USA. We pulled up to the water station and with our new hose attachments in hand, prepared to fill up. But Zut Alors! We had bought the wrong flaming ones. Gnash, wail, curse. There were no friendly co-campers to pester so we did without. We had enough on board for the basics if we didn’t shower, and we didn’t need to do that. We’d showered 3 days ago! Camping clean, people, camping clean. Finally, just before dusk, the horrible weather cleared off and we could finally step outside without a coat. A beautiful rainbow helped us celebrate and we hoped that the drier weather would stick with us for a bit.

The next day we had a shorter, sunnier trip down to Lyon which where the Rugby fun was to start.