My industrious fiancé

Daniel thinks he's not a shed kinda guy, but the dedication he has shown Pat this past week, indicates differently.

We (Daniel) now know how to change a tyre, how to operate the 3 way fridge, that Pat's electrics all work fine and various other non interesting stuff.
We (Marea) also know that it is cosier and cleaner inside and that fridge manuals are found online at http://www.fishbrain.biz/acatalog/rm4211-manual.pdf. Yet another example of the wonders of the internet:-)

Now if I can also find how the chemical portaloo works online - Do you think Daniel will do the 'dirty' work again?

135 days...

I find it interesting, that there are many drafts but no published posts, for 9 days. I guess I feel this is more like a school report than a diary and I'm loath to publish anything factually untrue, grammatically incorrect or plain self indulgent.

But I've been feeling self indulgent lately. I'm counting down the days (135) and reflecting on the number of times you get the opportunity to go on holiday for 6 months at a time.
In my case, this will be the third! Well, almost. I've had two 4-6 month working holidays (Boston 2001/2 and Colorado 2004/5) but this will be the first where I will be officially without a job for more than 6 weeks.

6 months travelling.... How will my work ethic suffer? I wonder what the entry back into normal society will feel like? Will I become jaded about getting back into the rat-race? (too lazy?) Will I decide that I'd rather be my own boss ( too poor?) or that we should move to Thailand with the elephants....(too big!)

There's also a possibility all this planned travel will not live up to our expectations, and we end up cutting our plans short. But this scenario almost dares not speak; Daniel feels that returning early could be a bit humiliating after all this bigging up. Bring it on!

£££££, $$$$$ and Budgets

When this blog doesn't get updated for a while you'll know work has been busy, the Internet has been down or I simply have nothing to say. But now that Daniel has finished his exams, perhaps we will see an entry occasionally from him too.

I've been looking at Tuesday 13 November's post and thinking about the plan after Estonia. Latvia and Lithuania, these are two countries about which loom large on a map and about which, I knew nothing. On further investigation, what I've found out is that they apparently have more in common with their Scandinavian neighbours than their Eastern European ones. The possibility of cutting down the amount of time we've planned in Scandinavia has been mooted, especially in light of their relative costs of living. Whilst Scandinavians pay up to 60% income tax and thus everything is 'free', this does not translate to a free ride for non tax payers and could be a huge financial drain. Relaxing in the wop wops (that the boondocks or the back of beyond for none NZers) of Latvia and Lituania will help to eek the budget out a little bit longer.

So what is our budget? I hear you say...
Well, we met a couple of other travellers and their camper in Croatia last year, they told us they had spent about £5000 in 4 months. So, based on that figure, we have an approximate budget of £10, 000 for 4 months, 6 months or 8 months or however long it may last. Based on current exchange rates that's about NZ$27000....or a small house deposit.

With a budget of £2500 for diesel, and as long as the cost of oil doesn't massively exeed US$100/barrel, at £65/tank and having an undefined mpg figure, we estimate 400, 450 or 500 miles/tank that's 15000, 17000 or 19000 miles. A more precise figure will be available when we have used up the first tank of gas. Initial forecasts are promising, barring a leak in the fuel line such as the one that the Black Bullet just recovered from, we are on track for at least 450 miles/tank.
As you will have gathered, this budgeting lark is an exact science.

It's in the name

So you voted. Whilst I, with my political science degree, wanted to declare the results of the referendum non binding, Daniel decreed that it would be bad luck to ignore the majority vote an thus, continue the Adventures of Marea and Daniel and The Red Baron (Pat for short)
So doomed to the obscurity of 'Pat for short' are my visions of Postman Pat and Jess the Cat memorabilia. Just picture it; Jess the cat by the Colosseum, Jess the cat by a Norwegian Fjord.


The Red Baron (Pat for short) has his first outing today.

Unfortunately the Black Bullet -the replacement for the Green Racing Machine - which replaced BB developed a strong smell of petrol on Wednesday morning and had to be taken to hospital. This neccessitated me driving TRB(P4S) to Alfredton train station where my collegue then drove me on to York. I was a bit apphrehensive that Pat would get his neck chopped off by the train station height limit bars, but we were okay as long as we drove in on the wrong side of the road.

Where in the World

Since we've starting planning this trip the biggest question is where will we go?

We are not hot weather people, Daniel's red hair, fair skin and my tendancy for heat rash give us both an incentive to knock Spain off the list before summer sets in.

Very vaguely the plan is thus:
Cross using the channel tunnel and drive to Spain via France.
Spain and Portugal during April then drive up through the south of France to the Netherlands and Denmark in May. Take a ferry to Scandinavia for the longest day and midnight sun in June. June/July in Scandinavia then travel down through St Petersberg and Estonia.
And then....we aren't really sure. Up to 3 months to do Europe and try to get some more stamps in our passports.
I'd like to see Rome again, visit Pompei, Switzerland, eat lots of cheese and drinks lots of wine.
Maybe catch a few of the festivals on Van Tour like, Tomatina, Pamplona, Octoberfest.

• April - France, Spain Portugal
• May - France, Netherlands, Denmark
• June - Norway, Sweden,
• July - Finland, St Petersberg, Estonia
• Aug, Sept, October - Italy, Switzerland, Germany and others.

As I said; very very vague.

Our insurance does limit us to certain countries, which whilst constricting may make our choices just that little bit easier. We've spent some time in Eastern Europe but still want to tick off Prague. I'd like to do such things as an intensive language course in Spain, some volunteer work, stay with some local families, do some hiking.

We have discovered from our previous travels that we don't have burning desire to see everything. There are certain places I'd not wish to miss but we are really going to have to find our own rhythm...else we will probably pack up and come home after 2 months.

On being told to "harden up"

I have splinters! Long ones that I can't remove.
Apparently in Daniel's native farm environment, complaining about splinters is tantamount to saying "I'm a wuss". Not having grown up in this environment, Daniel's amusement at my discomfort is not appreciated.

Said splinters were gathered whilst cleaning out the camper. the wooden interior needs a hammer taking to it...to bang in all the nails that have come loose.

There was so much crap in there! Two shopping bags full of food. A cupboard full of cleaning products, books, pens, bedding, nothing in it's place and nothing had a place.
We could just reuse all the crap, but to me that feels a bit too much like getting all your clothes from the op shop. I want my camper to be like a new school uniform, all clean and crisp.

Daniel is lucky that his study schedule exempts him from the splinter inducing cleaning...for now.

How Cool is This?!?

Yesterday I found the guru of self build campervans.

Today I found the gurus of campervanning. Fullstop.

It's a 1966 German Army fully kitted out UNIMOG with a website dedicated to its travels from the UK down to South Africa. It's not the most functional website, but I broke my 'if it doesn't load in 5 seconds...forget it' rule because it is sooo cool. http://www.tiretracks.org/mogforsale/index.html