The Next Adventure
South America has been a good trip, catching up with friends and family, experiencing new places, foods and cultures. It ends on a bit of a fizzle. Instead of a massive week of feasting in Montevideo, I spend the week being ill. I recover enough for the flight home, which is of little consolation.
We have a few tasks to catch up on at our expensive storage container home before we head out on the kind of trip that inspired this change of lifestyle many years ago. We have a vague plan. Towards the end of September, drive the van south to Morocco. An unoriginal and easy plan.
I start on some basic maintenance on Godzuki!. The roads of Argentina have convinced me it would be wise to change his shock absorbers, which are probably in the region of decades old, maybe even the originals.
New radiator hoses are ordered and a few other maintenance jobs performed.
The farce of the quick getaway begins.
It’s now mid November and the days are noticeably shorter and cooler. The trees are giving up their leaves and I am on the verge of just giving up. I have one more shock absorber than I actually need, one shock absorber held on in a completely non standard way and one door handle held together with superglue and gorilla tape. The oil cooler for the transmission is still in its box in the garage and the recovery boards have no home on the van yet.
Still, all the other issues holding us up are finally resolved so we pack far too much into the van and begin our long journey east to Türkiye.
No plan survives the road and somewhere along the line we changed our minds about where we should head for. We’ve also realised that the trip will be mostly determined by the date the EU will let us back in with my ageing passport. They say that change is good and let’s face it, it’s still an unoriginal and easy plan.
The last time we camped in the van was at the Adventure Overland Show back in April. Figuring that we should keep things simple to begin with, we stop at a little campsite half an hour from home to make sure we can remember how everything works and check we have all the basics before being past the point of no return.
The van is so full of stuff that I find it unimaginable that we’ve left anything behind and we do eventually find the keys that we think we’ve forgotten.
After a couple of days of family driveway camping we tackle the M25 and overnight at Canterbury’s motorhome stopover for one final pint at the pub next door. We also decide it’s probably time to actually book a ferry. While waiting for our morning crossing we recognise the van that pulls up behind us in the queue. We know who they are, but we have the advantage as they have no idea who we are. As they used to own a HiAce it’s an easy introduction. We spend the wait and the crossing discussing life plans and gnocchi and part ways on the motorway out of Dunkirk. We’re both heading for Luxembourg, but only one of us will make it.
It feels great to be back on the continent. The driving is calmer and the roads quieter. Our first stop is a Carrefour on the French/Belgian border, then onto the first overnight stop of the trip in Iepers.
Really it’s a bit lazy as we’ve stopped here before and the last thing we want from this trip is familiarity, but it’s a good distance from the port and we’re heading for Luxembourg for cheap fuel, so it makes sense to us. For now, anyway.
Iepers is also a good reminder to appreciate the freedom we enjoy and the price that has been paid for it over the course of history. Home to the Menin Gate, we’ve visited it before and witnessed the ceremony. The gate is currently undergoing restoration and under protective covers, but the covers carry an image of what hides underneath.
At last on your way with the van. I reckon you’ll skip Bruges this time bit we will follow your whereabouts online 😎. Enjoy! Bart aka carobart
Hi Bart, yes we didn’t visit Bruges on the way through, in fact our wheels hardly stopped turning until we reached Italy! All the best to you and your family for 2024 and happy Cali travels.