Overland with Kids

We are all suffering from icky bellies and spending much time on the loo today. We reckon a hangover from Moroccan visit. Chilling for a little while in Alicante as Jess and AJ need to let off some steam and have met some new friends. Hence a quick chance to update again.

Heading for Tarragona later today - Albert, Montse and Laura - watch out, we heading your way and planning on Andorra as our pass through - if your around and available, it will be great to meet with you.

Max, vehicle seems to be behaving itself finally so hopefully chain reaction of events now finished. Will give more details when we get back but we are already taking heed and trying give ourselves as much time as possible in case issues not over yet.

Margaret, Alan and to all our family and friends- huge cuddle, cuddle, squeeze and a BIG kiss from Jess and AJ. Amazingly, AJ the homeboy says he doesn´t want to go home now - only for a little while to see Momo (Gizmo) our cat. Jess does miss her friends and can´t wait to see them. If she could bring them away with her, think she would be sorted.

We think in retrospect that the caravan has been great with no issues except the sheer weight and slowness when pulling. Now we have had the experience without it, there is a huge difference in lighter more speedier travel (and our LR is not that fast when loaded). We think we might have had problems in Morocco with it in terms of safe parking and parking generally and on some of the busier coastlines and small towns we have visited. We have loved sleeping in it and having - excellent, but cost of bringing it everywhere not for us in the long-term. Bikes too will have to go though again, these have been great this time around but further afield next year will become a nuisance for us.

As for our plans now, we will head for Millau to collect caravan and bikes we left behind us and still plan to head for Bilbao as we have paid for the tickets. Should also be a more interesting and challenging route as well as shorter than to Calais.

Discussions today led to us to talking about the use of tents for OZ - something we can pack away easily. But we´ll discuss in more detail at a later date.

We reckon we have travelled possible 3,500 - 4,000 miles in total with about another 1,000 to go. And, to date we have stayed in about 18 - 20 different accommodation types ranging from campsite, pension, hotel and guesthouse. Will calculate more accurately at end of the trip. Latterly we have found it more difficult to wash clothes and are scraping by mostly but no hassle. Problem mainly occurring when restricted to 1-night stops.

Boiling hot wherever we go. We saw weather reports for UK - not looking good but Jess says she can´t wait as too hot for her whitey skin!

Bye for now

A, A, J and A

xxxx

 

 

 

Diary (Blog)