South West France

Drove south towards Bordeaux in the rain, we drove unitl we hit Sun, and ended up stay in a camp near Saint Emilion, a very quaint village in the heart of wineland – my kinda of paradise!  The camp was very ‘hidehi’, with welcome cocktails, music in the bar at night and children’s entertainment  Canoes and paddle boats, swimming pools etc.

We finally got to use our bikes and biked thru vineyards to St Emilion was a lovely historic own, where we wandered the streets and went up the Kings Castle. 

Very nice to have a relaxing day, we got our washing up-to-date, Mildred got a very much needed wash (her second in a week), wheel nuts checked, oil and fanbelt etc.  over 1000 km under our belt and all is well

France

France – wow!  It was so easy taking the Eurotunnel.  At the border they didn’t even look at our passports.

Got to France and it was still raining so decided to drive south a bit – avoiding Paris and because Daryl can’t as yet accept road tolls we took the scenic route.  That was a great decision as we got to see a lot of French countryside and villages

So we decided to go into Rouen, a BIG mistake, nearly fatal to our trip and Mildred’s head.  Tomtom sent us thru this street where we were told to take the two left lanes, they went into small tunnels then up to street level, back to tunnel, we were in the far left lane of 2, the tunnel heights kept getting lower, then we came to one the side 150m 1.9m – whoa!  We are at least 2.1m high – panic!!! – quickly push ourselves over 2 lanes – they were kind to us – maybe the NZ ovals and the NZ flag on our bum helped?  We fueled up and then got the hell out of Rouen before it ruined us.

Continuing to head south as want to outrun the rain.

And so we begin....

So far all is going to plan, we arrived late Sunday to London, took the tube to our freighters on Monday and re-packed Mildred.  Apparently London had had 3 weeks of rain, but the sun shone for us as we loaded Mildie up.

It was so good to see her!

Tuesday we collected her, filled with fuel GBP 85, got groceries and headed south towards Dover.  Mildred was running like a bag fill of shit, with the stale NZ fuel on the Monday, however by the time we got onto the A40 she was purring along very nicely.

Our first camp night was in Densole, a small town (village?) near Dover.  Camping is different here, maybe it’s too early in the season, as all other campers seem to be retired folk, they all sit in their campers or caravans, cook in them, eat, etc with maybe one chair outside of a few.  Whereas we have tables, chairs, bbq, bikes etc scattered about our site and only go inside our kombi to sleep.

 Can’t believe how friendly everyone is, they’d all talk the leg of a donkey.

Went for a MOT in Dover, website made it out to be a huge business, it was a back street, overcrowded premises with no room to swing a cat.  But we got our MOT.

Now it’s off to get our cooking gas and we are already for our Eurotunnel trip tomorrow.  We wonder if we will be making history and being the first NZ reg vehicle on the Eurotunnel.   And I am to join the mile low club – if there is one.

I think we are changing our plans and heading south through France into Spain and Portugal first, instead of north to Denmark – the weather is dictating the change as it’s quite cool here at the moment.

Mildred's arrived in London

Mildred's in London and been cleared through Customs.  Now she's just waiting for us!

See you later Mildie

Kombi loaded into container for shipment

Well the time has come to load our baby into a container to travel by ship via Singapore to London, over 20,000 km in all.
UK Customs require two separate entries, one for the vehicle and the other for our contents.  Therefore we have had to remove all the contents of the vehicle, except those relating directly to the vehicle and box them for shipping detailing precisely the contents of each box.   This was a rather painful process not to mention time consuming.  Lucky NZ Customs don't feel the same way and we can ship back as one unit.

The weeks leading up to the container loading were spent:

• Replacing full set of wheels and tyres
• New Battery
• Re-packing CV
• Re-packing front and rear wheel bearings
• Re-greasing all the steering joints (front beam)
• Cleaning
• Cleaning
• Did I mention Cleaning?

We literally spent untold hours cleaning the vehicle from top to bottom with a toothbrush (I kid you not!)

We ended up with a very clean, well serviced kombi to commence our trip with.

Despite a heavy downpour of rain the 24 hours prior to loading we managed to drive the 2 km to the freighters without ruining our hard work.

Here's Mildred waiting for her loading

ETA London 10 April, we arrive 29 April for 1 May collection - roll on May!

Insurance sorted

Since our last update we have now got our insurance policy (comprehensive) written, airfares booked and accommodation in Paddington, London for the first two nights prior to collecting Mildred (Kombi).
Travel insurance is in place, but still need Green Card insurance and International  Camping Card.
Shipping schedules only come out one month in advance, so although we have quotations they are changable right up until a week prior to shipping and fluctuate with the NZ dollar - Errr!


Van will be collected middle of London - another scary thought - it's going to be

Baptism by fire!

Starting to create lists of jobs to do, items to buy, what we are taking.