Campervan designs and maps...where next.

Where will we go next and how might we get there?

In between trips around this part of Portugal have been obsessively drawing campervan ideas and and looking at maps. When you stand on a pristinely empty beach with your kids running out across the sand like deer, one thought takes hold,
"How can we do more of this in the future?"

I'm keen to explore my native Scotland and Wales (which has more castles per square mile than any other country in the world!) I've also always had a thing about North Devon. My daughter is desperate to spend time in Paris, we have passed through but not explored.

Looking at the French road map I never realized how well connected we are with France....

We need a Britstop book, to sleep free and legal in the UK, and Aires book for France, and a van, car turned into camper... Here following are my ideas.

End of the line for "Hope"

"Tomorrow we may have to fight again, but for now we'll ride the train to the end of the line. And then, we'll jump." To steal a line from a good film.

"Hope" the campervan has reached the end of the line.

The van will be €1000 to fix, and we don't have it, but it runs at 30 miles per hour. I'm also fed up spending money on it that would pay for a flat!! So I am going to get them to put it back together broken and drive it to the nearest camp site, about 20 minutes drive where we will use it as a static caravan!

I walked to the campsite from town today. It's nice. There is a cafe, bar, mini supermarket, tennis courts and play-park. Lots of winter discounts working out about €13 a night perhaps less. She's going to work out what we qualify for. It's all fenced off and the door office is manned so it's very safe for kids. Clearly it also has showers and loos and stuff. There are little hits to rent if you visit. Everyone come see us!

I asked the bike shop to make me an offer for renting a bike and seat for 3 months.

The campsite is 5 minutes walk from the beach and about 15 from the town centre. You go down a road a few hundred meters and the rest is all along a promenade by the sea where cars are not allowed. It's a very good place to be stranded. The town has two beaches, swimming pool, market, art gallery, shops, cafes, medical clinic, crazy golf...

You can take a boat cruise to caves with a swim and dolphins for €30.

A scooter for the day is €15. A bike with no long discount is €5 a day.

There is free wifi on the beach!!!

When March comes we will ship our stuff on a pallet for about €200 and fly or train and boat home.

We can list the van on ebay (Campervan, running, needs fuel pump, already in Portugal) I have seen such things.

Blog: Northern Spain in a tiny metal home

Blog: Northern Spain in a tiny metal home.

Very quickly the van takes on an own little world quality. I'm in a car park (not even a proper aire) on the edge of Padron in northern Spain. My husband is out in a coffee shop using the wifi to tutor, or do related business and I'm here with two sleeping children, I'm not at all afraid I was going to write but then my husband came back early and made a bang on the van getting in and I jumped out of my skin!

I should start at the beginning. We set of in a Ford transit, I have roughly converted to a campervan myself, to tour Spain and Portugal. It's been nearly three weeks. Weeks packed with emotion, somehow constantly stepping into the unpredicted creates intense emotional responses at a level above my resting-heart-rate-normal-life.

Portsmouth: we stayed one night in the carpark of a classic English pub and had a look at some ships, that's Portsmouth, it's what you do there. Everyone was wound up tight with excitement which ramped up to fever pitch in the ferry line, never has so mundane an environment, as the mini traffic jam by ropes and crates, to board the ferry, caused so much tension, what will come? what will we do? What next? Is this stupid line ever going to move?

The ferry: my kids and I loved the ferry, my husband may have too, Tim has a laid back attitude to pretty much everything, so it's hard to tell! We careered around the decks revealing in the space, wind, sea and sense of escape! We explored little cafes and shops, we spent at least 20 minutes working out that two more stealth-beds were stored/hidden in the cabin ceiling! Sadly the kids struggled to sleep well in a long rocking swell and we didn't have a good night.

Santander: we arrived in the evening rush hour and I was already tired from the 24 hour crossing, as we slipped into port admiring the stunning mountains and sunset over the coast of Spain I alone was gripped with dread. The last time I drove unfamiliar European roads was breaking down on a five lane roundabout in France! It's dark, busy and I'm exhausted. When I drove off the boat following a line of vans out of the port it was actually a relief, really doing it being less scary than thinking about it. I was plunged into city rush hour traffic, sat nav in wrong mode not directing me, pull up reset, follow, accidentally get on big motorway passed our destination, backtrack through windy roads, some traffic signs I did not understand that were omitted from all my reading about driving in Spain, search for our destination and at last parked in our aire. I realised I had been saying out loud "I've got this, I'm a good driver" dozens of times for the last hour and a half.

We all piled into the nearest cafe, shaky, sleepy and starving. The lady there started talking to us and once she understood we were just off the boat and wiped out, she rushed off to reopen the shut kitchen and get us all Spanish omelettes! The first of many kindnesses from the people here.

Liargines: lucky for us we had some experience of Spain and when we heard the coming long weekend was a "fiesta" we bought some food. Everything shuts except cafes.

The fiesta meant traffic everywhere and any camper that left the aire had no space to come back to! We stayed. There was a fair, an otter sanctity, the kids made friends and started picking up Spanish from them. Liargains was charming.

Santander: we got the train back to santandair. This meant no more driving in the city and no losing our parking at the aire. I recommend the little ferry across the bay to a beach called soto. Charming sail, surf beach one side and sheltered bay the other, little surf shops and cafes, tall dunes, bridges. Reminded me of Sorrento, on the Melbourne peninsula if that helps. I recommend both places.

A few days later I had come down from my fear-high and we all stank, time to move on to an aire with showers, on the way we stopped at a town I called "lunch stop" with a beautiful old bridge. It's amazing how quickly you get into calling places, "the place with the broken swing" or "the place Dylan spilled his ice cream" ditching the romantic Spanish names like the uncultured heathens we are.

The aire with showers was shut! No showers, no sleeping, shut, it was dark, Tim needed to hot foot it to the village to use the wifi to tutor (or we would soon run out of money) the kids were tired. I drove the van passed the cones shutting the place, and up a little ramp in a gap between a building and a car wash, and got into the shut aire to sleep! They may still be looking for us! Good luck with that mate! I was in a let us sleep here or deal with me sort of fury!

We will not bother to find out which town stupid shut aire was in, if it needs a name it can be "stupid shut aire with stupid shut showers".

Cudillero: had the beach I called heaven, really called "space" "espacia" perhaps heaven is the freedom to move and have space.

Ortigueira: this was so like my native Scotland that I kept referring to the tidal estuary as the "loch" (Scottish for lake). Green hills with misty mountains behind, grey-silver water. Little harbours sheltering mini fishing fleets, bagpipes, tartan and a Celtic festival! Many Scottish people moved there way back when. But for whatever reason they remained Catholic so the churches and very different. Decorated, garlanded, gilded and colourful, very much Spanish. Mostly churches in Scotland are tough little stone buildings with bare stone and austere decor, of stone, and did I mention stone, grey stone.

The graveyard was equally a place to jerk me back to Spain, almost every grave covered in flowers, mostly fabric and plastic. It was a sort of multi story grave yard, stone boxes five high in strange "streets of dead". Surrounded on three sides by calm water and mountains it was also one of the most peaceful places these feet have ever trod.

Everyone was very friendly, everyone said it's beautiful here but the economy is bad. True most shops were boarded up and for sale. I saw town centre, stone built, three story properties for €30,000. Despite this everywhere I went they gave us free cake, sweets, extra whatever. One man I talked with gave me his discount card for a Spanish supermarket chain! It's all he had to give with him as he was out walking his dog passed my van, but he seemed desperate for me to accept something for my story. I gave him a pencil sketch of a rearing unicorn which I tore from my sketchbook and signed. He put it away in his coat like a treasure. I hope he can visit Scotland one day as he wishes. I hope the scots treat him well.

I'm collecting points on my new Spanish supermarket loyalty card!

We got a shower in the gym there!

Ferrol: ship building town. We went swimming at the public pool, you must wear a swimming hat, but they had them to borrow, and you bring your own padlock for the lockers, which we did not have! Little differences!

Padron: the aire at Padron was far into the mountains down a windy road with a beautiful river at the end. Once we got there we realised we had little to make a meal and headed all the way back to town, at that point I put my foot down, I had become very used to driving around quiet Spanish motorways and towns, but the windy but fast mountainside roads are still hard and I was dammed if I was doing it in the dark. We found a dusty carpark and did our first non aire parking to sleep, no one gave a flying fig! We lived there three days and cooked by the van.

Padron is all little historic streets and churches. My kids learned to light real candles for prayers of people, this is now proving to be an expensive habit as they want to light six in every Chirch we go to!

Santiago de Compostela: We were going to go here on the train from Padron, and do the not having to park/drive in the city thing again, but it didn't fit well around tutoring and we were going to skip it and move on.... Then on the motorway slip road the van got stuck in second gear, I tested it and it went fine, then at the toll it stuck in fifth. I was briefly stuck in a horrid place then got it going and pulled off in what turned out to be the entry to a nature reserve, thankfully safe parking. Breakdown people called, long wait, van on truck, go to garage, can't fix an auto, massive drive to Santiago de Compostela. Posh Ford garage full of €50,000 new vans for sale. We are all a bit grotty and long haired. They stick our van round the back. Long wait. Tim has back to back lessons and has to tutor in the garage. This leaves me with two tired, hungry kids, Jasmine has been a star looking after her brother through all the turmoil but she's getting tired too. They ask me about the breakdown, gear box, auto, ok it's broken, ship it home! Epic wait for taxi to hotel. Part of it in the street in the dark as garage shut. Really nice hotel with really nice food! Few!

After many calls back and fourth I have insisted a garage be found that will find out what is wrong, is the gearbox leaking oil? Or an electrical fault? On Monday the van will be moved to a garage that can take it apart and find out. So we are stranded in a four star hotel  (paid for by my breakdown cover) in one of the most historic cities in Europe. Not all bad!

We went to the cathedral. It turns out it's not anything to do with compost, no one is growing carrots or collecting grass cuttings. Compostela may mean "star field" or "burial ground" but no compost. It's thought to be the resting place of St James, patron saint of Spain. He's a big deal, one of the 12 and son of Zebedee but again nothing to do with the magic roundabout!

The city is stone, tiny streets, steeply sloping up to the cathedral. Real pilgrims, wearing the shell symbol of the pilgrimage arrive all the time. They walk carefully, most walk 100 miles, many do more, but their faces are filled with the light of accomplishment. The cathedral is dark, very old and full of carved chapels, in the centre, gold, gold, gold. Real hope and real faith mixed with polite tourists and a little bit of freaky.

I feel very connected to so many feet on a path to feel close to their spiritual answers, then my three year old kicked off because we wouldn't pay for him to light his 55th candle and we all leave in a hurry!

I really hope we can fix the van and bid a respectful good buy to this city. I see the kids so engaged with each new place, soaking up culture and language, stretching their experience daily.

Let's hope Santiago is pilgrimage start for us.

Love, Kirsteen

List of places we slept for those dissatisfied with names like: "Stupid shut aire."

Lierganes

Colunga

Cudillero

Ortigueira

Ferrol

Padron

Santiago de Compostela

We go tomorrow!

Tomorrow we go to Portsmouth and Monday we sail to Spain. I have loved seeing all my friends and family all summer, thank you everyone who looked after us. ❤️

The Campervan is all fixed up, it nolonger leaks a pond onto the dashboard when it rains! The electrics are nolonger ready to explode at the least provocation, it has no oil leak, when you put on full beam all the lights don't go off! 😂 It also has new oil and breaks and tyres have been checked. I short, it all works and is not eccentric.

We have lots of plans and have done lots of reading, we spent last winter in a flat in Spain. We field tested the van with a trip to Birmingham, (to see my daughter's dad) but we are now going to live in it full time and travel. We have never done this before, work and study must all be on the road! We will be on our own and must rely on each other and make friends as we go. We must learn more Spanish, and Portuguese as fast as we can, we must deal with culture differences and everyday living where you don't speak the local language.

We have picked out museums, galleries, beaches, bridges, caves and castles that we want to see, we will also need, showers, laundrettes, supermarkets and wifi!

I have been pacing round my brother's house fiddling with things and not getting any real work done.

Tim has done a brilliant job of becoming a tutor by skype not a tutor face to face and that means more future adventures are possible as well as this one.

So we go in search of life, to throw ourselves into some unfamiliar problems and joys, we go seeking education, experience, and to make chooses with our lives rather than plod the path in front!

I leave you with some of the quotes that inspired us when this whole idea was just a map on our bedroom wall!

“The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” – Saint Augustine

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime". Mark Twain

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Henry David Thoreau 

"Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain."

Jack Kerouac

"There must be wide spaces in which to think, strange music to hear, odd costumes to see, and the elements to battle against. Money, nice cars, good food and a 'good job' mean nothing to me when compared to being able to possess the thought that there is a surprise over the horizon." L Ron Hubbard

 

Seventeen days to go!

Last night was stormy, rain beat the flowers down and wind rocked the campervan. Inside it was warm and quiet, three cuties slept in the soft light of a string of fairy lights. One was awake! My daughter tells me it is 17 days until we set off for a tour of Spain and Portugal that will last over five months. A pilgrimage in search of education, wildlife, adventure, culture and a lot of ice cream. My daughter has recently made the jump from reading when I tell her to, to reading for fun, and I couldn't be prouder, but there is more to be learned out there in the world, I want to set an example of participating in life, even better throwing yourself at it, but some nights that seems hard. My husband is feeling it too, he came home with enough plasters and antiseptic cream to supply a war zone! Getting nervous dear? Here we go! The kids can read my blog when they are older and go "Oh! They got scared sometimes!"

We may return through France, then we will explore Scotland. My van is ready and my new headlights look spanking! I know that apart from the 24 hours on the ferry I can potter around the coast as slowly as I like but I've never driven this far and I've only spent a handful of hours driving overseas. On the flip side, I've taken to watching videos of beautiful Portuguese coastline and food and thinking, come on 17 days get done!

I'm looking forward to sun silvered palm trees, wide spaces, new people, new words, mountains and medieval towns with castles. I'm not looking forward to missing my family (although my mum is hanging out in a Chateau in France right now) missing the play dates for Jasmine and trying to get the kids to eat strange food, or searching for chicken nuggets in exotic places!

We are also trying to solve the problems of working and travelling. Tim has done splendidly at changing his tutoring from face-to-face to skype. I have a little slot in the van for my art and have to try to paint (as I have a very promising new outlet for my fine art) and design textiles as we go. Tim needs wifi for his lessons. I need time and a flat table. I have to post work to my studio from places along the way. Fortunately for me, my design studio think my travel is inspiring for my design and are very happy to be helpful. 

I'm so very lucky I can fill my life with these self-chosen challenges, I'm not tied to a sick relative, committed to supporting family in a collapsed economy country, or simply not allowed to be an adventurous woman by culture or law. My circumstances and my healthy family are a gift of vast wealth. I'm going to have adequate imagination and courage to take advantage.  

Wish us a smooth crossing to Spain, but you can bet your bottom dollar we will be ok either way!

Adventures: I made it to the supermarket, can I stop driving now please?

I have my new van. I love it. But it's proper terrifying to drive!! It's bigger than the last one and you can't see out the back at all! It beeps when you reverse, like a delivery van. It is 14 years old, half the age of my last two vans but it has some old van eccentricities. It rolls back on hills!!! All you drivers who drive a manual are going "so?" But it's an auto and they don't! You just sit there till you go. It's so unusual there is a warning sticker about it on the sun visor. It looks like a funny airplane safety card drawing, and when you slam the hand break on your two ton van in shock to prevent rendering two-dimensional any car that may, or may not be behind (who knows), you mentally go "0h! That's what that is supposed to mean!"

I drove it to the supermarket on Saturday morning then panicked! The car park was filling up by the minute, and I had left my 10 year old babysitting my 2 year old, what if they box me in and I NEVER get back to them? How can I possibly drive around the cost of Portugal if I panic in a supermarket car park? I only got half my list and left in disorder.

The van also leaks. I'm sure I can fix it but in the meantime it drips when it rains, exactly into a little cup holder on the dashboard! So you drive around with a tiny dash board pond! I'm thinking of adopting a tadpole. And it's developing a lake inside the left hand headlight unit, perhaps a little carp and some water lilies too. My brother says; drill a small hole and it will pee in the street!

It's also a huge project on a tiny budget. If we had lots of money for this (My husband is paying debs so we have lots of money for debt repayment, and not too much for anything else.) I still would not want to spend a lot converting a van worth about £3,500. So it's got to be done for a few £100 which means, I do it myself. I'm still a bit overwhelmed by the amount of work for me. Easy if I was not also full time mum, homeschool teacher, and freelance textile designer. I always have my kids in tow, and I'm always behind on design. More of a textile non-designer to be honest at the moment. 

I'm so loving seeing my friends and family. It's so so good to be back where I get help, listened to, understood, hugs. We have had to be a unit of four and count on each other, good for us in some ways but exhausting. Everyone is seeing as much of our family as we can. I am a full time social secretary to my daughter! Although I don't want to drive her anywhere. Also the van still only has two seats. Right now only me and one other person can travel in it. Give me till September and I'll be ok, but for now I've lost my nerve. I just want to get someone else to drive for me. It probably doesn't help that the last time I drove anywhere was breaking down in a multi lane roundabout in France!

On the other hand I have not lost my nerve about worldschool. Why did I do worldschool? For my kids, but it's paying off and paying off for me. I have only made one trip so far but I've got the idea I can. I no longer own tons of stuff I don't use, I don't have a wardrobe full of clothes I never wear, I don't have a wardrobe! Or an iron, or scales, I don't know how heavy I am, I don't care, I own luggage scales instead! Much more exciting priorities!

I used to look at the worldschool community and think "Oh! My! I hope I could get organised enough, and brave to do that one day! Wow! Those people are in Bali learning local crafts, gosh! They are in India with elephants!" Now I find I look at it more like a menu! "We will have a double helping of Bali please with a plate of India on the side!" I would go lots of places with my kids. Why not? Lots of people do.