A blog of surprises

 It’s been a couple of months since my last post. There have been no big adventures but plenty of little ones and Bertha has definitely not been neglected. I now have a diesel heater which is complete luxury and a shower. There will be a separate post about the shower but this blog entry has a few surprises.

Surprise 1 – The countdown has started to the next big adventure, 5 weeks to be precise.

When I came back in November I really struggled to know what to do next, and some of you will be under the impression that after I weighed up my priorities that I got a grown up, sensible, full time job. And you’d be right, I did. Sort of. I am lucky enough that my contract includes a block of time off each summer so that I can do a proper travelling trip, wander, have freedom, all the things I need to balance out the fact I now have to wear a suit, proper shoes and brush my hair most days. So maybe Surprise 1 isn’t a huge surprise, I think it was inevitable that I’d go away again before too long.

Surprise 2 – I’m turning my compass upside down and heading south.

The furthest south I went last year was Lands End but this year I’ve decided that I fancy waking up to blue sky every day, walking along beaches wearing fewer than 5 layers and not carrying full waterproofs wherever I go. There is also another reason for Surprise 2, and that’s Surprise 3….

Surprise 3 - I’m not going alone.

I recently met Rich and Ted, a van dweller and his dog who were planning a long trip to Europe this summer. They were planning on heading south to Spain and Portugal.

At the time I was going to be off to Scandinavia, I’d even bought the maps ready and although my heater wasn’t specifically for that trip, if I was going to get one it made sense to have it fitted before I went. It started off as a bit of a joke, Rich told me I wouldn’t be needing my heater in Portugal and I told him he wouldn’t be needing his sun canopy in Norway, but then the idea grew.

We talked a lot about the upsides and downsides of going together, would it be less adventurous? Would we wander less? Would it be more of an extended holiday rather than a travelling trip? We came to the conclusion that it might be all of those things, but that it would also be fun to have company, to share the things we see and to be honest, he offered to put my kayak on his roof-rack and I was sold by that idea.

We’re both going to be self reliant so that if we want to go and wander alone we can do but having spent some time together and read each other’s travel blogs to get an idea of how we travel I’m fairly sure that the Pilot and Bertha won’t ever be too far apart. 2 solo travellers in convoy for 3 months. What could possibly go wrong?!