20:00 English time: Finally 48 hours after we had planned to depart, me, Andy and our beast of a campervan have left rainy Yorkshire.
All of the maintenance has been completed, we have a water system, an electric system and have managed to not kill each other over the stress of it all.
We are 100 miles into the journey on our way to a 2:30am ferry, I am sat next to an 80s child who is loud and proud and currently deafening me while joining in with meatloaf’s I would do anything for love.
We started the 280 mile journey to our ferry which will then be followed by a gruelling 600 miles in one day to get to Bordeaux for my first cheese and wine review.
We are having a productive journey so far, I have called my loved ones, already wrote the expected letter to my granny, added to our so far uneventful blog with an actual travel story and we have finally named our LDV the Millennium Falcon.
01:00: We arrive at the ferry with plenty of time to make a brew in the back and put the TV on, what a luxury.
The ferry crossing was my first and definitely wont be my last, it was magical. We left the port looking back into Dover with all of it’s twinkly lights, the calm sea barely moved the boat while we held onto each other in a less cheesy but just as romantic version of Titanic.
For most of the journey we stayed outside and looked up at the stars that only look so clear when surrounded by such darkness and waited for dawn to arrive.
05:00 French time: We arrived at Calais and headed for our first services, for months Andy had been telling me that we could stop at services to sleep but with my only experience being of rainy, miserable English ones, I had been quite dubious.
But when we pulled up to a peaceful stop, overlooking the French countryside, surrounded by other campers all of of my worries disappeared. This place would easily rival many English campsites.
11:10: We woke up after a much needed sleep, Andy had a slight panic about the solar panels, but the crisis was quickly averted, so we made breakfast and headed south towards Bordeaux.
17:16: We are 571km from Bordeaux, Andy is driving and I am on blind spot duty which neither of us are very keen on me having such a responsibility. We have just driven passed a huge sign that says Camembert and got excited all over again.
So we are very happy, Andy has began his role as driver and photographer and so far my writing has already begun, we did not forget anything important and everything seems to be working like clock work.
Saturday: It has been a few days since I have been able to blog, mainly due to the amount of time and effort involved in being a navigational officer but also due to the fact that living in a van involves hours spent finding a place to sleep for the night.
Wednesday: We drove all day until the worst imaginable happened, the van lost power every few minutes, by this point it was past midnight, we were exhausted, sweaty and wondering when the fun was going to start but luckily we found an Aires (a stop over for campers) which consisted of a parking space and a toilet in a quant, peaceful town.
Thursday: The final part of our epic journey to Bordeaux began, we had breakfast on the go, Andy driving and me attempting to direct and feed him when necessary, we were doing so well until the van starting loosing power again. by now we were even more sweaty and stuck in the 28 degree heat in the middle of nowhere.
Fortunately for me, my fiancé (and I hate to admit this) is a genius, he fixed a problem that numerous mechanics could not and we were on route. running just on time we found a campsite, we confused the owner greatly when asking to pay just for a shower, by this point he could have named any amount and we would have been grateful.
Over two days and 800 hundred miles had passed and in the end we were one hour away from Bordeaux which would make us arrive one hour late for our review, so we admitted defeat and headed to the nearest Aires to relax for the night.
In a town on the edge of St Emilion we found the most wonderful free camperstop, just a few pitches in the middle of a vineyard. We drank some local vino and took a walk through the vines while the sun set.
We were woken, in my opinion, by the loudest, fiercest thunderstorm I have ever seen, usually I love to look out of the window in the safety of my home and be amazed at the flashes of lightening, but when you are over a thousand miles from home in a tin can while the sky looks like a scene from Ghostbusters, it makes you feel very insignificant and vulnerable. Andy wanted to go outside but by this point I was being a big girl.
Friday morning: I will remember this forever, we woke to a glorious day without a time limit or agenda, strapped up the solar shower (a bag with a tube coming from it) and showered outside, in the middle of the vineyard and headed to St Emilion to wander around the medieval town sampling local merlot.Friday evening after being stuck in our first traffic jam since we reached France, while driving into Bordeaux, we headed towards the coast for a well deserved swim and sunbathe.
