At our six month point in the trip I wrote a short review of that time to sum up what we had been up to. So I thought I’d do the same for the second! Each of the things on here have more in depth individual posts, that go into more detail, however this will... Continue Reading →
As a finale to outer trip, we headed back to Belgium from Amsterdam with a plan to visit some of the battlefield sites and cemeteries of World War One. I have done a battlefield tour sixteen years ago when I first joined the Army, and have ever since, especially in recent years wanted to... Continue Reading →
We arrived in Amsterdam and managed to get a spot at the Vliegenbos caravan park, our first official night on a campsite in over 11 months on the road, not bad! We were keen to take advantage of the facilities, however we were keener still to get out into Amsterdam and tick off a few... Continue Reading →
After finishing with our climbing in Fontainebleau we headed north to Belgium where we were to meet with a couple of friends met many years ago, and have ever since planned time and again to meet up, however this has never happened. We arrived in Aalst after a looong drive, and had a few drinks... Continue Reading →
In my last post I described our trip to Montserrat, where we walked and climbed in the mountains above the Monastery. The views in this place were out of this world, towers of rock stood atop of a huge mound, and from a distance it looks like a hedgehog. We enjoyed our time there, although... Continue Reading →
I have not written a diary style blog post for a while now, mainly as there has been very little to write about, and rather than write a post for the sake of it, I thought it best to wait until something worthwhile happened! We headed north after Las Fallas, in the general direction of... Continue Reading →
Many years ago, I looked into flights to Valencia with a plan to visit during the Las Fallas festival weekend, as it turned out my ideals were scuppered by super high prices of flights and accommodation. At the time I was travelling a fair bit in between work and this was right up my street,... Continue Reading →
When we left Costa Blanca at the end of January, it was after a months solid climbing. We had climbed so much that I even got to the point that I'd had enough of climbing and needed some time off. The casualty of this was a route called El Dorado, one of the top fifty... Continue Reading →
We finished our time in El Escorial, just on the outskirts of Madrid in a hail of rain. The day before we had managed to squeeze in one last boulder session at La Silla De Felipe II, in between rain showers. We climbed for a maximum of an hour before rain stopped play and we... Continue Reading →
Let's start with a little moan, the bloody weather! I mean what the hell? I'm in Spain, and it's starting to feel like I'm still in England! Anyway moan over! We left Portugal in horrendous rain, and in two days we made it to a small town just on the outskirts of Madrid, called El... Continue Reading →
When we arrived in Portugal, we had plans to spend a couple of weeks there following the coast up to Lisbon, climbing as we went. As things turned out we only managed a couple of days on rock and for the rest, rain stopped play. We had a long drive from a service stop just... Continue Reading →
I have often sat at home watching other people's travels through social media, often with a huge fear of missing out on all the great adventures that are going on around me! Often it's work or other commitments holding me back, however I'm now happy to say I have been living a great adventure on... Continue Reading →
The afternoon after we had been bouldering, we had a lovely lunch overlooking the bay. We then drove down to Bolonia and had a walk down the beach, we had the whole beach to ourselves, apart from a few cows! We collected some shells and even returned a beached jellyfish to the sea, I'm not... Continue Reading →
We have had another week or so of play in El Chorro, and to be honest it's a week more than we expected when we first arrived. On our first week we only managed to climb a few single pitch routes due to a lack of a guidebook, and most of these were in poor... Continue Reading →
A while back a friend of mine tagged me in a post about this walk, and at the time we though it was not for us and maybe a little tame. However we decided it would be a good option when the weather was not so good. We tried to do the walk a couple... Continue Reading →
Whilst we were travelling towards El Chorro, I placed a thread on the UKC forum asking wether there was any descent places to go walking or scrambling near El Chorro, as I fancied the option if there was a chance between climbs. As luck would have it I chose an Aire in a town called... Continue Reading →
We picked Ricote as a camping spot in our usual way, what's near us? What looks nice? As it turns out Ricote fitted the bill just nicely, although it was a little out of the way. That said it was worth an extra twenty minutes behind the wheel. The actual camper stop/wire is located in... Continue Reading →
We have continued our climbing tour through Costa Blanca, with a trip to a crag called Sax, again we were chasing top fifty and three stared routes from the Rockfax book. Sax had a lot of good routes, and looked like a great place to climb although the guidebook did say that the venue was... Continue Reading →
After what was a great day out on Toix the day before, we were to have a trying day on Mascarat. We woke up to an overcast day, and decided that a trip into Calpe for some supplies would give us time to gauge what the weather was doing. After this little jaunt the weather... Continue Reading →
I am a little behind on posts, not that I have lost my enthusiasm for writing them, it's just that I have not been up to much, and therefore do not have much to write about. As with the previous post, all is not well in the van. I'm not going to dwell on it... Continue Reading →
So far this trip has been amazing, time and again I have experienced and written in this blog just how good of a time I am having. However just recently the trip has took a dip in form. Nothing major has happened, and that's part of the problem… we have had a couple of weeks... Continue Reading →
It feels like half the time, which can only be a good thing! When we set out we planned on a years trip and so far it is all going to plan. Of course there have been a few problems on the way ( no one mention getting stuck and wedging the van under a... Continue Reading →
Another fine day, another fine climb, and another horrid descent. This is a simple way to sum up our second multipitch route in Croatia. We started later than planned, although we were pretty sure we could get up and down in the time left. This route was called Stargate and was further along the face... Continue Reading →
Finally the weather seems to be improving for a time and we are trying to make the most if it. The first afternoon of good ish weather we headed up to the crag near Split as we were parked in town. It's weird that for days all I have wanted to do is climb and... Continue Reading →
I have already reviewed my first week in Croatia, and although it has not gone to plan as far as the climbing/weather is concerned, we have still made the best of the time we have had here. The same has to be said of our second week we have been hampered by bad weather and... Continue Reading →
How did I end up here? A series of decisions and processes have ended up with me living in a van, travelling, climbing and having the best time of my life, for the most part. Outside of the most part is covered in these ‘reality posts’, however I wrote that these would cover the good,... Continue Reading →
We drove into Croatia at night after a long day of freeloading wifi and power at the Bled tourist office, as jess has work, its only fair to say how good the office is and the information we received from the staff was above and beyond all other tourism offices we have use on this... Continue Reading →
As my journey through living full time in a van continues, I thought I would continue to shed light on the lesser advertised realities of my #vanlife experiences. This post just runs through the latest things that have gone wrong and anything that opposes the general perfect Instagram vision of living in a van. Rude... Continue Reading →
I held off from adding this to the last post, in the hope that we would be able to have another day of adventure in the mountains, unfortunately the weather has had the last word and high winds have meant we will instead drive to Croatia this afternoon. I know it's a hard life! In... Continue Reading →
We left the Dolomites after a bit of bad weather and a sprinkle of snow had coated all the mountains, whilst taking away a few more degrees in the process. This was enough to force us to leave as it was pretty cold already. We had an amazing second trip to the Dolomites managing to... Continue Reading →
We left Pompeii unceremoniously after the hassle from police for being in our van. We had planned to spend more time there, however this just put us off and we hotfooted it to Rome, where we found a couple of dedicated motorhome parking and service spots in Castel Gandolfo which were free! Oh why does... Continue Reading →
For our final foray in tourism, for the time being, we have visited Florence. Not somewhere I have ever thought of visiting, however Jess wanted to visit as she had heard from friends that it was a beautiful place to visit. I have to admit it was a very picturesque place, even with the crowds... Continue Reading →
The plan for a day trip to mount visuvius was simple, wake up in the morning, follow signs to the car park and then walk to the top, simple! The night before, jess had been doing some work so we needed a McDonald's to use the wifi, by the time this was done it was... Continue Reading →
Our adventures in Sardinia ended with a relaxing day on the beach followed a by the most efficient and relatively comfortable ferry journey to Naples, by relatively comfortable, I mean that me and jess shared a sofa in a corridor for the night, as we saved money by not booking a cabin! We made our... Continue Reading →
So far this trip we have climbed, a lot, however our stint up the west coast of Sardinia resulted in more sunbathing than climbing. In all honesty the most climbing that we did was at Masua, and that was three single pitches, so not exactly pushing ourselves… that said, this part of the trip has... Continue Reading →
The title is what you go there to see, which is fine as there is pretty much nothing else there! Our trip to Pisa was unplanned, we had not long been to Venice after being chased from the Dolomites by bad weather. After spending an age trying to decide where to go next, we looked... Continue Reading →
