Its been a while since we have got away in the van, its also been a while since I've been climbing! But it was a good change of pace to get away from the mundane! It was a break from the mundane work life, that just seems to roll through month after month. We drove... Continue Reading →
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 →
This is where we started the Climbing trip nearly a year ago, so it only seems fair that this would be where it ended. As ever when I arrive in Font I am immediately fond of the place, pulling down rugged roads, avoiding potholes and ending up at a car park surrounded by nothing but... Continue Reading →
The day after our ski touring adventure in Chamonix, we set off in the direction of home, and decided that we would pop into the Bourgogne region, as there was a bit of climbing there that we could get done before dropping Colin off at Paris Airport. We pulled into Saffres that has a basic... 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 →
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 →
After spending a couple of days parked up on the beach at Bolonia, I decided that I was rested enough to have another days climbing… this later proved to be wrong! We got up earlier than usual, as we knew we wanted to make the most of the day ahead. Luckily we had managed to... Continue Reading →
This area first arrived on my radar when looking for sports climbing in the area. One of the online forums mentioned this El Helechal and it's great bouldering potential. All I could find in the form of topo’s was higher graded routes, most of which were out of my grades, however I still thought a... Continue Reading →
This is a tiny post more for information rather than telling a story of what I have done, although I'm sure there will be a little in there! We parked at the Aire that is located at the top of the town (36.445959, -5.278203), where we camped, it is quite comfortable and has water, waste and... Continue Reading →
So it's the end of our first week in El Chorro, and the heavens have opened, leaving me with some time to write up a blog post of what we have been up to so far. In all honesty this first week has been a little up and down. First of all we drove close... Continue Reading →
As is becoming the usual on this trip, occasionally I accumulate enough things that go wrong and defy the perfect #vanlife perception that I'm able to write a blog post on it. I will also make sure the post has pictures of our van in only the best settings, as who takes a picture of... 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 →
We have been in Costa Blanca for the better part of two weeks and have so far had an absolute blast! My previous two posts have already highlighted some of the fantastic adventures that we have experienced here, such as the Bernia ridge, various quality single pitch crags, climbing on Toix on Christmas Day and... Continue Reading →
For near seven months we have been able to live in our van rent free, we have wild camped for this entire time! However we felt like we would treat ourselves to some normality over the Christmas period, and booked two nights at the orange house. We drove for just short of seven hours from... 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 →
After leaving Croatia due to cold weather, we thought we would entertain even colder climates in Slovenia, and see how both the van and us would fair. On crossing the border we headed straight for Bled, and stopped at a service station for the night. In Croatia we had already given into the cold at... 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 →
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 →
In all honesty this second outing to the Dolomites has been one long hard week of fun! In eight days we have had seven of them out in the mountains, with one off in the middle, my body is feeling sore, but it has been worth it. Last time I left the area feeling disappointed... Continue Reading →
This climb was our fourth day on the bounce and it's fair to say I am feeling a little bit fragile after it all, it's time for a day off, however before that I will write a short piece on this climb. It's fair to say that the great weather we are having is the... Continue Reading →
Finally we have made it back to the mountains, oh how much I have missed being here! It sounds weird to have been travelling, climbing and diving across Italy and Sardinia, and the whole time I felt like there was something missing, and I've not realised it was this, hills, mountains, towering rock faces, amazing... 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 →
As this trip is ongoing I thought I would continue to develop my van life reality posts as things happen and who knows by the end of it I might have shattered the Instagram #vanlife perception. So far on the trip we have travelled from the UK to Venice to Sardinia, this does not seem... Continue Reading →
Following on from the last post where we have finally been scuba diving on the Isola die Cavoli near Villasimius, we found some free parking just down the road from the port and proceeded to spend a couple of nights there. It was a lovely location, although we were always on edge, with the fear... Continue Reading →
As I said in my previous post we made an on the spot decision to head to Sardinia after watching a video on Facebook. It was was literally 24 hours from driving to the Slovenia border to turning around and being on a boat to Sardinia. This is one of the great things about being... Continue Reading →
We knew on completing our climb on the Vajolet Towers that the weather was changing for the worse! As it turned out, we moved to a new location, Canazai, which had a parking bay on the other side of town that had running water, toilets and bins, all useful when stopping somewhere! As I said,... Continue Reading →
We have been planning on getting to the Dolomites for quite a few months now, and finally we are here. Another outdoor playground to set out on a bunch of adventures! First off we have started the trip in the Catinaccio area, also known as the Rosegarten area. Local legend say that Catinaccio was ruled... Continue Reading →
After the minor disaster that was the south coast of France, we were keen to move on and turn a new leaf, so we headed into Italia! We knew the Dolies was the next big destination, but the 7 plus hours driving were a little off putting, so we decided on a slight detour to... Continue Reading →
Now that we have left Chamonix we seem to be on the move a little more, once again this trip will be mobile and we will be travelling to various new places, although where exactly we don't know yet as we are making it up a little, rather than sticking to a rigid itinerary. That... Continue Reading →
Before we left on this trip, I obviously did a lot of searching for van and vanlife, related things, as this is what we were setting out to do, and the internet can be full of useful information if you look in the right places. However, it is also filled with a lot of crap,... Continue Reading →
As the title says, I have had a request from a follower via email to share more about who I am, how I got here and where I am going. All these things that have not been fully covered in the blog as of yet, and were totally overlooked by me! I hope they don't... Continue Reading →
So on here I have posted much about the days when there is lots going on, I have talked about life in the van a little and although there are adventures taking place pretty regularly out here, there are also days where the sun does not shine and life is put on hold, such as... Continue Reading →
What can I say, Burgundy has delivered, time and again I have been able to reflect on life in a present context. I'm happy to be here, and have enjoyed the entire stay! Whilst driving along I have managed to catch some fragmentary impressions, which have given me glimpses of wonderful things; chateaus and rolling... Continue Reading →
As with all new enterprises there are always a few teething problems to begin with, although mine is less enterprise and more millennium falcon. I put this thing together with my co pilot Chewie, I mean Jess. So there was no doubt there would be some problems. First off was the waste drainage and jerry... Continue Reading →
So after a trip into Fontainbleau, we set out for the Retour de Sources climbing festival at Grand Paraquet. There was a full competition boulder wall set up, and although the weather had changed for the worse we decided to stick around and wait for the worse to pass. Once it did the competitors got... Continue Reading →
Quite bloody literally, I drove through the night after getting off the ferry. We decided against using the toll roads and taking the extra hour on the journey to save some money. So we arrived in Font at around 7am with zero sleep. We went to bed for a few hours but in the end... Continue Reading →
I have been on many adventures in my life, and some of those I have started to tell you about in this blog. All have had different beginnings, however I find that you always have an idea in your minds eye of what this will look and feel like. For example when I was sixteen... Continue Reading →
Woo! Van life! Living the dream! Or so you think… There is so much nonsense, poppycock, hogwash and other nicer ways of saying bullshit that paves the way to such a lifestyle change. Even this cheap lifestyle cannot be lived without a few large expenses and stacks of paperwork! An onwards rant from the earlier... Continue Reading →
The future influences the present just as much as the past Philosophical, hey? Thanks Nietzsche! In all seriousness I plan on an amazing future! The previous post about the van shows just how serious about this I am. (#The Past) I believe that I have so far been blessed with an amazing life. I have... Continue Reading →
The title gives a little insight into how much I have (insert sarcasm here) ‘loved’ building our van into our new home. Jess and me have for years talked of a big trip, and loosely set the date for 2017, and after being inspired by many others we thought the van life/ dirt bag climber... Continue Reading →
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