As I mentioned in the STUFF ABOUT US! intro we have been trying to get more fun and adventure into our lives, and so the search for our first van was underway!
In March 2020, one week before lockdown we found a van online. It was a 2006 Trigano Tribute, on a medium wheelbase Fiat Ducato base, and it was perfect! The price was about our limit, good condition, we could live with the décor, and it was newly advertised, which meant it was available. We ummmed and ahhhed for a couple of days, did some financial jiggery pokery, and paid the deposit.
Then……..the world stopped
Lulu (for that, dear reader, is her name!) arrived five weeks into lockdown. “That’s okay” we said to each other, “we can do some bits and pieces”
Hmmmm! Two solar panels, one leisure battery, one mi-fi (is it just me or is “mi-fi” a little silly!) system, one starter battery, one bike rack, one charge controller, and a gazillion other “bits and pieces” later and we were ready to go. (we will do a separate post with details of some of the kit we used, and some of the obstacles we came across)
EXCEPT!
We live in Wales!
We couldn’t travel more than five miles from home.
But NOW WE CAN!!
Okay, where do we go? Stay in Wales? Nope, can’t stay out overnight. Shropshire? Nah, just too far for a first trip. Forest of Dean? HELLO! Not too far, plenty of Britstops http://www.britstops.com ,pubs open!
So, on Friday July 10th, sixteen weeks after the start of the Covid-19 outbreak, we started the very first of our adventures!
Having finally got ourselves sorted, and finding ourselves able to travel, we set Lulu on the road to the Forest of Dean for our first foray into motorhoming
We had failed to get into any campsites in the area, and aren’t quite ready for wild camping, so we opted for Britstops.
Our first port of call was the Woolaston Inn, Lydney (Britstop listing SW178) , an excellent family run Gurkha restaurant, who do a first class lamb saag! Our first couple of pub beers later and we were ready to tackle the bed! at least we thought we were! Turns out doing it in the fading light, with a dog in the van, in a pub carpark, wasn’t ideal! but we got it done and had a decent nights sleep in the end.
Day two and we headed for our second stop, The Rising Sun (Britstop listing SW180), in Moseley Green, great friendly staff, well geared up for dogs, lovely beer gardens, with walks all around, but very busy on a Saturday night, through to Sunday morning.
We had a great first weekend, recharged our seriously depleted batteries, and came back raring to go next time. We both work every other weekend, so our next trip will be Friday 24th, and aim to go every weekend that we can from now on. I will endeavour to keep you updated, as long as you keep checking in.
Thank you to all our inspirations, and thank you for taking the time to read our first attempt at blogging!
Mags,Kev,& Marley X
Duncombes roaming