Europe 2018

The kids were looking forward to the Premier Inn breakfast again, so we made sure that we were up early enough to enjoy it before checking out.  We then made out way across the road to the Kings Cross Tube station for the few stops trip to Paddington station where we boarded the Heathrow Express. The only part of the holiday left was the long flights home.  We did travel on the new Boeing 787-Dreamliner service that operates non-stop between Heathrow and Perth.  It was a good flight and we really didn't feel like it was anymore protracted than the Asia-Europe hop on the way over.  In fact everyone except Madi was awake for the majority of the 17hr flight, only sleeping for short periods.  The only downside was our layover in Perth.  If we weren't doing it on the cheap, we could have re-boarded the same aircraft in Perth after clearing customs and continued to Melbourne, but we unfortunately had almost a 4hr layover before flying home to Melbourne. ...

It was a day of mixed feelings amongst the family - some looking forward more than others to getting home.  Having said that, we were all looking forward to the prospect of sleeping in a hotel room tonight instead of the campervan. The pack up and returning to the campervan depot went all according to plan arriving before our 11:00am check-in.  The only hiccup was forgetting to defrost the freezer until we were ready to leave the campground.  Nothing a little hot water didn't fix, because the walls were quite frozen.  Even our Vodafone SIM data allowance lasted long enough to navigate us back to the depot which we didn't think it would. The process of returning the van was as slow as the delivery.  They went over the van with a fine tooth comb and at first tried to charge us for the rear bumper and burn mark to the front of the over table cupboard.  The cupboard was burnt one night when you open the door to lower the bed and door surface was s...

Our last full day on the road!  Its going to be hard to say goodbye to our home of the last month, tomorrow morning.  This morning we woke to a beautiful day, after a couple of days of overcast and rainy weather, there was not a cloud in the sky.   As promised in the park4night app, the church bells started chiming on the hour from 7am, and while we went back to sleep for an hour after the 7am ringing, we were still up earlier than most mornings over the past month. Opening the door of the van, we were greeted by the cutest little village sitting high on a rolling hill in the Beaujolais wine region.  We walked around the village and in every direction we were greeted with views over vineyards on rolling hills.  Right in front of the church in the village centre there was also a school and given the time of day, it got busy with school drop offs.  I assume it is the only primary school around as there was more children turning up for school than houses in ...

It was hard to say goodbye to our beautiful campground on the banks of the Ardeche river this morning, but move on and closer to Paris we must.  The drive to start the day was a bit of a double edged sword.  Absolutely stunning, but it filled my heart with regret that we/I didn’t paddle the canyon and lower reaches of the river yesterday.   From the road above we could see the river snake it’s way down through the bottom and the very steep valley.  Much of the lower section of the river had a couple of hundred metres on vertical rock wall and extremely steep mountainous terrain on either side of the river and it was just stunning to look at.  I can only imagine the peacefulness and sense of tranquility letting the river do the hard work of moving you through the canyon with nothing to interrupt the peace and beauty of your surrounds. The road is so high above, I’d doubt you’d hear traffic - just the occasional French airforce jet in the distance, alt...