After spending the most awesome 9 months ever in Melbourne where we've made more good friends and family than we ever could have hoped, we realised we might want to stay in Australia for a while longer and the best way to do that was to take up the Aussie government's generous offer of another year's Visa in return for a few weeks work in the most gorgeous rainforests in the north of the country where it's warm and hilly and luscious like a Lord of the Rings film!

Robot:

So after being paid for some recent huge piles of work, I put the cash to use and after much searching and other efforts we purchased a car in which to travel north (and around the north once we were to get there). So we are now the proud owners of a 1997 Ford Falcon Station Wagon. It's big: it's long enough that a stringy fella like me can fully stretch out in it with just the back seats folded down; it has enough space for our big old surfboard to fit inside it; it has a friggin 4 LITRE engine! We named him 'Robot': he has cruise control (you press a button and Robot presses the gas pedal on your behalf); he has central locking with a remote control that goes beep when you use it; he has a stereo that works; he has air conditioning; he has the word 'computer' written on the side bumper strip in relation to the engine torque control (woah!). Also, he has a visor, shiny wheels and tinted windows. Maybe we should call him Mr Pimped Robot.

Tathra:

In the last 5 days we've travelled a long way in Robot. We took the coast road north-east through Victoria and into New South Wales, just about stopping only to sleep. We spent one afternoon and night in the much bigged-up 'Tathra' where the Watsons take their annual family holiday. Here we encountered for the first time real-life Kangaroos, Wallabies and other such crazy creatures. We cooked up some baked potatoes on the camp fire in honour of Mr David Bowen. We rolled-up a wee Nimbin smoke in toast to Mr Peter Spinner. Then after all that, and feeling ever so slightly numbed in the brain, we turned around to see a couple of Kanga's silently watching us from just a few feet behind. They looked bigger under the glare of our little torch and also under the paranoic influence of the previously consumed goodies. So we slinked into the back of Robot, slammed the boot and waited for them to start trying the locks with those screwdrivers that they probably keep in their pouches.

In the morning we woke to find no such screwdrivered locks or slashed tires and instead found them all watching the sunset right there on the beach. I staggered down and got about 10 feet from a big 'Roo who took the slightest bit of notice of me before once again turning his attention to the sunrise. Respect. We took about 500 photos and then another smaller one turned up and we just about saw a baby Roo in her pouch as she hopped past. Awesome!

Get Behind Me, Kilometres:

After the Tathra experience we had to make up on time so we jammed it all the way up through NSW, getting stuck in yucky Sydney commuter traffic (somehow I managed to negotiate - and survive - the complex route which the Princes' Highway takes through Sydney in one go) and free-camped in a caravan park in Narooma (I think) and then onward until we reached Byron Bay by Saturday afternoon. We went straight to the campsite on the beach which Pete, Ollie and I had stayed at just weeks before (miss those boys aaahhh!) and felt on top of the world. I took the old surfboard straight out and splashed around for a bit before dragging Kate around Byron and walking her through all the highlights of the trip which I'd had there previously: "This is where we drank Rum for breakfast"; "This is where we staggered from one pub to another"; "This is where we first saw Jack's multi-colored jumper!"; etc.

Palm Vale:

So now we are just about settled in to a small farm just outside Byron Bay, right up in the hills. We're staying with two very nice people - Neil and Kitty - and their two Kelpy dogs and we're helping to re-establish the native rainforests which were cleared for agricultural use way back in the day. Currently this involves pulling out big but not too heavily rooted weeds, breaking them up into piles, and then counting how many leeches jumped off them and onto our ankles / wrists. It's not that bad on the Leech front really. It's gorgeous up here - so green and lush everywhere. We're helping to clear out a small gully at the foot of the property which has a small waterfall and a winding creek. We take the dogs with us each day and by the end of it they're totally tired from running around and swimming all day. We went into the local town and got some matching overalls for the job so we like to think that we look like Ghostbusters, but I think its more likely that we look like some inbred circus freaks, but then that would be an awesome achievement too, no?

Photos! Photos! Photos!

Stop Revive Survive remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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'We Hit The Road' remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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A month ago we stepped out of Ben's car (my bro got us to Heathrow from Wiltshire in under an hour, though I feel I may have lost a day of my overall life-span from the experience!) and had a sudden feeling of what the fuck are we doing? owing to the fact that we'd only booked the tickets a week before then and we'd not actually considered much where we were going and just how bloody long that flight was going to be.

Turns out the flight wasn't all that bad; first flight I've ever taken where you get free alcohol whenever you ask for it! Also the food was pretty awesome and there was on-demand video entertainment so I consumed approx. 10 movies and jumped off the plane all square-eyed and buzzing.

2 hours of immigration bull-crap later and we stepped through 2 big metal doors to the cheering, warm, cosy arms of Mr Peter Spinner! Accompanied by his fully awesome cousin, Nell, we had an ice cold can of Bundy Bear in our hands before you could rustle his new hair! They bundled us back to their digs in Brunswick and the drinking began in earnest: within 3 hours of being on the other side of the world we were rather inebriated and listening to some awesome Old Time music at the classest pub I've been to since Nesbitts and it was everything we've been longing for since July! I went to bed that night at 3am, several rums and beers in, feeling great; that is until I laid down and closed my eyes and suddenly felt the weakest and most generally wasted I ever have in my entire life to the point of wondering if I'll make it through to the morning; achievement?!

We spent the following week in a crappy hostel full of people who came to Melbourne to watch TV all day and sharing a room with an old Indian fella who didn't speak much and was in bed by 8pm every night. So we stayed out til 2am every night and Spins introduced us to some of Melbourne's awesome bars where you can get some of that cheap, super-icy-cold beer I mentioned earlier and some of the also to the million-bazillion awesome eateries of every sort that are around the town centre (or 'CBD' as they call it here; GTD in the CBD!).

The second weekend we were here we made an awesome road trip down the Great Ocean Road and went to Bells Beach, Australia (I looked for Bodie for a while but he must never have made it back in the end...) We rocked-up to Torquay looking for somewhere to camp at 11pm on Friday night and there wasn't anywhere except pricey Motels so we spent the money on a slab of beer instead and slept in the cab of Mick The Awesome Yute, instead.

Sleeping in a cab not being the most comfortable thing you can do, and cos it's generally pretty freezing here at the moment, we woke around 6am, chugged the engine to warm us up for a bit and then Pete decided to gun the beast another 45 mins up the coast to an awesome little break at a town called Lorne. On the way we saw some brave locals taking on massive waves breaking over a rocky point/reef and all we could think of was a nice warm Hazelnut Latté and some poached eggs.

We pulled up to the beach front at Lorne and waited for the Cafe's and surf board rental places to open and watched some local Longboarders riding some right-handers that were as clean as any wave I've ever seen; the waves here look like the ones in posters!

Getting up at 6am is a a totally GTD thing to do:
By 10:10am we'd driven 60k's, eaten breakfast, pitched then tent (badly) and had a beer in our hand! We sat around in the tent for an hour like you do when you first pitch a tent for the first time in ages - til the novelty wears off - and then headed back to the beach, picking up a mini-mal and a longboard on the way.

The next hour and a half saw me and Pete surf very chilly but super clean and aggressively dumpy waves. The waves here appear to be much faster than in the UK and France; you pop-up and then shoot along it at 100mph before jumping off before the lip bashes down on your head. It was an awesome surf and super super awesome to be back in the water. I managed get smacked in the face by a wayward longboard (my own) but I also managed to hang on, on a couple of screaming fast waves - the kind which make you wonder just what the heck you think you're trying to do as soon as you drop in. We managed a couple hours before we were too cold in our 3mm suits and no gloves etc. and headed back to the campsite for some of the worst sausages you could ever imagine and the kind of high winds you only get when you're camping for the first time in ages.

We're now settled in a sweet pad with a friendly British musician chap, across from the Botanical Gardens and Kate has to run home afer late shifts at the café incase a Possum jumps out on her!

That's Me!bourne remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Our first visitor was the pretty miss catherine sweet who laughed so hard when she saw the way we were living, we met her in our new company car and enjoyed a trip to waitrose to pick up some groceries! the last time we all met was in biarritz when she joined us for one of the final parts of the buddy trip, camping rough, not really washing, and living like gypsies! We enjoyed an afternoon by the canal and sipped tea in the garden before we had to part ways again.

First road trip stop was Cardiff for about a week, was so weird to be back, didnt feel like i had ever lived there! so lovely to see all the love coffi girls, had a fun night back in the shop also got to see chris and sarah and nick and aimee was kind enough to offer up her home, we had a great day yapping lots and visiting the beach and eating so many waffles! bub and georgie cooked us a feast and we were introduced to the wonderfule pleasure dome and then we spent two nights camping with dave and laura in west wales, trying to surf but lack of waves and bad weather got the better of us, we managed to create meals and even cups of coffee on a cool bbq and it was so nice to get back to the outdoor lifestyle, sitting on rugs and getting weathered.

On to south devon to visit boo's fam, its so beautiful there and had a fun day with his little sisters at a national trust site (a new experience for me...its so very english there!!) making wigwams and running around the woods and was lovely to catch up with his mummy who taught us the delights of baking nigella style! boo heads back to wales to book the next stage of the trip with sta and i head to london for a second meet up with bess, we only had about 5 hours to catch up but it was the best 5 hours ever, we were very tipsy by lunch time on fine cider and spent alot of time catching up and laughing, just the way it should be!

back to the wiltshire countryside where we cained a whole season 2 of 24 and parted ways with the buddy van, was so sad to see him go to his new owners but also exciting to be thinking of the next stage to this adventure whirlwind! had to say an emotional goodbye to catherine who has headed off to india and she is back after we have set off. spent time with boos nephews and sister and steve drinking in the garden and listening to music and playing with lego!

next stop, oxford where we got to have loads of fun with ollie and his fam, had a brilliant night dancing in oxford and then we all finally headed up to cardiff for chris' party, stayed in the pleasure dome again which was awesome and the party was hosted by not one but three different captains who made the night extra special! was amazing to see everyone again, made us realise just how much we had missed our lovely friends and it was great to be around familiar people again, really homely and perfect!

said a sad goodbye to ollie and the others and we were on our way to the airport, a little disaster later and we finally had picked up ben, beth and flynn and we were back in the cottage. Enjoyed spending time with ben and beth for the next 3 days catching up (and playing netball...oh yeah!!) and on the last day aimee came to swindon and we met up to catch up, shop and say goodbye. Just enough time to pack and get a couple of hours sleep and we are on our way to heathrow.............what are we doing??!! we have been so busy we haven't even had a chance to contemplate what we are about to do! 22 hour flight here we come.......................

national trust no! remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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From Palavas-Les-Butts, we drove to St Mary's by the Sea (I translated that myself; check out mon Francais!) which can have surf at times, though didn't when we were there (no surprises) so we buttered up some pasta and ate it on a small jetty thing whilst I attempted to catch some fish with some terrible Camembert as bait.

From St Marie de la Mer we motored for ages through Marseille which appears to be the Ultimate City, with beaches, a decent Marina, general cool overall feel and some fat mountains just on the way out of it. We ended up in a small seaside town called Cassis and camped up on a big ant-infested hillside for 2 nights and swam around in a small cove which had a knackered old pier on it which you could jump off into fairly shallow but super clear water - awesomeness. Cassis also has the best and cheapest bakery found on the whole tour.

From Cassis we motored East in search of the great St Tropez which we weren't sure if we really wanted to go to but what the heck? It took 24 hours longer than planned due to my awesome navigational skills but when we arrived we weren't let down a bit - plenty chubby old rich people everywhere and more white clothing than a Michael Jackson music video (err...). We had a beer or two in the cheapest looking place we could find and then zoomed out of there before we got hired as ship hands on some fat old bloke's oversize yacht.

This is the point where we met the wee hippy lass of whom you can read more in Kitty's previous post.
Post-hippy situation, we pushed Mr Buddy right to his 50 mile per hour limit all the way to a small town set amidst big cliffs with churches set atop. The cliffs were lit up by huge lighting rigs which, at night, had bazillions of bugs going crazy in their beams; it was like St Tropez for bugs; they were probably all wearing white outfits but I couldn't tell from the glare. We camped up in a car park which was fairly empty and slept fairly badly on account of the strange experiences of just a few hours earlier. I woke to find our car park was a 'use at your own risk' place due to it being close to the river which is 'prone to extreme, sudden over-night flooding'. Nice.

The next day we motored up and down various mountains, mostly in 2nd gear and it was the coolest driving ever; winding around and through mountains and tunnels with huge drops just the other side of the road. Buddy managed most hills in 2nd gear, but we had to stop halfway up most of them, for half an hour, to let him cool down, the poor lad.

Next day we motored around and up and down and into Digne les Bains, a mountain town with a cool Municipal outdoor man-made lake full of ultra freezing cold water and a big waterfall which massaged some of the Buddy-induced knots out of our shoulders nicely. This place had a strange feel to it as we were right up in the Alps with All Nature around us yet we were swimming in a man-made lake surrounded by ice cream cabins and things. Surreal.

This was a day of stupendously stupid amounts of driving as we motored all the way up to Grenoble which we had high expectations of but which was an ultra-dump, Newport South Wales-style. So we motored out of there to a small town and then ascended approx 1000 metres to a tiny municipal camp site which was more of a back garden with an outdoor loo. We were knackered at this point and so crashed here for a couple days. We went for a big hike further up the mountain, about another 400 metres up (slowly) and stopped when we felt drunk as skunks from the altitude. We sat out another of the Summer's huge storms that night (storm #13 or something) and then headed out through Chambery, towards Lyon.

Now, Lyon is the coolest city we've been to so far; there's an awesome summer festival (Le Nuits de Fourviere) each year where decent bands play and lots of free outdoor cinema goes on. And this is something a bit annoying about our trip this summer; it seems every other town we've come to has had a sweet music festival on that we didn't know about and we've missed one of our favourite bands who randomly seem to be playing there; we missed Arcade Fire in both Bilbao and Lyon, The Howling Bells played down on the Med 3 days before we arrived and The Good The Bad & The Queen played the day before we got to Lyon. One year we'll go to the Lyon festival and watch a few bands and ride around on some of the rented bicycles some more. And eat a few more 'Maxi Chocolatines'. It's worth doing some research to see what festivals are happening in Europe and where cos there are some great ones which are totally non-advertised outside of the towns they're happening in, it seems.

From Lyon we headed further West towards the surfing coast and stayed in a couple small towns along the way and then a couple days at La Maison Sedgewick where awesome food and wine is in total abundance. We ate some fish at a local village barbecue where anyone can come along with food (or buy some there) and barbecue it on one of the huge barbies and sit at a huge table in a tent and listen to terrible music - it's awesome!

We zoomed from Correze back to the coast but didn't quite make it all in one day and made the terrible decision to park-up for the night in a busy motorway services area. As we slept some sick sumbitch screwdrivered the drivers door on Buddy but didn't manage to get the door open thanks to Kate hearing them and making a bit of a racket. Me, being the next Jack Bauer, slept peacefully through and when Kate tried to rouse me, I told her not to worry it was probably just 'Acorns falling on the roof' (quick thinking!). She was right though and half an hour later when I'd managed to wake up, I discovered the damage and we raced out of there, back to the woods of Biscarosse and into the safety of Juggernaut Campervan Land.

We spent a few days lounging around and surfing small waves and sampling the WiFi and beers of The Globe Trotter Cafe in Bisca before heading to Biarritz to meet one Miss Catherine Sweet at the airport. What followed was an awesome week of decent surf for the first few days, tripod photography, knitting and free-camping in car parks with the new added challenge of finding somewhere to illegally camp but which was safe enough for Bessie to pitch her tent for the night; she did well and was well into our non-washing-eating-only-cous-cous lifestyle by the end of it.

Bessie left us and a couple of chicks from London decided they had to buy our van the next week and suddenly we were presented with the possibility of being Buddy(home)-less and with no plans as to what to do next. We spent that week cleaning the Bud up for the viewing and looking at prices for various trips which included a stop in Melbourne.

The London girls bought the van but asked us to drive it home which was just fine by us (though by this point Buddy is much worse for wear and I have super duper Gun Gum skills wheeee!). The trip home took no less than 4 days and we discovered that there's surf near Calais - who'd have thought it?

Next day we were at the Euro Tunnel departure area at 6am wondering just what the heck we were doing there; it was a total mixed bag of feelings...

Backs to the Road remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Lulls of Opportunity - bessie gate crashes the buddy system. remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Road Tripping remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Le Surfing remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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57 nights in a campervan the truth.....when you imagine trips to the beach and camping it normally consists of 2 nights or maybe very occasionally a week at the end of this time you have had lots of fun and funny experiences and feel great for being out in nature, it is also the truth that you cant wait to get back to home comforts of bed/shower etc....we feel that we have broken through the camping boundary and have complied the following:

bad points about camping:

• considering a toilet (with paper) a luxury! when free camping it is essential to use the forest as a nature toilet, hence when you get to use a bathroom you feel like the queen!

• when we built the inside of the van we were quite rushed and the planning went a little out the window and we have ended up with a tiny bed which is forces you to sleep in the most uncomfortable way and we both have mornings of pins and needles and/or cramp plus a bad back/neck/shoulders!

• not considering the fact that france and spain can have bad stormy, rainy days in the summer months we have discovered that a small retro van is much like living in a broom cupboard, when the weather is great its fine to have such a tiny home as you hardly use the van at all, spending all day outdoors and most the night, only cooking or crashing to sleep but when the winds start howling and the rain keeps coming, the last place you wanna be is crammed into the broom cupboard, especially when it contains almost everything you own.

Knowing that we would probably not make it all the way to Morocco and back in our little tin can we started on a road trip to the med coast and then up to the french alps and then back across the middle to Biarritz, all the places we havent ventured to before and its been really fun! lots of driving but we feel we have truely experienced life on the road, eating basic meals at various different locations and the fun of stopping whenever you feel like turning off the main road and exploring whatever you may find, its brilliant as when you have so many miles to cover in one day you find that each morning can be completely different to lunch time and somewhere different again in the evening. we have been in search of surf but not found anything but a small ripple, instead we have found many nudy beaches, old towns, the bluest of seas, incredible mountains, windy never ending roads up and down the alps, mini hurricane, more storms, the canal de midi, gorgeous bays where you can dive off the jetty into the sea, swimming in an icey cold lake with a waterfall, the posh people of saint tropez, altitude sickness, and to top it all off a hippy commune. We are over half way through now and just outside the cool town of Lyon, slightly annoyed that we were two days late for a arcade fire gig. Its really nice to be back on ground level as the altitude was hitting us bad, sometimes making you feel slightly drunk (good) or sicky and sore ears! we found a real cute campsite which was really old fashioned and didnt end up charging us for the two nights we stayed, we are real tired as no sleep was had last night due to a massive storm in the mountains.

Anyone that has read 'On the Road" by Jack Kerouac will understand that you become taken with the idea of people hitch hiking and so whenever we have passed people needing a lift we have always tried to accommadate them, up until last week this kind gesture took a crazy turn and before we knew it was weirder than weird.......so we see this girl outside st tropez trying to get a lift, she looks like a typical traveller, nothing too strange and she has her dog with her, so i look at boo he looks at me and we decide to stop and help her out if we can...turns out she is going to the next town north and as this is not out of our way and she seems nice we decide to take her, she gets in and now i notice that she is not wearing any shoes and has real hairy legs and pits, not a problem just noting. She starts telling us about where she lives, that she lives with her boyfriend and another couple and one more friend, they have 3 dogs and kittens, so we are approaching the town and she says that she actually lives a few miles out of town and would we mind taking her there, so we are going down this crazy off the road track we start to think this is a bit weird and we are not sure whether this is gonna be awesome or the scariest and stupidest thing ever, arriving at a run down house we meet her housemates..... the place is such a mad set up that this is the first thing to shock us...who lives like this with stuff everwhere and a garden full of old motors and overgrown weeds and all sorts of stuff all over the place and the house has been covered on one side with mud and she tells us there is no electricity or running water....the housemates all had no shoes and mud and oil on their faces and half their clothes hanging off and we are trying to act like this is normal but actually on the way up to the house we now remember her saying something about her housemates wouldnt mind if we arrived naked and we both feel like we need to know more but if we stay we may be at risk as we are in the middle of the mountains no where near civilisation and we didnt really expect to find this, they show us the garden and one of the girls plays a wooden flute and they show us the things they have been making out of tin cans and we stay for a cup of nettle tea all of us drinkin out of jam jars and they start to tell us about rainbow gatherings and how magical they are, and the guy asks me if i would think about joining some kind of hippy commune like this and I say ummmm maybe not right now! Its like a scene from the book "the beach" its all great but a bit weird and we are feeling a bit uncertain and its getting late and we finally feel like we should leave when they ask us to come swimming in the river with them and we get away safely feeling that it was more than likely gonna be a naked swim with these people. In all we were there about 2 hours it was fun to experience but altogether we were glad to be back in our broom cupboard and driving far far away from that place!

Hippy Ya! [- Kate] remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After spending a couple weeks down on the South Landes coast, we decided we'd had enough doing-nowt-but-surfing-and-baking-cakes and opted for a bit of adventure (also influenced by a certain gale-force onshore wind that was wrecking the surf). We did get a couple of decent surfs at St Girons Plage though these were bone-crunchingly dumpy waves which, if you were lucky and able to tuck in tightly and quickly enough, you'd get a 3-second ride before being sucked down and bounced off the sandy bottom.

It feels good to be moving on again and seeing some new stuff; the Landes coast is totally awesome but it's very big and very samey after a few weeks; everything starts to look the same and you need a new buzz; the forests are all the same and the beaches are all very big and prone to blustery conditions (not complaining, just saying...). When you're in one place you start to pick up on a lot of consistencies and here are a few we've noted:
All the old biddies appear to be fitter than I am; they ride about on their old, small bicycles in their old frocks, saddle-bags full of groceries, making long round-trips to the out-of-town supermarkets; no bus passes here, for Public Transport is nowhere to be seen. And this is the reason why all the old ladies ride around on bicycles and all the teenagers scream around the place on ultra-noisy-like-brain-rattlingly-so mopeds - I can only presume that their helmets have ultra-heavy-duty ear protectors fitted into them, or maybe they all get deaf or stupefied by the time they're 25 and that's why all the pop music's so bad here? And maybe that's the reason for the final observation we've made (of those which currently come to mind) which is that the young men aren't very nice to their dogs; we've seen countless red-faced fellas attempting to put some discipline into their poor mutts by delivering shocking rib-punches the likes of which would bruise you or I a lot, nevermind the poor pooch, the bastards!

So being back on the road is fresh and new and jolts the brain a bit more than lounging around on the beach does (I miss it already). Pepped up by this, I've come up with the following get-rich-quick schemes for when we return to normal life:

1. Open up a Chippy which does both normal Chips and also Seasoned Chips too! Anyone who makes their own chips (baked is best) and has thrown some suitably spicy and savoury (not sweet; cinnamon would be shit) seasoning will know the awesome assault of the tastebuds that results. You could have a series of trays with various seasonings in them and give people the choice, throwing the plain ones, straight from the fryer, into the seasoned pan of choice, and then into the paper bag; awesome!

2. Design and build friendly-looking Campervans; the amount of favours, free bottles of wines, chats, free parking tickets, etc. we've had as a result of people liking our 'pretty little car' has been awesome! I'd like to convert old Renault Trafic vans into campers; those things are awesome; they look like they're made of Lego bricks and all the engine gubbins, etc. is right in the front so there's heaps of headroom in the rest of the vehicle; awesome

On the way across the South we spent a day in Toulouse. This experience was way cooler than the one we had there 2 years ago when, straight after arriving at our Hotel, we witnessed a stabbing and then our evening jaunt was cut short by teams of gnarly looking dudes all giving me and Mick scary looks; we ate Kebabs and Chips in our Hotel room!
This time, we arrived on a Sunday and the market was in session; approx half a mile of fruit stalls and other delicious stuff; I might go there one day when I haven't eaten for days, with a roll of cash in my pocket! We wandered around and found the old part of the City which is full of character and awesome old-skool typography. We looked around in a couple of Gothic Churches which, with all their medieval bling and decoration were, to me, more like wandering around some MTV star's Crib than a potentially spiritual experience. That said, one did stand out to me (I can't remember the name of it, got a leaflet somewhere...) which was more like it once was Bling but is now just a carcass. It's a big temple-style building (no inner walls) with recesses going all around the sides and in these recesses, various displays have been set up with less-than-considered taste. It's almost as if this was one-too-many churches to bother furnishing and noone knows what to do with it except put in some old tattered paintings, a few stage lights and a couple of those Tourist-trapping coin memorabilia things (put €2 in, get an old replica coin out).
It was cool to be back in a City; we found a nice little Tea House which served up big wine-bottle-sized bottles of Cider for €6 and you could sit outside and get baked in the sun (sheltered from the winds in those little streets). We also visited the Cinema; living in a van has made me realise how much I love movies, etc.; we saw 'The Good Shepherd' which filled it's requirement (as far as we were concerned) of being a big, well-produced-Hollywood-style flick though afterwards I did wonder what it was about if not just one big tragic story about some American spy?

Tomorrow lunchtime we'll arrive on the East coast and it would be awesome to find some surf there (it does happen, up around Marseille), but if not we'll leg it on to Nice and then all the way up to Mont Blanc, before heading back West across the country through the 'Central Massif' which looks rather awesome but like hard work for poor little Buddy.

Spice of the week is Cinnamon: Add it to Pancake batter or season some sugary, hot milk with it (excellent if you can't sleep and you're camped up in the middle of nowhere next to a gusty, spooky Lake and you've got no wine to get you to sleep) to help you nod off. Kitty's just baking some Butter Cookies with it in too; I'll keep you posted. The other benefit of this one is, if you spill it all over the van and yourself, it doesn't matter 'cos it smells sweeeet!

Cathar Country remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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we have had many ideas and plans since all this stormy weather, one being to sell the van and buy a big car which is fun to drive and head to sweden and the northern lights, another jump and hop around the greek islands, another see if the weather is better (and the surf) in cornwall, so many ideas and yet we are not sure.....hahahahahahhahaha, while writing this boo has just shouted that he has just put one of the big orange slugs in his mouth!! its real dark outside and he didnt see that one had sneakily climbed up the wine bottle and was cheekily waiting for him to take a swig!!!!! grosssss! think we will move the van away from the bushes tonight! have become really attached to this van and although its tiny and full of funny things its become a brilliant home for the summer, looking forward to sharing this little trip with catherine and ollie who are due to come over in about 3 weeks, cant wait!

blustery beaches and mushy waves [ - Kate] remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We surfed the South beach of Hossegor yesterday which was basically a case of picking whichever 4 foot ultra-dumpy wave you wanted to brave and then jumping over the back of it before scrabbling for your board, half-expecting it to be either in half from the crashing wave or have an american kid from a surf camp embedded in it's nose. This all owing to the onshore wind which is still dominating our surfing life, dammit!

For the last couple weeks we've been camping up in the 'Aire de Camping Cars' places which are like campsites without timing rules or the need to book and if you turn up at the right time (around 9pm ish) and leave early enough (before 10:30am) you can avoid having to pay and that's the real free-camping life right there!

Now that it's mid-summer the lineups are getting ever-more crowded and the camper vans ever more varied. At the beginning of May we were mostly surrounded by mid-sized modern camper vans which are kind of like mobile local Spar shops with their white facades and all the frozen meals being stored within. Nowadays we roll into camping areas and we're towered-over by big, looming juggernaut-tastic campers of old and modern age. On one side there'll be a modern camper which can be more accurately compared to big Tesco Extra stores with all their shiny surfaces and big fluorescent lights beaming across the campsite, the dwellers of which tend to spend their waking day in a pair of speedo's and spend way too much time emptying their chemical toilets.

On the other side of the van there's a team of usually 2-3 big, old, dirty-but-awesome Mercedes 650 campers or big, old Coaches filled with never less than 5 serious-looking travellers and their hoards of dogs; the guys' hair is always shaved back and sides and then big long dreadlocks sprouting outta the tops of their heads and Kate's named them 'Sprout-heads' which is surely to get me beaten up if we don't keep our mouths shut!

Amongst all these big vans our little yellow Hiace sticks out like a small toe and most nights I have it in the back of my mind that one of these big juggernauts isn't going to see us over their big bonnet and drive right over us and make camp on top of us! After all the prep we made before coming away now it's like 'who are we kidding?' with all these well-furnished mobile homes about us. I'd rather be in the Buddy van any-day though!

So I'm sitting here typing this Blog in the Messanges car park and we're hoping the wind will drop tomorrow so we can have a more mellow surf for a change. We've embarked on some cake baking; having purchased a bread tin we've adapted a Delia Smith Carrot Cake recipe to a Raisin, Cinnamon and Ginger cake recipe (Carrots go off quicker in a warm van than we thought possible!) and right now it's just about rising in the tin and smells heavenly... hopefully it will taste that way! After this I'm going to have a crack at making some Bread and if that works then I'm not sure if life can get any better!

Stickin out like a little toe [ - Boo] remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After a short jaunt into the Pyrenees we motored-on-up (and down and up and around many, many bends) to Northern Spain's surfing coast. We arrived in San Sebastian late in the evening on Thursday to find our expectations of the place rather wrong; instead of some kind of colourful, retro surf mecca the place is like a corner of any other bustling city stuck on the sea front with average surf beaches. So we climbed up a cliff in the Yellow Submarine (van) and parked up in a strange recreation / car parking area and cooked and went to bed with one eye open cos there was some super strange vibe in that place and the ground was messier than the Soberton kitchen floor.

We awoke super early in the morning and took a walk around and wondered if our initial feelings about the place were wrong; maybe it's not such a bad buzz after all. That was until we walked close to a picnic table where a strange woman was sitting, at 7am, all dressed in black, seemingly reading a book or writing. We walked nearby her and I hollered a 'hola!' to break the ice around the place to no response. Again I hollered and still no response. Feeling a bit leery, I walked within 2 footsteps of the lady and said 'buenos dias' to still no response even though she was sat up straight, moving around and reading and stuff. Something about this situation was strange; it was like if she turned around there'd be no face just the face of Mumraa from Thundercats or something and we'd be doomed. Add this to the strange atmosphere atop that cliff to the South-West of San Sebastian and we got suitably spooked enough to motor down that steepest of downhill roads as fast as the little Yellow Van could manage without rolling off one of the edges (his wee brakes not being what they perhaps once were).

From there we drove for a day up and down steep cliffs, stopping only for roadside showers and 'Maxibon' Ice Creams and arrived in Bilbao early afternoon. We walked around and snapped too many semi-artsy-but-not-really photos and then headed north for a small beach called 'Playa la Arena'. This is a nice enough beach if you minus the huge, stinky Petrol refinery which discolours the waters, the Hoards of people such that you can't see much sand and the boy racers zooming around the car park til 4am. Actually, it's not much different to Coney Beach but with more hideously overweight people, if you can believe that.

However, next morning we awoke early to some super clean waves, as good as any I've ever had, and without much competition for the peak at that. We decided la Arena was worth braving the crowds and noise for if the surf was like this every morning so we spent a day getting baked in the sun and eating Maxibon ice creams.

Next morning we awoke to similar waves and paddled out only to be joined 30 minutes later by a team of grumpy local longboarders and the peak was suddenly over crowded with only 3-4 waves per set so maybe you'd get a wave every 45 mins if you were stubborn enough to out-paddle one of the locals, which we weren't.

Having experienced Spain thus (not to mention getting stuck at the bottom of a strange Basque meadow for 4 hours; we'll write that story another time), and with Buddy's (we christened the van 'Buddy' with Nick, etc. last week to much fanfare and Sangria!) exhaust sounding ready to pop if we take him up another incredibly steep hill, we decided to head back to classy France, via the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The Guggenheim is an awesome building but boy oh boy does that building's architecture make you dizzy; there's not one straight wall and all the floors are at different levels and the art is bigger than life too, to the point that I had to sit down once or twice and have a couple of sugar-breaks to get my head straight again.

We headed back to France and made Biarritz in 2+ hours.

So now we're sitting in Buddy, in a car park at I'lbarritz beach just south of Biarritz Centre-Ville and it's been raining for the last 3 days and we're not feeling entriely super-stoked with the summer's weather so far. I'd say we've had 30% sunshine, 70% shite and camping in the rain isn't for the sunshine-loving, let me tell you.

However, we just now listened to Dave's first solo Super Surf Show! and, By Jobe, the motherfucker actually managed to raise our spirits! And let me tell you something about that man Dave Bowen: he's got more shit in his head than he has nicotine coursing through his veins but equal-and-more comedy talent and a knack for writing which will one day make him rich and me his Butler, no doubt about that.

So tonight we are drinking to good weather and less of the messy surf of the last few days for if not, we shall most definately be boarding the plane to some sunny island, surfable or not, to enjoy our skin a bit more and the innards of our van a bit less; we shall keep you posted.

Some pics from Spain, etc:

At The 'Ritz [ - Boo] remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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after we parted ways (the others were heading to paris) we were buzzing and looking forward to learning spanish and exploring new towns and surf beaches, we took a wrong turning and while attempting to turn around ended up on a slippery muddy slope, the back wheels started spinning and we couldnt go forward and every time we tried we kept slipping further back and landed in a muddy field at the bottom of the hill, we tried everything to get out of there, sticks, stones, dried grass and cardboard boxes, whatever we could find, jamming it all under the tyres which did squat all, we went for hunting for help - one freaky farm with weird mute girl at the window who didnt respond to anything, the other a very old couple who only spoke basque, after 5 or so hours we finally met a lovely french couple who called a recovery truck for us, 50 euro later we were out, muddy, exhausted, deflated and felt a little tapped!! our first problem of the trip!

we are loving life on the road and its great to be surrounded by similar people in big old campervans who are loving it too, its also good to be back in france after our not so successful trip to spain (read boos entry). the weather has been no better than anywhere else and although you dont expect it to be glorious everyday, the daily overcast, rainy, stormy weather would pull on any camper! have surfed lots and its been great to be in the water again, lots of various conditions mostly fun, today i had to be rescued by boo tho as i got caught in the rip and the waves were like monsters - huge and wanting to attack you - so was relieved when we got back on to the beach! we have been stopped by the police once - in spain, two serious looking policemen who ask for our driving license but we have them stashed away in the roof and they dont really care as when they see we are surfers all they wanna do is tell us the best surf spots to go to - awesome!

so we are in the little yellow box and listened to dave's version of the super surf show whilst eating dinner, its brilliant!!!! was cool to hear that he has continued the show without boo, and if im completely honest it made me miss everyone a million times more than before! on the rainy days you wish you could be transported back to see all your friends and on the sunny days you wish you could transport all your friends here to enjoy the good life! thanks dave it was just what we wanted to hear!

red wine, rice dish and more rain!! [ - Kate] remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Sangria Shandies remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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En route to Mimizan we made the typical mistake of missing the shops before 12 and then forgetting it's a Sunday so the shops don't open again at 2.30pm and you're stuffed for groceries so we drove on until 5 when we made the car park at Mimizan and ate a few bites, hit the sunset and then in the evening we cooked up an awesome dish with little ingredients which consisted roughly: Rice (long) in vegetable stock with onions fried with garlic, stem ginger and balsamic vinegar and it tasted like heaven. This lasted all of 5 minutes however as my rice-portion-judging-skills are super-ass-like-lame and I made enough for a small army of fleas but the recipe was repeated next day with added Mushrooms (which soak up all the other flavours) and tomatoes and it rocked our tastebuds into the next morning when we went back to Plage Remember (North beach of Mimizan) which seemed to have the best pick of the small waves and scored some lovely mellow surf for 3 hours.

We're now camped in Lit et Mixe - a small town we stayed at 2 years ago - and camping cheap on a farm where we've done a shed load of washing by hand in the awesome old-skool wash basin they have here which is surely the better way to wash your clothes than damn tricky, fickle washing machines on their 45 minute wash cycle which is just long enough time for you to forget you've put any washing in and then leave your clothes to rot for 2 days. I like doing things the old way like that; it's more social too as it's way more better to do with two sets of hands than one. Ollie could probably even invent a drinking game out of it!

On the way here from Mimizan we stopped at some shops and stocked up on awesome food stuffs including flour and sugar so that we can make and bake cakes all day long if we want because this little campervan has an awesome gas oven installed. So Kitty is making some sort of Apple and Banana pie and it smells awesome in this little space and now it feels less like we're camping - getting used to it - and more living like Kings!; we had Pork Chops in a handmade-by-Kitty garlic, soy and ginger marinade with mushroom and onion garnish for tea last night; onion, sweet pepper and pesto omelette for lunch and now we're about to eat some frickin awesome fruit pie as a snack before dinner oh baby oh baby!

Onward... tomorrow we may head back to Mimizan to check out a small festival there and then we're heading south to Seignosse / Hossegor / Biarritz and then the Pyrenees.... whooop!

Living Like Small Kings & Queens remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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anyway check out:

if you wanna see some pics of the first part of the trip, the soundtrack is dedicated to the soberton kings! have met some great people here, two from hungary who are hitch hiking around the place and a couple from california, they shipped their awesome old motorbikes from the states and are having a brilliant time

miss you all

top gun campers! remains copyright of the author kateelliot, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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pics from bisca remains copyright of the author kateelliot, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The first thing that has struck us since leaving Objat on Tuesday is how difficult it is to finally slow down and get into the camping life. We spent the first couple of days motoring around the Cap' like crazys, totally missing the point of the whole thing. I suppose 6 months of working like nuts before the trip started; selling old gear, getting as much money in as poss all whilst keeping the legend of Sobertown alive (I miss Captain Morgan like my own mother!) will do that to you... So we spent all of today sitting around on blankets in the Forest reading, eating, whatever-ing and it feels sweet; Tea and Beedies for elevenses and Greek salad with a Rum 'n Coke for lunch.

We're still getting rid of stuff slowly - last night I said goodbye to the rockin' little barbecue which was commanding too much precious floorspace in the van which is needed for big supplies of bottled water in this heat. Can't exactly barbecue in the Forest anyway - the floor's made up of Pine needles and dry wood; yikes!

So now I'm at an Internet Cafe in the Ville de Petit Piquey (opposite another dude on his own laptop smoking Camels and looking fairly unimpressed with whatever's on his screen, while the bar-maid is singing to the French song on the radio and it's quite funny). The Piquey's are a couple of sand dunes and this village is built on a small one and oh do I want to live here when I grow up! Lots of awesome retro motors, boats and plenty surf everywhere. You can surf all day on one side of the Cap Ferret Spit (I think that's what it is) and then drive 5 minutes to the other side for a quiet evening's Rum consumption on the Rivermouth.

So now I have some pesky work to do - projects still to finish but boy can I not wait til the workload is finally put to bed and I can spend my time in Internet Cafe's dissing the Soberton lads on Facebook!

On Monday we plan to head over to Bordeaux, pick up a decent digicam and some other bits and generally peruse the City for thrift junk and other stuff to pack out the bulging little yellow van with!

Me and Monkey on the way to the beach:

Free Camping Baby [ - Boo] remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Missing everyone lots

Bon bon oui oui!

Butter Pasta remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We're all going on a Summer Holiday remains copyright of the author Reuben, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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