The time has come for us to be on the move again, so we're off on a 3-month motorhome tour of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, with a few places in Europe thrown in.
So, we left home in Wellington New Zealand, flying with Air China to Auckland then to Beijing, and eventually to Heathrow Airport in London.
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| Grand Union Canal outside Paddington Station, London |
The Heathrow
Express, carried us very efficiently to London's Paddington Station, and we stepped out of the station to the picturesque view of canal boats moored in the Grand Union Canal.
Because our hotel was very close to the station, we decided to walk there. Off we went dragging our suitcases along for about 10 minutes.
When we arrived, horrors…we learned that we had been relocated because of hotel renovations! So, we had to drag our suitcases “only a couple
of streets away” (they said!), for another 15 minutes to get to the new hotel.
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| Our hotel in London, the Royale Chulan Hyde Park |
Our new hotel was the Royale Chulan Hyde Park in Leinster Square. By the time we eventually found it, we were feeling pretty tired.
After unpacking, we ventured out for food which luckily, was just around the corner, then had an early night.
The hotel proved to be in a great location, as we found out the next morning when we set out to explore. The whole area was full of grand houses and apartments, with a good range of pubs and restaurants.
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| Marg in Portobello Road |
A few minutes away we found Portobello Road, famous for its half-mile-long antiques market (the largest in the world). We had an enjoyable time wandering around the quaint little shops and stalls.
Eventually, jet lag kicked in so we walked back through more streets full of beautiful and grand buildings, to our hotel.
The following morning, we walked up the road to Hyde Park and the adjacent Kensington Park, which also contains the interesting Kensington Palace.
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| Marg having a picnic outside Kensington Palace |
We bought a couple of horrendously overpriced sandwiches there and had ourselves a picnic in the park, before continuing our walk.
Nearby, we came to the Serpentine with lots of ducks and geese. We also saw the very impressive Prince Albert Memorial statue.
Across the road from the memorial is the distinctive, round and famous, Royal Albert Hall.
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| Royal Albert Hall |
This iconic concert hall has been the venue for many famous shows since its opening by Queen Victoria in 1871.
After a couple of nights in London, we dragged our cases back to Paddington Station and caught the underground to Kings Cross, then found our way to St Pancras Station.
Our objective was to get to Just Go Motorhomes in Harlington, to pick up our rented “mystery” motorhome. It was a mystery because we didn't know what type of motorhome we would be getting - but we got a 50% discount on the rental price so thought it worth the risk.
The Just Go Motorhome folks picked us up from the local station, and took us to meet our new holiday home on wheels.
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| Our big van, Vtee |
She proved to be the same size as our European motorhome called Vanni, which is BIG, but she's right-hand drive and an automatic.
Her vital statistics: 7 metres long, 2.1 metres wide (not including her huge wing mirrors), and 3.2 metres high.
We have named her Vtee (Veetee) which is short for Vanni toru - Vanni after our first motorhome, and toru being 3 in Maori as this is our third van. This is in keeping with our second van which we had in South America. We called her Vdos as dos is 2 in Spanish. No idea what we would call a fourth van but we’ll worry about that when it happens.
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| Marg by the Grand Union Canal at our Grove Lock Marina camping site |
After collecting Vtee, we navigated our way to our first campsite which was Grove Lock Marina. This is a grassy little camp alongside a lock on the Grand Union Canal, with a lot of canal boats moored there. It was a peaceful place to get sorted and unpacked.
The next day we were due to meet Marg’s cousin Di, and partner John for lunch at The Royal Standard of England pub, about 27 miles (43 km) away.
The route looked straightforward on the map, but our GPS decided to take us on a bit of a winding narrow road trip which was a little challenging. It was our first introduction to the narrow English country roads.
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| Marg, Di, John & Leigh |
Eventually we made it and had a really enjoyable lunch and catch up with Di and John. The pub was gorgeous with lots of charm and a great outdoor area, where we sat enjoying the sun.
We got off to an early start the next morning, driving south out of London. However, after our road experience on the way to the Royal Standard pub, we made sure to use the highways and “A” roads instead of the much smaller “B” roads.
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| Brighton bathing sheds |
After an uneventful trip, but still getting used to driving the big van, we reached Brighton. It is an interesting town, and we loved the long pier and colourful bathing sheds.
It seemed popular as there was lots of traffic for us to negotiate in our chubby big van. Finding parking for our big Vtee, was a problem, but we found a space almost out of town and had a wee walk along the beach.
Leaving Brighton, we drove west with the intention of visiting Arundel Castle.
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| Arundel Village |
The Castle has been the home to the Dukes of Norfolk since 1067. The Castle is in the village of Arundel, a small, charming and historic market town.
However, arriving in Arundel, we encountered very narrow roads and heaps of people queuing for castle parking.
It was the same problem that we'd had in Europe a few years ago – where do you park a giant campervan in a tiny medieval sized street?
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| Arundel Castle in the distance |
In the end, we gave up and drove on, viewing the imposing castle from a distance.
Leaving Arundel, we eventually arrived in Poole, and headed to the camping site we had booked for a few nights. The camp was the South Lytchett Manor Caravan and Camping Park. It proved to be a very well-run camp with clean facilities, and more importantly a charming pub, The Bakers Arms, close by.
So, after getting Vtee organised at the camping park, we walked to the pub for dinner. Then after putting in our order, we logged onto their wifi and relaxed, waiting for our meal.
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| The Bakers Arms, Poole |
We were so tired, that it was ages before we realised we had been waiting an hour for our meal. It turns out that the kitchen had lost our order, so they voluntarily refunded our money, but still served the meal! So, we got two meals and a bottle of wine for free. Tired but happy, we wandered back to the camp.
There was a bus stop right outside the camp, so the next morning we jumped on the local double-decker bus into Poole city.
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| Pretty Poole, Dorset |
It is a pretty and historic city with roots back to before the Iron Age. Marg has family origins in Poole, and she is also a collector of Poole pottery so we found it interesting so visit. We particularly liked its historic centre.
We walked all over the place in Poole including down to Poole Quay on the waterfront, where we found the historic King Charles pub. The inside was full of large wooden beams and tiny rooms, all exuding tremendous character.
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| The historic King Charles pub, Poole, Dorset |
We had a seafood lunch of crab salad and whitebait - not NZ style
of whitebait, but really small sardine-type fish - all very yummy. After lunch, we carried on exploring more of pretty Poole until late, then returned to the camp.
After a couple of restful days in Poole, and feeling more confident in our big motorhome on the narrow roads, we left the Dorset area to drive into Devon for our next adventure.
This is the first in a series of blogs about our travels around England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Belgium and Luxembourg.