You know how it is. You’ve just put the finishing touches to a plan; you know roughly what’s going to happen and then a spanner gets thrown into the works. Or several spanners even… in several plans! It’s not all bad though and after 4 months of travelling we’re now getting used to being flexible with our planning.

The first change of plan / delay has come courtesy of the great British weather (oh, how we’ve missed you!). Bertha was due to go straight to our friendly mechanic the day after we arrived back on British soil at the end of February for a routine medical. Sadly though, that soil was rather saturated and with more inclement weather imminent, Bertha was unable to be seen to properly until the weather had cleared up a bit (as work on her has to be done outside). However, whilst she’s been standing, waiting in the doctor’s queue, we’ve seized the opportunity to move the fuse box in the habitation area, clear up some of the other temporary wiring we put in place on the road (see previous blog post for details), replace the bathroom sink waste pipe that had perished and, most importantly, put our Talbot Owners’ Club tax disc holder up (yes, we know that the paper disc is becoming obsolete)

The other main change of plan is to do with our second loop. We’ve always been keen that our trip should be more than just an adventurous holiday; we want it to be purposeful and we want it to fit with God’s plan for our lives. So, we planned out a route for the second part (in Bertha… we’ve decided that she’s solid enough!) around Northern Europe and contacted a few projects that we wanted to visit. We then prayed that if that wasn’t what God wanted, we’d like Him to make it clear. He’s made it clear… either timings haven’t been convenient for the projects, or there aren’t opportunities there for us to serve… so it’s back to the drawing board.

The time that we’ve spent back in the UK so far hasn’t been wasted though. We’ve managed to spend some really good, quality time with our families and catch up with some of our friends. Going back to London for a while was a bit weird, but not in a bad way… it just seems so long ago that we lived there, even though it was only 7 months ago that we left! As well as socialising, we’ve also been busy with a few tweaks to this website – our route map page now allows you to filter the types of places you want to see, and we’ve made the site responsive, so it should display better on mobile devices and tablets (please let us know if you have any issues!).

So in general, although things aren’t quite going to plan, we’re pretty happy. Saying that though, we can’t help but read the blogs of fellow motorhome travellers Julien + Anais and Rhys + Kristen and feel the call of the road. Our time will come again soon though. Patience.

Looking ahead involves a certain amount of looking back; certainly when it comes to deciding what to pack for our second loop out in Bertha. There are some things that are mandatory for legal reasons (warning triangles, breathalysers etc) and some things that are necessary for entertainment reasons (books, games etc). But amongst these things, there are some items in Bertha that have been worth their weight in gold to us, that would have been very easy to overlook.

Antibacterial hand gel

Who would have thought that a little bottle of antibacterial gel could be so useful? It particularly comes into its own after we’ve emptied the toilet (don’t want those germs hanging around!), but it’s also been good as a substitute to washing hands when we’re running low on water (we only have a 40 litre fresh water tank), which brings us to…

Collapsible water container

This was actually a bit of an impulse buy, but it’s really come into its own. Some fresh water filling points don’t have a suitable hose attachment, or you can’t get close enough, so our 10 litre collapsible container is highly useful. We also use the container to catch cold water coming out of the hot tap before the water has heated up, then use that water for cooking later. No water goes to waste. When it’s not in use, it just scrunches up.

Bodging stuff

Cable ties, string, guy ropes and bungee cords all fit into this category. We’ve used bungee cords to hold back our hob cover, string as washing lines, guy ropes to hold down our vents in high winds and cable ties to fix a leaking fresh water tank tap. In addition it’s been useful to have a few spare cup hooks, screws and sealant, which have all been used on our travels.

Satnav POIs

Whilst we really appreciated having a paper map of Europe, where our satnav really came into its own was with the POIs (points of interest) that we loaded onto it:

• Camper contact – used as our main tool for finding overnight stops
• CCI – also used for finding overnight stops
• LPG – useful for finding places that have LPG pumps to refill our gas tank (for cooking, heating etc)
• Lidl – our favourite supermarket in mainland Europe
• McDonald’s – useful for free wifi (although only used once!)

Add the fact that we got our family to record the satnav direction phrases and it’s been a good little companion to us.

12v chargers

We’ve been off-grid for most of our trip, so haven’t been able to charge things through mains electric. Our 12V universal charger has been great at keeping most things topped up, but we’ve still got a little tangle of 12V charging wires for those things that are outside the universe of the charger. Our 2 110Ah leisure batteries in conjunction with the alternator and our 120W solar panel supply enough juice to keep everything topped up. Saying that though, we don’t have smart-phones, so our requirements aren’t that intensive.

And the stuff that we didn’t take due to their extra weight? The only things we can think of that we wish we had taken are a garlic press and potato masher… I think we’ll squeeze them in for the second loop!

We’re back on English soil for the first time in over 4 months! Despite a few setbacks and several doubts as to whether we’d be able to complete the first loop under our own (well… Bertha’s) steam (or combustion engine… Bertha’s not that old!), we’ve done it. We admire your patience at waiting for the resolution to the cliffhanger about pondering options for the second loop… your patience will be rewarded here! But before that… here’s the journey we’ve done in the last 4 months:

We’ve learned a lot of things about the cost of motorhoming in the first loop; much of which we covered in our blog post about costs. The other thing to take into consideration though is that we’ve spent more time on the road than planned… as we were total motorhome newbies, we hadn’t realised that travelling long distances in a motorhome is different from doing the same journey in a car, often taking twice as long. Our original plan of trying to cover most countries in Europe in the timeframe of a year doesn’t actually give you much time in each place!

So, what are the options that we’re pondering for the second loop? We have to admit they don’t include getting out and pushing (as one friend suggested) and they don’t include doing a total overhaul of power. However, they did include writing to electric / hybrid car manufacturers asking if they would like us to do a long-term test drive; providing photography, film and reviews of their vehicles. Sadly, that came to nothing, although several publishing houses said they were interested in running our story if we managed to procure a vehicle. Sad times.

Essentially we are left with 3 main options, which we might end up combining in some way:

1. Convert Bertha to LPG. Using the LPG calculator at mylpg.eu with some estimated data, we reckon this would be worth it if we were to travel 11000 miles (by the time we’ve factored in conversion cost). Would the rest of Bertha be able to do 11000 miles though…? We’ve learned that mechanics are a lot less willing to look at an old vehicle than we thought… we’re spoiled in the UK by having such a friendly (and willing) mechanic. More to the point though, our estimate is that our current plan of second loop is only 10000 miles!
2. Change our mode of transport and stay in hostels or a tent. In this scenario, we could continue our travels, but either buy a car (that’s more efficient than 20mpg) or take public transport. We’ve discovered that living in a motorhome is actually much more luxurious than we’d imagined; we’re basically glamping and we could certainly live with a lot less. The thing is though, as another friend pointed out (and we agree), there’s a different dynamic to travelling in a motorhome. There’s much more of a “get up and go” option. Plus Bertha’s our home.
3. Cut down the second loop to be shorter. We could prioritise what we want to see / who we want to visit in the second loop, travel directly to those locations and stay there for a bit longer. If we only did a 90 day loop, that would bring down the cost of insurance and breakdown cover too.

We’ve been mulling over various combinations of these options for the last few weeks and soon we’ll have to make a decision. Until then though, we’re going to just enjoy seeing family and friends again.