London - UK

  London, England, United Kingdom
Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Our starting point, where our main priority was to buy a campervan after an initial catch up with friends :
Keith and Ali Brad knew from school - my God it would have been deja vu for them after we did the same and based ourselves there 11 years ago for the last campervan trip - thanks heaps guys; Nick from Brad's Uni; Tammy from Perth, and Keith and Carol (and their son/ daughter-in-law Carl and Sally) who are old family friends of Brad's parents.

Luckily we were able to narrow our van search down to only half the country - which given the shocking traffic situation - why are there so many roundabouts - the place is in constant gridlock!!!!! - was a pretty good effort.  And the weather - my f**ckin' God - 5 inches of snow overnight....in April!

Snow in April...oh my God

White and cold, but very beautiful

And...how bloody expensive is EVERYTHING!!  For anyone from Oz, take the price in Aussie dollars, and that number is how much it is in British pounds (plus some!). So not harbouring any thoughts whatsover (not that I EVER did anyway) about ever coming back to UK (Brad).
 
Spent a few days in the south west after picking up the van, putting it through its paces, and putting us through our paces with the local cider and cheese makers.

Horses, New Forest

The 'Henge - and our view for the night

Our friend Tammy came to visit us as our inaugural guest (where we found out the van comfortably sleeps three - could come in handy one day????)

Also caught up with friends we met in Cambodia, Tom (who'd made the effort to come down from Norwich) and Os (who'd made the massive call of saying he was taking us to the best Indian in the world!!!!).  We were not disappointed (for those playing at home, it's Tayyab's, on Fieldgate St in East London) - awesome - thoroughly recommend it.

One sobering bit of news though was hearing of the disaster in Burma, and how 10,000s of people had died or been made homeless. We wonder what has become of some of the beautiful people we met, especially considering most of the coastal areas where we spent a fair amount of our time were
completely wiped out.....as if the Burmese people needed any more problems!

How's about our form starting the trip - keeness overtook us and we arrived at Dover for the ferry to France two hours early - not the norm apparently - they had to find us a special "Bustin' to get to get out of UK" lane.

First van off the ranks

On your marks.....