My turn to take the keyboard off Louise again to say a few words and do our monthly “on the road” summary.
Before we left New Zealand to embark on this adventure we did a lot of research on motorhomes. I had been in one, but had never driven one, stayed in one, cooked in one etc. What became obvious to both of us was there are so many different makes, designs and configurations to choose from. To help us decide we went along to the Ellerslie Motorhome Show last March. I guess we were “tyre kickers” but we paid our admission price and set out to take a long hard look. It was a very worthwhile exercise as it helped us narrow down our options and define a must-have list.
Let’s start with sleeping. You can get motorhomes with beds in almost every position possible – across the back, to one side, upstairs, folded out of the couch etc. One thing was for sure we didn’t want to be making the bed up each night and we didn’t want to be clambering over each other, so we decided we wanted an island bed at the back, permanently made-up and with access from both sides. Then it was the shower and toilet – we wanted a separate shower and toilet (more on that later). Another requirement was a full-length fridge with a freezer compartment. Many are only equipped with half-size fridges which suits if you’re only doing short holidays or weekend breaks, but that was not an option for a year on the road. Length was another consideration. We had done our reading and wanted our motorhome to be no longer than 7.5m, as anything bigger becomes a lot more expensive on toll roads and ferries.
With our list of requirements sorted we set about finding a motorhome in the UK. Buying one in the UK was the only real option, as to buy one on the continent you need to be a resident of the country its registered in and have a permanent address. The only problem with this is that most vans for sale in the UK are right-hand drives. We hadn’t intended to buy before we arrived in the UK, but Louise had been keeping an eye out on the UK Auto Trader website and found just what we were looking for. It was only a year old and had done 3,000 miles. Made in Germany and imported to England it was left hand drive which was perfect. To cut a long story short, my brother’s wife’s family, by coincidence, lived in the same area as the seller, so they were able to go and check it out for us. It looked good and after Skyping the sellers we decided to buy it. They delivered it to London and there it was sitting waiting for us when we arrived.
I must admit that driving from London to Dover to catch the ferry was quite interesting. Being left-hand drive, you realised how much you can’t see in a vehicle this size when the steering wheel is on the kerbside. I was very pleased we would be travelling in Europe with the correct drive for European driving.
Our first stop, Bruges in Belgium, was my first venture onto a campsite for many years. Louise said my face showed “horror” when I realised that I was going to be living in an area near other people day in day out. After a few more campsites I realised it wasn’t that bad and soon came to enjoy camp life. Bruges was the first night we’d slept in the van and we wondered how it would be. The beds in motorhomes aren’t big but there is plenty of room and the motorhome is warm. We were very surprised how comfortable it was and how well we slept. About 3 months in we did buy some foam rubber to go below the mattress and this has made it even more comfortable.
We had intended to do some “free” camping in Scandinavia, which is encouraged, but by the time we reached there it was obvious we liked the campsite facilities and security. To that end we have never used the shower in the motorhome and seldom use the toilet. The shower area has worked well as a wardrobe though. Another reason we opted out of using the shower is the water heating system operates on gas, and while its all fitted and ready to go every country in Europe has a different gas fitting so you must either have a lot of gas bottles or be prepared to buy a lot of different gas fittings. You can get an external fitting attached and fill with LPG at service stations, but the cost wasn’t worth it for just one year. We have barely used any of our gas as we also bought a two-plate electric cooker. We thought seeing we pay for power, why not use it. This system has worked very well, but occasionally we have blown the odd fuse in the campsite as our amperage has been too much for the outlet. A flick of the fuse switch and turning the fridge off while we are cooking normally does the trick. You learn a lot about electricity owning a motorhome.
The campsites in general have been great. To date we have stayed in 88 different establishments for a total of 190 nights – the rest of the time we have been with family or house-sitting (I will explain more about house-sitting next month). However, campsites do vary quite a bit. In Scandinavia most had cooking facilities, but in the rest of Europe this isn’t the case. Just about all have laundry facilities costing around 4-5 Euros a wash (NZ $8). Ninety per cent have great showers with plenty of pressure and hot water and very clean and serviced regularly. I can count on one hand how many have been a bit dirty or have had warm, not hot, showers. Pricewise we budgeted on spending around 30 Euros a night (NZ $50) and whilst we averaged just under that for the first couple of months, in the last two months we have been averaging around 20 Euros a night (NZ $33). High season in Europe is mid-June to mid-August. The further North you go the shorter the period is that they open for, many campsites close around mid to late September, which is why we are currently in southern Spain. Not only is it warmer but most campsites are open all year round.
Motorhoming in Europe is huge, and increasing in popularity all the time. There are so many motorhomes on the road. One day in Norway we decided to count the number coming towards us. In an hour, for every three vehicles that passed one would be a motorhome. Germans seem to be the most prolific travellers, “D” number-plates are everywhere. We have just moved on from a motorhome site right on the beach in Malaga, and while we were there I did a quick walk around. There were 69 motorhomes; 20 were German, 9 British, 8 French, 7 Spanish, 7 Swedish, 6 Belgium, 5 Italian, 4 Netherlands, 1 Austrian, 1 Slovenian and 1 NZ (us). In our 7 months on the road we have only run into 2 NZ couples doing what we are, one in Bern Switzerland and the other in Bled, Slovenia.
We have seen a varied array of motorhomes in our travels, from the more conventional like ours to some that look home-made, converted buses, and ex-army vehicles that look ready to take on the desert. The Germans seem to have the widest variety of motorhomes and the most interesting we’ve seen on the road. Here are some of the different types.
As for life in a motorhome, we have had no problem adjusting. Spending the day walking round cities and seeing the sights normally tires you out, so by the time we get back, have a beer or glass of wine and cook dinner you wonder where the day went. We chose not to get satellite TV as a lot of the time you only pick up non-English speaking programmes, so we use Netflix and watch about an hour a day maximum – no news, no junk programmes, no watching for the sake of watching. It’s funny how quickly you can adapt to not having TV, instead we both read and look online for NZ and world news which generates discussion and time flies. Overall adapting to life in a small area has been surprisingly easy. We were both unsure how a year in a motorhome would be. It sounded quite daunting when we were planning it back in New Zealand, but after 7 months I can say it has been a whole lot better and easier than we ever expected.
Because we decided to head to southern Spain to escape winter we didn’t travel many miles in December, just 408 (652 km), so our diesel bill was lower than previous months with just NZ $144 spent on fuel. Also, we only stayed 10 nights in campsites because we have had two house-sitting jobs, which meant we were NZ $1,476 under our budget for the month. Here are the stats:
