The Rocky Road to the Islands Part 1 - The M25, Twittercamp , Yorkshire, and Glasgow

As keen as I was to get to the Outer Hebrides as quickly as possible, something always seemed to come up. Both the motorcycle and the car took a lot longer having paid-for attention lavished upon them than originally anticipated, and as such were only ready by the 11th hour. I also took it upon myself to get my financial paperwork up to date so as the accountant could work on my tax return. In my case the process starts by retrieving a year's worth of receipts and starting a ledger. I hate admin, I hate it with a passion. It was a mind-numbingly boring job, but one I was glad to clear in order to free my mind so that it was free to absorb as much island vibe as physically possible.

On the long journey North from Kent, my first port of call was a site near Banbury in Oxfordshire, Bo Peep Caravan Park, to the first ever 'Twittercamp'. In other words, this was the UK's first ever caravan rally to be solely organised by Twitter. There was a grand total of four caravans in attendance including the UK's most famous Tweeting caravan, Elvis the Elddis.

The event has already been well blogged so rather than repeat what's already been said, take a look at this entry by Richard in his entertaining caravanning blog A Load of Nonsense.

Getting to Banbury from Kent involves the M25. In fact, to get to most places from Kent involves the M25. And today, it was truly and utterly horrendous. It took me about three hours to do 45 miles. UGH! How I hate the South East sometimes, even if the weather is nice.

Fortunately we all enjoyed a lovely chilled weekend, and hats off to Bo-Peep for allowing fire pits. Certainly a site to recommend.

Next up was a trip to the Caravan Club site at Clumber Park near Worksop for a feature. That went well despite the fact that I always forget that Clumber Park has no mobile signal. Not so bad when you're caravanning for relaxation, but not so good when you're trying to arrange meetings and so on. Still, everything went to plan so I was away by lunchtime on Monday.

The plan was to get the ferry from Oban to South Uist on Tuesday. I didn't book, just in case Monday's job overran. During a break on the A1 I called CalMac only to find that Tuesday's ferry was full. Blast! It was so full, even the wait list was closed. The next departure? Thursday. Dash, blast, and other such expletives. Quickly I booked my passage for Thursday and wondered what to do for the next two days.

I ended up in Yorkshire near the lovely town of Richmond to start a job that is planned for September.

A nice diversion it was too, but I was getting majorly frustrated at my lack of progress North of the Border despite having done my last shift in the day job over a week prior. To add insult to injury, the mains lead to my laptop broke. To a 21st Century freelance journalist, a laptop is an essential tool. Blast again!

A quick overnight at the super-convenient Strathclyde Country Park Caravan Club Site made for the ideal opportunity to unload the motorbike and scoot into Glasgow for the offending item. I'm no particular fan of Apple, but I do like the fact that when you need something like that, you walk into an Apple shop, say 'Help!' to the first person you see in a blue T-shirt, and five painless minutes later you are walking out of the shop with exactly what you need. Yes, you may be far lighter of pocket than before you went in, but for the sheer lack of hassle and the complete convenience of it all I don't mind paying that bit extra.

That night I was cued up to go onto National Radio to talk about caravanning. The researcher called as I was about to climb onto the motorbike in Glasgow just to go through a few things. She asked about my caravanning, and I told her of some of the exciting adventures that I am privileged enough to experience, be it wild camping up a mountain in the snow in January or kitesurfing off the white sands and turquoise seas of a Hebridean Island.

As ever, I didn't fit the profile of the kind of caravanner they wanted to portray. As usual, I was dropped. Still, it wasn't all doom and gloom. The Asda at Hamilton just down the road from Strathclyde Country Park sells Harviestoun's Bitter & Twisted, one of my favourite ales. At least I no longer needed remain stone-cold sober that evening. Mwahahaha!

Euro13 Airstream Gathering, and Taking a Dog Abroad

I'm using my time in the Outer Hebrides to slow down and catch up a bit. Before getting up to date, we need to go back a couple of months:

June 2013.


Back in June '13 it was time to take my wee dog Dougal abroad for the first time. For some inexplicable reason that no ferry company can explain, dogs have to be left in cars on 'short sea' international ferry routes. That would probably be fine if it wasn't for all the numpties who fail to isolate their car alarms that screech incessantly for the entire crossing, freaking out any animal on the car deck and no doubt also annoying any off-duty crew who are trying to sleep in downstairs cabins.

Caledonian MacBrayne and WightLink, on the other hand, have no problem providing a pet area on board their ferries. Pets can go upstairs and travel with their owners in a dedicated lounge with vinyl seats and flooring. They're not allowed into the bars or food areas.

Not wishing to leave Dougal scared and alone on the car deck, we booked our passage to France with Eurotunnel. As ever, we booked through the Caravan Club who managed to do us a better deal than we would have managed even booking direct on the internet.

Very impressed with Eurotunnel I was too. Boarding was hassle-free, parking up a doddle, and for the 35 minute trip both myself and Dougal could travel together in the civilised comfort of our own Airstream. Meanwhile, 50 metres above us people were elbowing each other in queue for the cafeteria. Gas must be isolated in the Tunnel, so I had earlier prepared a flask of coffee to enjoy during the journey. Disembarkation was unbelievably quick. No getting wound up on crowded car decks while asphyxiated by lorry fumes… simply drive off, and within just two minutes you're on the motorway. It was all just so quick, easy, civilised, and dog-friendly.

For a few days we camped in the gorgeous yet little known German town of Oldenburg, which is in the North of the country between Hamburg and the border with the Netherlands. A very dear friend of mine lives in Oldenburg and I spent an enjoyable time being spoiled by his lavish hospitality and taking our dogs on longs walks in the lush green landscape of Lower Saxony.

A few days was also spent staying with some Dutch Airstreaming friends near Groningen where we met up with some Airstreaming friends from the UK. Many a boozy night was spent sat around the campfire talking until the small hours. I loved it. I'm not sure my liver did.

One day we all headed off back over the border to Germany to a village called Bockhorn, which was hosting a massive 'Old Timer' car show, including some lovely vintage caravan rigs too. Beautiful!

Why were we all overseas? We had a 'big' weekend to attend, the Euro13 Airstream Gathering in Weilburg, Germany. 56 rigs turned up from across Europe:

What a brilliant weekend it was too. For me it got off to a bad start when the local 'yoofs' thought it would be funny to chip golf balls out of the woods and into the queue of Airstreams waiting to enter the site. One of them hit my trailer and smashed the Heki causing over £300 of damage, and necessitating an afternoon spent in the Police station making a report. How grateful I am to fellow Airstreamer Phill for his help as an interpreter.

Other than this setback, it was great. The weekend was the perfect balance of being organised enough but not overly organised. It was certainly a credit to the organiser, the charismatic Armin Heun, and his friendly, enthusiastic, cheerful team from Airstream Germany. Attendees were free to do their own thing although a couple of activities were laid on for those who wished to go along. I very much enjoyed the visit to Airstream Germany's showroom and service centre, which is the absolute epitome of what you would expect from a premium retailer selling a premium brand. In fact, the entire UK contingent was very, very impressed.

Beer and food was generously laid on by Airstream Germany and by Airstream Europe.

We were even honoured to have the company of Rich Luhr (of Airstream Life magazine) and his lovely wife Eleanor who had come all the way from the US of A. Rich gave us a brilliant talk and an interesting insight into Airstreaming in the US and how it compares to how we do it in Europe.

Rich's verdict? It seems that here in Europe we are more willing to head off the beaten track and use sites without facilities than our US cousins, where 'boondocking' (off-grid caravanning) is less popular than it is here. I think we can thank the Caravan Club and the Camping and Caravanning Club for that, thanks to our enviable and maybe taken-for-granted network of Certificated Locations/Sites.

Another highlight of the weekend, for me at least, was being given the opportunity to have a go at playing the bagpipes by the very talented and all-round lovely fellow Airstreamer Elaine. Well, I say that it was a highlight for me. I think the 'strangled cat' noise that I produced was no doubt one of the low points of the weekend for the unfortunates whose ears witnessed that terrible assault.

Sunday came way too soon, bringing with it the departure of good friends old and new. As we started to say our goodbyes, the tears started to flow. As daft as it sounds, I was so sad that it was over.

If you have a spare few minutes, do have a peek at the video I made of the weekend:


Euro13 Airstream Gathering video






Dougal and I headed off on our own to Belgium and spent a lovely couple of days chilling at Camping Blaarmeersen in the beautiful city of Ghent. It seems that the E40 motorway traversing Belgium has improved greatly over the past few years, as in general it was well surfaced and traffic flowed freely.

Blaarmeersen was as pretty and perfunctory in equal measure as it has always been, and it was super to catch up with another friend on a lazy summer's day.

Of course, there was also the small task of getting Dougal's worming process signed off for his passport.

On Eurotunnel, the return leg was as straightforward as the outward. First of all we had to stop at the Pet Passport area for Dougal to be scanned and his paperwork checked.

Here we saw a poster telling us that a million… yes, ONE MILLION pets have now travelled with Eurotunnel.

Don't the ferry companies want a slice of that pie? It appears not.



The smooth 35 minute journey was spent cuddled up on the sofa of the Airstream having a snooze while the hoards 50 metres above us were still elbowing each other in the scrum for the bar. I know where I would rather be.