Van Gogh, Cycling and Wild Boar
We drove from Delft to camp in De Hoge Vewule national park. Here we cycled through a variety of different landscapes and visited the Kroller-Muller museum which has many wonderful Van Gogh paintings and an amazing sculpture garden In the evening we hopped back on our bikes to look for the wild boar the warden told us were about but we only saw deer. Let’s hope I don’t meet any if I need to visit the facilities tonight.
New ways to park one’s bike.
We cycled into Delft today. As with many Dutch cities finding a vacant spot to park one’s bike can prove to be tricky. Happily we did not need to resort to this.
A Day in Delft
A glorious day exploring Delft. We saw the Old Church with its leaning tower, and graves of Vermeer and Van Leeweunhoek inventor of the microscope. Plus the new church and a boat trip on the canals. Like Amsterdam without the crowds.
Hook of Holland
A panorama of cranes, wind turbines and a cloudless sky greet our arrival in Holland
A mad dash to Jumbo
We arrived at our beautiful campsite Delftlandhoeve near Delft and jumped on our bikes to race to the local supermarket called Jumbo. It was 2 miles away and closed in 30 minutes. We needed food for supper. We sped along, guided by Google maps, on single track paved roads (no cars allowed) where we met pedestrians, rollerbladers and a pack of cyclists who looked as though they’d got lost on the Tour de France. The countryside was spectacular and we cycled over canals and under the railway. We were within 1 min of Jumbo but kept going round in circles. Only 10 minutes to closing time. Finally we found it, locked our bikes and ran round gathering some basics as the staff packed them away. We rode back more sedately and enjoyed our supper.
Delftlandhoeve campsite
Day 1 Harwich to Hook of Holland
Left at 530am to drive to Harwich. A lovely day cruising on a flat sea, most of the time spent on deck in the sun.
Leaving Harwich
Arriving at Hook of Holland
Trip Preparation
Preparation is everything
We’ve been told that Scandinavian midges can be as big as eagles so are taking no chances. The Smidge, midge-proof headnets are an essential part of our kit and ready to be packed into our van.
The VW California
Roll on to early 2020. Danny was planning to retire in a year and our boys were both over 18 and doing their own things. We talked about buying another camper van and started looking. Because we now lived in the Ultra Low Emission Zone a Bongo wasn’t an option. (They’d stopped making them in 2005.) We looked at VW campers and liked the California Ocean although we thought the décor rather corporate (grey on grey). We investigated conversions of VW and other vans, but found the decisions to be made overwhelming, plus they didn’t seem much cheaper and would take many months to be ready. Then lockdown happened and our search stopped.
Just before garages opened up after the first lockdown, a dealer we’d visited rang us to say he had a nice VW California if were still interested. As soon as they opened we went to look and liked it. Danny bravely test drove it. The salesperson took us on a local route which involved driving through a 6 foot 6 gap. Danny coped admirably. We decided to buy the VW California, a year old but with only 50 miles on the clock and never used. It’s lucky we did as they then became almost impossible to find and the prices shot up. We decided we could live with the Indium grey exterior and could brighten up the office-like grey interior with cushions and blankets. In June we brought it home.
Further Bongo Adventures
In 2013 we spent the May half term near Paris and used the annual Disneyland passes we’d bought on the sabbatical. We took a tent as well, but discovered we could plug an electric heater into the van and keep warm inside in the evenings as it was rather chilly. That summer we drove to the Dordogne, again taking a tent as well, and camped for 2 weeks. We had amazing weather till the last day when there was a tremendous thunderstorm as we left. We’d bought a bike carrier for the tow bar so took 4 bikes, although arranging them on the carrier was a nightmare and involved turning all the handlebars . We also took our first blow up canoe, the Tahiti Plus Pro, an enormous thing which Danny ordered in a sale. It had no fin and was impossible to steer but the boys enjoyed jumping from it and turning it upside down in the river.
In 2014 we took the ferry from Portsmouth to Santander, unfortunately during the tailend of hurricane Bertha so Danny’s promised mini cruise never materialised and he spent the voyage in the cabin feeling terribly seasick. We had a lovely few days in San Sebastian and saw the fireworks festival twice, the highlight of which was the fire bull, a man dressed as a bull running wild with fireworks shooting from him in all directions. We camped in the Pyrenees where the cloud didn’t lift for a week. We went to Lourdes but that didn’t help. One of the boys ended up in a French hospital with suspected appendicitis, which turned out to be a gut infection. We’re still not sure if it was caught from unpasteurised goat’s cheese or the camp toilets. That trip put us off long camping trips and the next year we drove to the Dordogne but stayed in a gite.
We kept the Bongo for about 5 years, taking it on short camping trips. It was about half the time to pitch or pack up camp compared to a large tent. Our friends were envious. When it rained we sat inside and kept dry. Then I convinced Danny we should sell it as we were hardly using it. He reluctantly agreed although he’d always enjoyed driving it to work because he’d felt as if he was going on holiday, even though it took ages to defrost and warm up in the winter. He found a nice new owner for it. We missed it and I wondered if it had been a mistake to sell it.
How it Started
In 2012 Danny had a sabbatical and we wanted to do something adventurous. Our boys were 13 and 10. I wasn’t keen on flying or visiting exotic countries so suggested a camper van trip round Europe. We’d always liked the idea of a camper van but never seriously considered it. One of Danny’s friends had a VW California, but the price seemed outrageous. We started researching and discovered the Mazda Bongo, a Japanese minivan with fold down seats to make a double bed and a roof which elevated to make more sleeping space upstairs. They were right hand drive. People imported them and converted them to full camper vans. The main attraction was the much lower cost.
We took the train to Southampton to view some at a dealer. We liked them but there were so many decisions. A side or rear kitchen? Keep the seats or change for a rock and roll bed? What kitchen surfaces, what flooring? We left confused. Then Danny saw one advertised in Auto Trader and went to look. He liked it, it was a good price and we bought it. It was a Montague, converted by Eva Montague at 321 near Reading. There was a crisis when for some reason it didn’t register as congestion zone exempt, so we had to store it outside London for a few weeks, but we managed to sort that and Danny drove it home.
Our Bongo felt quite large to drive at first, even though it was hardly wider or longer than our Zafira. They are over 2m tall, so we had to take notice of height restriction signs in car parks. We realised it was too small for all 4 of us to sleep comfortably. We bought an awning, which attached by a plastic strip above the van side door, and took it camping. The boys slept in the van, one in the roof, one on the unfolded seats. We slept in the tent section of the awning. It was very windy and we woke to see the sky as the awning had detached from the van.
In the summer we spent a month and drove all the way to Croatia (the northern island of Crs), via Disneyland Paris, Chamonix, Lake Garda and Venice. We returned via Slovenia, Innsbruck, Lake Constance (where it rained non-stop and the awning leaked so we went to an Ibis hotel) and Luxembourg. It was easy to drive, being automatic, and comfortable. It was much quicker to set up camp and get away than when we’d had a tent alone.
We enjoyed ourselves despite the fact we slept in the awning most of the time on airbeds which always lost air. You couldn’t get in the fridge or make coffee or breakfast til one of the boys woke up, but that didn’t matter. It was great to have a fridge. All the stuff had to be put in the front seats or awning to sleep, which was fine if it wasn’t raining. We mostly lived outside.
We looked forward to more camper van adventures.