Travelling....Looking Ahead

We've been in the UK for a few weeks - doing house things, seeing friends, looking after daughter's cat, wondering why our new caravan isn't here yet.. and planning our next 12 months travelling ..kind of, anyway.

A decison though....   All being well, we'll be travelling in Argentina, Chile and Brazil next January, finishing up in Rio for Carnival.  Sue's planning that one and it's looking good.

The Iceland article in the February edition of Caravan Magazine seems to have gone down well and it's tempting to do another documented tour, this time through Scandinavia, for a number of reasons. We'll see. Or we might just do some more of the UK coast.
Caravan Mag via SwiftGroup link

We found time to do some of our on-going coastal tour in and around Rochester. Very nice, too. A town of two halves, I think. Wonderful castle and cathedral.

Back in Nerja next week.




Rochester Castle
rochester-castle link

 Rochester Cathedral
rochestercathedral.org/

Fascinating house sandwiched in a terrace

Walking up El Cielo

Well, we tried, with no expectation of getting above the snow line...

Here's the track:

A great walk with the group, just 200m below the summit of the local peak, El Cielo, above Nerja at 1508m above sea level. That's not bad at all. The snow was mainly dumped the day before the walk unfortunately. Locals tell us they have not seen so much snow on the surrounding peaks for 30 odd years.

The leaders correctly judged that conditions were too risky above the snow line, so we marched back down again...

Perhaps we'll try again before the year is out.

So near...

That's why..

Africa, Christmas and Espana

Well, after our 13,000km motorhome tour of Southern Africa [summary HERE] we arrive just in time to have an unexpectedly good Christmas back in the UK...unexpected because we didn't have time to think about it I guess.

So now it's back to our Spanish life in Nerja for a while.That means music nights, film nights, meals with friends, history group, tapas, glasses of Rioja, and long, lovely walks in the Sierras with the walking group.  It's a tough life ..but you only get one*...

[*of course, I know this is only my view]

Not forgetting Carnival! Followed by the very sad death of the Sardine.
Truly Mad, Truly Wonderful.

Motorhoming in Africa

As the first part of our African adventure is nearing its end, we reflect on how brilliant this has been so far...

...and how much we have still to learn about this amazing country.

Looking forward to the rest

africabymotorhome.blogspot.com

Caravan Decision Made

Well, after our adventure in Iceland and the Faroes we have decided what to do about our travelling vehicles;

1. We loved the freedom to roam that the the 4x4 Touareg gave us
2. We managed to put the single axle caravan in most places a motorhome could go
3. The new Swift Elegance we tested in Iceland is a tough van, has no wood in its construction

So we won't go down the motorhome route, at least for a few years yet, and the decision is:

1. Keep the Touareg
2. Trade in our Searcher for a new Sterling Continental 580 (sister van to the Swift Elegance 580)

So there we have it - we're still caravanners. 

Where to next?

Preparing for Africa

As I sit here watching Chambao on You Tube while I type this, I realise how much we are missing Nerja and our Spanish life...and we won't manage to be there until January. Having said that, after recovering from our Iceland adventure, we've had a great summer reuniting with our three daughters and also managed to get a lot of work done on our house here in the UK.

It's quite dreadful watching Scotland pulling itself apart over the referendum and contemplating the ramifications of either outcome for all of us in the current UK. It's also quite fascinating seeing the power of bluster and passion over reason being played out on TV. How did we get here? (best not share my thoughts on that...) Let's hope that this is not repeated in Spain anytime soon, for Espana has achieved too much in recent years to turn it upside down.

Anyway, preparations for Africa are almost done and we are pumped full of boosters for all kinds of evil diseases so if you want to see what we're up to, it's HERE

Nerja - Semana Santa

Well, we're back here again for the Easter Parades...
We start this year with our local Nerja parades...and they're breathtaking. Surprisingly it's our first Easter out here but it certainly won't be our last.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Week_in_Spain

We'll stay until May 20th, catching up with friends, the walking group and taking in the San Isidro fiesta before leaving....

...then it's sorting out the final details for our Iceland trip before collecting the new Elegance 570 from Swift....more of that later.