Wednesday 8 February 2012

Passage to Spain & our motorhome , Eddie 5/2 -8/2

Day of travel to Spain
Woke to a snow covered wonderland and Jeff and Wil took off to Hyde Park for some snow play - actually a war!


Packed up (getting sick of this!) and cabbed to Victoria Station where we took the express train to Gatwick, only to find our flight delayed 4 hrs (much better than Heathrow delays) and a very packed terminal - no worries!!  Read, kids explored duty free and made friends and finally, nearly missed our flight on Monarch, the most jam packed cabin we’ve been in.  Arrived in Alicante (under 2hr flight, south coast of Spain) after dark and cabbed to the Camp ground where we met Glen, the lovely lady selling us Eddie the motorhome.  Glen and Steve (unwell but rapidly improving in the Alicante Hospital) have been traveling the world for ~15 years having retired in the UK midlands in their early 40’s.  Slept in a small very basic cabin (beds were great) and awoke to a fine sunny but cool day (around 5 deg).

6/2/12
Spent the day on logistics (transferring funds thanks to Rowdy who took time out from his furious gas trading, yes the van is in incredibly good condition, only 8 months old, not a scratch, everything working well and fully kitted up - not a thing to buy). Jen’s immediate favourite thing was the blue kettle on the gas cooktop & mine was the big bed. Did an orientation of the workings of Eddie (van named by the vendors Glen and Steve Swatman, the name shall remain) 
A short tour downtown for a shop and met Brits, Arf and Jean (friends of G and S who are on the European Wallaby as well).
7/2/12
Another beautiful day, some good exercise on the beach promenade, and then visited Steve in Hospital,.Jen met “Dr Joe” his oncologist and did some valuable fact finding/interpreting for Glen and Steve, after which we headed down the hill into Alicante, through the Bull Fighting museum and up to the Santa Barbara castle standing proudly >300m over the top of Alicante, built serially through multiple civilisations over 2000yrs. Wow ,what a testament to evolving war technology and changing aesthetic values.
  And after climbing our way to the top (Macho area) we stepped into a high tech lift that rushed us ears popping,straight down into the heart of the mountain (probably = 40+ storeys) where we got out.Jen raced Wil to the end of a tunnel that must have been 250m long and out onto the beach and marina where we strolled admiring the mega million dollar stink boats, had a cafe con leche and jumped on the tram back to the camp ground, where keys in hand, we moved into Eddie. No trouble getting help with that job - the kids worked like trojans!

8/2/12
A day of nesting, moving things about, arranging insurance, trying to get Wil’s forgotten medication couriered from the London hotel, and then a celebratory early dinner looking out at the ocean where some brave surfers played in the Mediterranean dumpers. To close the day, we followed a walk around the headland,  played on the monkey bars before a bit of David Attenborough’s “Life” and a bit of Eddie kip, gas heater a blazing.


dice roll
Wil (best bit): seeing Kel’s expression of surprise when she opened her new pocket camera.
Kel(best natural thing): all the different plan trees - some are fat,short & dumpy, others are tall and seem to be sitting on top of the chalky ground.
Jeff(best cosntruction) Santa Barbara castle - so many humans involved over so many years
Jen(best word) la playa [beach} - exactly that; where one plays


  

1 comment:

  1. Pleasure doing business with you guys and we hope you have as much fun motorhoming as we have done and look forward to seeing you again in the future. Bon Voyage from Steve and Glen and thank you so much for your help with Steve.

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