Apologies for missing a week, it has been a pretty full on fortnight! In this blog we go from Richard completing his Dales Way challenge to us embarking on our European road trip.
While Richard continued on his Dales Way challenge, I had a great few days down in Cheshire staying with my mum. I have really enjoyed just pottering, going for coffee with friends and having some time with mum. I have watched hours of mindless Netflix, been on a few short walks and generally just chilled out.
Meanwhile poor Richard was going through the mill a little on the last few days of his epic hike.
Day 3 - Yockenthwaite Valley to Dent
The Yockenthwaite valley has always been one of our favourite hide outs. There is no phone signal and it is very remote – it is also the location for filming much of the ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ series.
Richard had a much needed dip in the river to soak his weary feet, a good nights sleep and found a great honesty box campsite that was only £5 per night. Fed, watered and raring to go, he set off past the Ribblehead Viaduct and onto Dentdale. Luckily at this point the weather was still pretty good.
Not so much that evening! He got settled in at the campsite and enjoyed a shower and another dehydrated delightful camping meal. Just as he was about to set off for the pub, the most biblical thunder and lightening storm hit and didn’t stop for hours. I personally would have gone to the pub first and had a meal there!!
Day 4 - Dent to Burnside (crossing the M6 into Cumbria)
By this point I think his morale was at a low point, it rained all night and the fields and paths were like bogs which did nothing for his feet and blisters. The highlight of the day was a bacon buttie and coffee in Sedbergh before crossing the M6. He found this section of the whole hike the hardest. The route was not particularly well marked, many of the signposts were missing or chopped down, the stiles were dilapidated and some of the paths almost unwalkable due to nettles, narrow barbed wire fences and flooding. He was very happy when he finally saw the sign for the campsite.
There are not many places to stay on this section of the route and Sprint Mill was a welcome refuge for weary walkers provided by a lovely, welcoming couple. There was a barn with kitchen facilities and cakes – a fab dry place to get out of the incessant rain.
Day 5 - Burnside to Bowness on Windemere
On paper, this was the shortest day with only 11 miles to go. But wow – it was hard. It rained heavily all day, his feet were in tatters and navigation was tricky. I had arranged to pick him up in Bowness and he was a broken man when I met on the shores of the lake. He was absolutely drenched, freezing cold and exhausted! I fed him with fish and chips on the way home and he slept the afternoon and the next 2 days away!
For more detailed information on how Richard got on with the hike take a look at his Vlog which depicts all the highs, lows and stunning countryside that he covered.
We had a quiet few days in the Dales while Richard recovered, marked by a couple of evenings of awesome sunsets. I did a few village walks to visit the lovely donkies and see the last few lambs. I was treated to a front row seat watching the local farmer move the sheep and lambs to a new field. It never ceases to amaze me when watching the farm dogs work.
On Saturday we had a fantastic afternoon tea at the village hall. It was so lovely to see so many of the villagers and to meet more new people. There is no pub or café in the village, but the committee of the village hall put on a monthly event to get everyone together. Sadly, we are away for most of them but love it when we are about. It was probably one of the best afternoon teas I have ever had. I was good though as I resisted the temptation of a glass of prosecco to go with it!
Village Cricket
On Sunday we went back to Cheshire to watch Luke play cricket. He has played for his local village team since the age of 6 and it was so nice to see him still playing with some of the same people nearly 20 years later!! We had a fab time, Mum came up trumps with a delicious picnic and Georgia and Molly came to watch too – so full on family time.
As a bonus, this was Luke’s debut for the first team and he batted really well, the third highest run scorer of the day.
I have pinched a photo taken by club photographer Mike Robinson of the weekends cricket.
Subsidence monitoring continues…
Richard had a right old run around on Monday! He went to visit his Mum in the care home which is always a lovely experience but then had to go back to his family home to meet the subsidence monitoring team so they can take another set of readings. It always upsets him seeing his lifelong family home in such a run down state. It has been empty for 15 months now and has a few huge cracks running through the kitchen and living room. Hopefully we are nearly at the end of the long drawn out process which started last August. They need one more set of readings to confirm that there has been no more movement and then they can start the repair and renovation work. At this point we will get a certificate of work and we can finally put the house up for sale.
We had a little scare when we tried to renew the house insurance on the house this week as the Santander Building Society would not renew the policy because it has been unoccupied for over a year. Luckily they gave a number of a broker who sorted us out (minus subsidence insurance)
Meanwhile, I stayed at home and cleaned the house and got everything out and ready to pack the van for our European Road trip to Croatia and Slovenia. We have got a few people staying at the cottage while we are away which I love!
My sister has booked her ‘10 day Yorkshire Dales holiday’ with some friends and then both kids are wanting to stay for a few nights each. We love that our family and friends like sharing our happy place and see it as a great place to spend a holiday.
Yorkshire Dales to Dover – truly the worst part of any journey!
On Tuesday morning we set off on our travels. It is like playing Russian Roulette, you cannot predict the time it will take to get there, even with modern satnav systems. Feeling rather smug, we sailed through the normal chaos of Haydock and Birmingham on the M6 and were ahead of schedule. In fact for the first time in a while we were soon on the outskirts of the M25 – this is where the fun began! Seemingly the whole of the M25 was red and it took us nearly 3 hours to reach the turn off for Dover. This is always the part of any journey that we dread the most and we now travel down the day before ready to jump on an early ferry.
We stayed the night at our now regular scenic carpark in Dover and were the first van to board the ferry.
Taking the slow road
We decided on this journey that we would take the slow road through France and avoid using the tolls. Normally we blast down to where we want to start our adventures but that comes at a cost of about €80 to get to the Alps and the drive is mind numbingly boring.
We threaded our way through the stunning countryside to our first stop over at Lac D’Orient near the town of Troyes. We drove through some beautiful little villages and had a picnic by a lovely little church. It probably took us about 2 hours longer to get to that point than if we had used the toll road but we have all the time in the world now.
The free aire on the lake was little more than an old carpark and had about 20 other campers there but it was only a couple of hundred metres from the most gorgeous lakeside harbour. Another advantage for us with no onboard toilet was that there was a toilet block open 24hrs by the harbour.
Our journey to Lake Geneva the next day was equally as stunning but a little more torturous. We wanted to drive over the Jura mountains and we really enjoyed the scenery as we wound through the small mountain villages. We were heading into Switzerland to take the Simplon Pass that would drop us down onto the Italian Lakes eventually. Switzerland is not a fan of wild camping and there is not much choice of places to stay so we had earmarked a campsite on the shores of Lake Geneva.
The route took us through the centre of Geneva which was pretty gridlocked and took us nearly 2 hours to get through, then a combination of heavy traffic and road works took us nearly 2 more hours to get to the campsite! However, Camping Disdille was a great place and we had nice stroll along the lake shore the next morning before moving on.
The last part of our journey to Lago D’Orta took us over the Simplon Pass, well actually under it! With warnings of snow and ice on the top of the pass and low cloud conditions we decided to take the train which was a mini adventure in itself! It was a much easier transfer day and we parked up by the Lake by late afternoon.
At this point we have done just over a thousand miles in 4 days.
We feel we are now at the true start to our European vanlife adventure where we will be travelling at a much slower pace and staying in locations for a few days at a time. Join us in our next blog to see where we visited in Italy.
Have a great bank holiday weekend
Jackie and Richard
We saw Richard’s vlog. Whilst it looked stunning, we could see that much of was hard going. Well done to Richard for completing it. Look forward to hearing about your European travels. Have a fantastic time 😊
"Richard had a much needed dip in the river to soak his weary feet" - any excuse to get the budgie smugglers out!