Cal

We are loving our travels in Milo. It's certainly a different way to travel and see new places. Parking is hit and miss. Some local authorities provide motorhome bays (for day time and overnight parking) and others don't. Fortunately for us our van is small so it can squeeze into a normal parking bay. There are many different ways to travel round in the van. Some prefer official sites only Some off grid only. We like a nice mix of the two but prefer smaller sites to the larger commercial sites. If we want to stay in an area for any length of time we find a site nearby.

It is a stunning part of the country and must be beautiful in the summer. It was in December.

Day 6 - New Year's Day A beautiful start to New Year's Day. The drive home was uneventful. Another successful trip in the motorhome. Its really beginning to feel like as big a part of our life as the boat was.

Day 5 - New Year's Eve, South Gare We were going to to move on today but decided that we loved it so much at South Gare that we would stay another night.

Day 4 - Angel of the North and South Gare Heading south again today. A short lunch break at the Angel of the North before heading onto South Gare near Redcar.

Day 3 - Eyemouth Another short drive today across the Scottish Border to Eyemouth. A night in an aire (motorhome stop) to empty and refill the relevant tanks. A fantastic location and somewhere we will stay again.

Day 2 - Bamburgh After a shopping trip to buy some beautiful Loch Duart salmon for dinner into Amble we made the short drive along the coast to Bamburgh.

We have just come back from a short 5 night trip over the Christmas break up the East Coast in the motorhome. Wouldn't have fancied it on the boat, there were some high winds and big seas. Day one -Amble A long drive today. A nasty accident on the A1 resulted in a 2 hour delay. So it was an almost 5 hour drive today. Worth it once we got there though.

We do our turkey crown in the slow cooker. Did it on the boat, at home and on the van. Works a treat.

Not even a frost here in Worksop today. Positively tropical at 2 degrees this morning. A few miles down the road in Sheffield there is 3 inch of lying snow!

It is exactly the same. We always had to fill in a form when we bought fuel on the rivers and canals. It took less than a minute. Most places were happy for you to declare whatever split you liked. More often than not ours was all domestic. It was never queried by the yards as the form was filled in and it was your declaration. It was only when we took the boat to the Broads or on the coast that we ever ended up paying the 60/40 split.

I think we will have a generally mild winter again. 27th-31st December will be positively balmy :) (We are on a mini tour of Northumberland in the van)

We had several Christmas on the boat. Always enjoyed it. Planning to be out in the van between Christmas and New Year's again. We enjoyed that last year in Norfolk. Off to Northumberland this year.

We hired Swan Ranger a few years back and while it was a nice boat and easy to handle it was pushing it even back then to call it a Platinum Fleet boat. The fit out and general condition of the boat was no better than that of Viscount which we had hired the year previous. Rather disappointing for the extra outlay.

Never any damage at all and it certainly wasn't a one off occasion. The first few winters we had the boat she was "iced in" away from her home mooring many times. She had a tendency to ride up over the ice and then break through rather than trying to smash through with the peak of the bow. Winter 2010/2011 was a bad one and we were iced in the marina for 12 weeks. No chance of breaking through that. An Italian sports cruiser had to be cut from the ice as it had squeezed the hull and cracked it. The insurers paid for it to be cut out of the ice, divers to put the slings under and a long reach crane to haul it out and get it ashore ASAP. The ice where it was cut out was 12" thick! The sum total of our damage was a pair of sheared trim tab mountings. £25 and a paddle in the slipway later and we were sorted out again.

That sounds incredibly cheap for what it is.

We got "frozen in" several times while out and about on our little Sealine S23. Never a problem with that. It was quite the little ice breaker when it needed to be Never had any damage to the hull from it. The worst it got was some scuffed antifoul paint on the tip of the bow.

Aside from them being narrow we didn't really have any issues with the roads or the locals. If we found we were holding people up we just pulled over when possible and let them past. We had a few tight moments with larger vehicles coming the other way where we had to inch past each other but I think the drivers there are used to that. Even the A roads and lorry routes down there are tight! It is what it is. We will certainly be going back again at some point.

We didn't unfortunately but we did have a good long chat to the chef the day before in the pub in the village at Stokenham. Then got chatting to his mum when we called into the Sole Bay Inn for a few dinnertime drinks. The food looked amazing but we had a big breakfast so not hungry when we got there!

Visibility is a lot better than in a car but still not great. We were glad to get back on "proper" roads again :)

Day 15 The long drive back to Nottinghamshire. 5.5 hours drive today due to traffic so we were ready to park up at Denton Wharf, a favourite local stop and were glad of the walk to the pub to stretch our legs. Day 16 Just a 50 minute drive home today down the A1. A nice easy end to a fab holiday. Then time to unload the van and get it back in the drive ready for the next outing.

Day 14 Our last night on the south coast. Started with a visit to Chisel Beach and then onto Potland Bill for an over night stop at the Puplit Inn. Another windy night but we managed to seek shelter behind a large hedge and had a peaceful night despite the wind howling outside.

Day 13 On the move again. A small ferry at Dartmouth today on the way to Paignton and then onto the outskirts of Exeter for a pubstop over.

Day 12 No van movement today. But we had a walk to Torcross which was the scene of terrible loss of life during the war. Exercise Tiger went horribly wrong for the US armed forces with the loss of nearly 1000 lives.

Day 11 A visit to Kingsbridge before heading to our site for the next couple of nights at Start Bay, Torcross. We had a walk into the adjacent village for a few drinks.