Mein camper ist kaputt

We didn't make it to Wales!

When you own a 32 year old vehicle, that you are driving around nearly everyday, you expect there to be days when things go wrong.

And yesterday was unfortunately one of those days!

Just before Junction 19 of the M5, at about midday, the van started to splutter and lose power so we quickly pulled into a service station.

Nick had a quick look to make sure it was nothing obvious, and then we rung the AA.

Unfortunately they weren't really sure what was wrong. Although the engine starts and runs, it is making a mechanical knocking noise that we didn't want to make worse by driving it too far, so it meant getting towed to a garage. We had to make the decision whether to get towed to a local garage, or to get towed back to Portsmouth.

Poor little van.

We made the decision to get back to Portsmouth, where we know a reputable VW garage and we can stay with Nick's parents rather than risk a local garage, who may not be familiar with air-cooled engines, and fork out for a B&B.

From calling the AA at about 12.30 it then took us about 9 hours to get back due to swapping recovery vehicles halfway, and it being a busy and rainy Friday afternoon. It wasn't too bad as we just sat in the van and played games.

I was quite excited about riding in the big truck.

Our van was nicely colour co-ordinated with the AA truck too.

This morning we tried to show the guy at the garage the knocking noise and it wasn't making it anymore! Nick drove it round the block for a while and it did start again, although not as bad as yesterday. We spoke to the guy at garage in Portsmouth and he is not sure what the problem is, he is going to look into it next week and let us know. But if it is intermittent problem hopefully it's not a complete disaster.

Regular readers of this blog will know we have not had much luck this year! I do not believe in fate; that 'everything happens for a reason'. But I do think you need to make the best of what you get dealt in life, and so we have been pondering how to make the best of the few weeks we have left in the UK.

So rather than set off again in the van, we have decided, once it is fixed, to sell it early and go visit Scotland and Wales in our car or by plane. Not as exciting but hopefully less prone to breakdowns. Unfortunately we do not have a limitless pot of money to spend on the van and with a 32 year old vehicle it is hard to know when and what will go wrong next. And it really is a 'when', rather than an 'if' with these vans. This is something to bear in mind if you are ever thinking of getting one of these old vans.

We are slightly gutted, especially as we were supposed to be meeting our friends Dan and Vic and spending the weekend with them and their new caravan.

But we have had a good few months travelling over the summer and loved every minute. Not working has meant we have been able to make the most of every single sporadic sunny day.

More updates to come once we decide what we are doing next!