Leaving behind a cold, grey day in the UK, we make the short ferry trip from Dover to Calais and all the months of planning and anticipation are over – we’re off! 

Whizzing  through France we spend our first night bush camping at an idyllic countryside setting, in perfect conditions, the sun was shining and all was good... until around 10pm when a farmer turned up to see why we had decided to camp in the middle of his field!  (Oops)! But after a bit of huffing and puffing he left us to it and peace was restored.

1st nights bush camp in Belgium

All set up for the night!

We were up and off early for a drive day through Europe and another good bush camping location where we were tucked well out of sight and the majority took advantage of the small lake we were camped by to swim in (yes – the weather was THAT good)!  

Another early start and we were up and off to our first real stop, the beautiful city of Salzburg in Austria.    The weather was fantastic and we all had a great day exploring the sites and eating the local cuisine (schnitzel  and apple strudel being amongst the favourite)and a few were even adventurous enough to climb up Mt Untersberg and catch the cable car back down.

The mountian climbing group!

The rolling of the Tarp!

Holding on!

The sunshine didn’t last though as that evening the heavens opened up and it rained like we were in the middle of monoon season!  Cook group was rather challenging but with all hands on deck we had it sorted. 

Straight onto Budapest in Hungry we stayed in a campsite on the outskirts of town and everyone had a day to relax and take in the sites of the city and its wonderful architecture and famous goulash.  Some did city bus tours and boat trips and others just wandered around taking it all in but a really good day was had by all.  We are well and truly into the hot weather now with factor 50 been applied liberally but the ‘we’re on holiday for 6 months’ tan is coming along nicely!  We have an onboard gym and are lucky enough to have our very own Pilates instructor with us so it’s all full steam ahead with the fitness for those who want it (or not...)!

Will and Sarah hard at it!

Pilates all round!

On to Bucharest where the day was spent wandering around town and the night was spend getting eaten alive by mozzies! And then onto, without a doubt, THE best campsite in Europe, Nick and Nicky’s ‘Camping Veliko Tarnovo’ in Bulgaria where we took in the sights of Tsavarets Fortress, biked and hiked around the village and spent time lying by the pool at the incredibly scenic and cleanest campsite we’ve ever come across!

Nick and Juli at Sighashora, Romania

Transilvania!

Entering Turkey in record time we are now smack-bang in the middle of Istanbul, the location is excellent (even if the 30 bed dorm took a bit of getting used to)! After a fantastic Turkish dinner the dance-off was well and truly on as a large percentage of the group staggered back home at 4 o’clock 'ish' from the Turkish bar across the road.

It’s stinking hot and we’re loving it!

Until next time!