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almost home
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@doubletrackadventures
Hey everyone!
Sorry to say we’re not using this as much as we’d hoped! Olly is putting up all his photos from the trip bit by bit over on: @ollyjelley
Ellie is putting up her stuff and just being lovely over on @eleanorbrown91
And we’re writing stuff up here, at www.ollyjelley.wordpress.com
We will put stuff out on here gradually, however its just not the platform we hoped it would be for writing! All the best, Olly & Ellie
We are home!
And so will be updating this blog now that we actually have Internet. Finding it on the road was aloft more tricking than previously thought. But yeh, update coming, be patient :) Ellie x
Somewhere in Rome...
We’re many many days behind and struggling to keep up with the blog due to rubbish internet here in Italia, but we’ve just hit Rome hard, even driven around this crazy and beautiful city a bit in the Defender! Just sat with a coffee then off to Coliseum before heading to find a spot to sleep en-route to pisa,
Olly has been keeping up with the blogs offline so they will be coming thick and fast as soon as the internet gets consistent,
Love from the Barum Café, Rome,
Olly & Ellie
Day 4 Les Gets to Switzerland
Time to get back on the road again after a days rest, rest meaning just ‘not driving’.
This morning Olly cycled from Les Gets to the top of the mountain bike runs on the mountain (wasn’t prepared to pay for a lift pass, and wanted to be there before the lifts for first run down!) we both had a final fresh French croissant for breakfast, because they do just taste so much better here, then packed up properly and headed onwards towards the swiss border...
We’d decided not to pay up for the Mont Blanc tunnel (€57!) and the route around the south for free was about 4 hours extra of travelling, so our compromise was the €40 border crossing into Switzerland which tied in nicely with some other plans we had...
Now sure, Les Gets is in the Alps, but this was into the mountains proper! Driving below the Mont Blanc Massif was stunning, with too many stops to count for photos as it just got better and better. We even got a lovely surprise that the border crossing was totally free, not the €40 we’d expected.
We arrived at the lake at dusk, unpacked our kit and got dinner on. A tiny chapel was perched on a cliff behind us and the massive turquoise lake stretched out around the corner. We stood on the Dam and watched the sunset and alpenglow on the Mont Blanc Massif before turning in for the night.
Finally, a rough picture of the inside of the converted Landrover! Mattress rolled up at the back and the rug over the storage, solar powered lighting - better pics at a later date we promise!
Good night from the starry lake,
Olly & Ellie
Day 3 Les Gets
Rest day! Have some photos! Mountain biking happened, including Ellie doing her first run down the green cycle paths in the Alps amazingly, then we headed up through Morzine to Avoriaz for the most beautiful sunset!
Nice View from the Balcony of the Chalet
Olly’s masculine bike...
Looking over Les Gets from the Balcony
Sunset near Avoriaz, Ellie taking some photos the right way, Olly not doing so well here.
Distant mountains to the south
We made it!
A very proud Landrover 800 miles in
Olly & Ellie
Day 2 - Riqueval, Troyes and Les Gets
The first night sleeping in the newly converted Defender was a really surprisingly good one. However, that could easily have been just from how tired we were after an insane amount of winding around backroads with our erratic satnav. Turns out you can’t put in place names when in Europe, just ‘point on map’ so there is a lot of guess work going to happen over the next few weeks!
A bit of a rainy start, but kind of beautiful across all the flat plains of northern France as we dropped down into the Champagne region.
After some slight detours (e.g. an excited spot of a sign for ‘Brie 2km’ - turns out, actually where Brie comes from) Reims was the first major city we headed through and immediately drove up a ‘Bus only’ lane, followed by a ‘Taxis and mopeds only’ area in front of the city Police station. Fingers crossed they don’t have camera systems like in the uk... the Landrover is basically a bus anyway though right?
Now actually driving in Daylight and getting some miles (sorry, kilometres in Europe of course) covered, its pretty impressive how much solar, wind and general ‘eco’ stuff France has got going on. The picture here looks just like a plain bridge, but is actually a nature bridge so Deer & other wildlife can cross over without having to risk the road, linking two huge swathes of forest. More of this in the UK please!
And of course, a photo of some Champagne vine fields... after a while of this, we managed to reach a city called Troyes at around Lunchtime, perfect for a stop off, and it turned out to be a beautiful one!
The medieval centre of the city was the most stunningly wonky and erratic place ever, all wood and lamps. Despite the cloud there was something really warm about the place, I think I just like anything built out of wood (Olly).
Ellie taking some pictures in the ‘Alley of the Cats’, so narrow at the top that Cats used to jump from the windows across the street.
This was a long long day, so driving swapped around a couple of times as we hit the road again, heading further south, through Dijon and on towards Geneva to make up time.
Somewhere in the foothills of the Alps, around 10 hours in to the days driving, Olly needed a coffee, and Faron (landrover) was getting a bit warm. N.B. NOT OVERHEATING or breaking down, he’s 21 and 10 hours in a lot of driving, poor guy needed a breather so we popped his bonnet and had a rest for a little while before the last hour and a half up and into Les Gets. A joyful discovery today was that the supposedly amazing travel bank card we have which is apparently accepted anywhere that takes Mastercard, is not accepted anywhere that takes Mastercard. Awkward toll booth queue whilst we fumbled around to get through.
Something Olly definitely didn’t do whilst driving was take a load of long exposure photos to pass the time.
At long long last, around 1.30am, we arrived in Les Gets at Olly’s godfathers Chalet for a couple of nights. Super super lucky to be allowed to stay here, such a beautiful place, time for a relax after some crazy hours driving (you can almost see the relief on Faron’s face) and also time for some bikes...
Olly & Ellie
Day 1 Somerset to France
First things first, we’re so sorry! We thought access to the internet would be much more available than it is (in Italy it seems impossible to fill up with clean drinking water, let alone check your emails) - and now we have it, rest has been a more important thing than uploading photos etc! After a rough and bumpy start, we made it across the UK, through the tunnel and onto the wrong side of the road! Driving on the opposite side generally speaking isn’t that bad at all, its only in towns and cities where you’re relying on your reflexes to not mow down the millions of mopeds does it get interesting. First night we found a good Aire to sleep in, and avoided tolls by sticking to slightly more minor roads. Toll roads are pricey, and seeing as the landrover only really does 55mph, there’s no point in paying up for the 80mph roads!
It was a bit rainy to start, but seeing as we were now skipping out Paris to get back onto our rough schedule, that was no bad thing, its easier to drive in the rain, you don’t feel as if you’re missing out on so much!
We’ll do our best to post up more asap, this is day one and we’re 7 in currently, Olly has been writing up bits offline, so when he can sort photos will be putting these all up in more detail!
Olly & Ellie
And we're off! After being delayed by 3 days we are now sat in the queue to get onto the euro tunnel to begin our three weeks of travel through France, Switzerland and Italy and then back again.
Yet more delays...
We will start our adventure soon, we promise!
Travel Update:
Faron (Our poor Defender) is in the Garage a bit longer, due to lazy friday afternoon syndrome we expect, so we’re picking him up on monday afternoon.
New gearbox, clutch and transfer gear, timing belt etc. Should be good for another 100,000 miles before problems! Monday night we fit him out, (Curtains, bunting and the nice finishes are all made now) and finish up the woodwork in the back for our storage.
All of our shopping for kit, food and travel is done,
Its all getting close to launch! Olly
Spalted Birch Faced Ply
Aka, my new bed platform in the Landrover
Olly
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Our new bed for 3 weeks in Europe :)
Faron, mine and eleanorbrown91‘s Landrover Defender [ 1995 110csw ]
We gutted the previous boot space out, removed the second row of seats, cleared all fixings and began our work.
First a frame went in the footwell from the second row of seats, to line up with the wheel arches and support the bed sheet of ply. I lap jointed this as well as screwing it to allow use of a thinner wood whilst retaining strength, therefore making the most of the small space, meaning this frame is a great storage box.
Then bought a couple of sheets of ply and began my storage design. I’ve never seen anything like this in a landrover or campervan, but thought it might work well as a floor storage. The dividing panels are all free and can be moved around to re-organise the storage however you want.
Six small ‘boxes’ you can see here are 30lx20w cm. The four 30cm lengthways dividers all pull out individually and fit in widthways to the long storage box on the right which is 30cm wide.
More on the top panels and access at the end of the week when I have time to finish off the project…
Adventure is coming,
Olly x
Post #1 - Here we go!
