UK

We had a short side trip to the land of chaos, Boris Johnson and Brexit Sigh!!! But Yorkshire was beautiful as ever!

Mallam Cove

Ripley Church

Hard Climb up a Waterfall at Mallam

Full circle

Well we are nearing the end of our trip. Eight more days in the UK and then home to Melbourne. We have completed a full circle of Europe and visited some of the most beautiful and interesting areas on Earth.

Have we enjoyed it? You bet! The trip has exceeded all expectations. But now it's time for us to get back to our lives and importantly to see all our friends in Australia. Watch out Melbourne here we come!

Elddis Avante 526 Says Goodbye to Europe

The caravan is saying goodbye to Europe for the last time. Sarah and Alex transported it down to Ipswich on Friday. From there it goes into a container and is shipped to Melbourne via Singapore. It should reach Melbourne in November. We can then continue our travels in Australia!

Goodbye to Europe!

Internet on the Move

Some people have asked how we get Internet access while away. It can be very frustrating! Other lentil chomping, sandal wearing friends have said why bother have a break from technology. This is all very well in theory but we use the web to keep in touch, teach the kids on line and as a means of planning the trip.

So here are the methods we have used to connect in the 5 countries we have visited so far.

A UK mobile phone sim in the iPhone. 
This is great for universal access it will roam to any available 3G network and give you access.  Through 02 It costs £2 a day for measly 25 mb. The network also prevents using the iPhone as a personal hotspot. This means you can't connect you're computer via the phone. But it does keep you in touch with limited access.

A Spanish mobile phone sim in the iPhone.
This is a great option. It was 30 euro with 500GB of data. It also allowed a wireless hotspot from the iPhone. It was 15 euro for an extra 1Gb of data. You need to show your passport to get the sim. Also only after purchasing did I realize it allowed Internet sharing. We used Vodaphone and had great coverage virtually everywhere. The staff were also really helpful in the Vodaphone shops.

A 3G USB modem in Italy.
This cost 50 euro with 5 Gb of data included (valid for a month). You again had to show your passport to get this. This was a great option it allowed us to share the Internet connection from our MacBook to our iPads and iPhones. The coverage again with Vodaphone was generally excellent and the speed was typically between 1-2 mbs which is fine for everything.

Wifi in the campsites.
Virtually all the campsites offer Wifi. This sounds good but its virtually always slow and unreliable. Sometimes a minute to load a single webpage (a carrier pigeon would be faster). It is also typically very expensive at around 10 euros for 24 hours access.

Recommendations:
Get a 3g modem and change the sim in each country you stay in.
Keep your UK sim as backup to allow 3g roaming if and when you need it.

Almscliff Crag

We went for a bracing scramble up Almscliff Crag this am. Almscliff is a favourite spot with local climbers, Rog used to climb here in is youth! Very very very cold!!!
Still lots of snow which delighted A & C. They had fun scrambling over the boulders.

Still busy setting up caravan and working out how everything works

 ... put awning up yesterday, hopefully it'll be quicker next time, mind you I suppose we do have 6 months!

Scams

I personally came across both of these scams whilst looking for cars and
caravans in the UK.
Scam 1: Give the Car a Haircut Sir!
Haircut is British slang for taking kilometres off the car odometer.
Also known as "clocking".
Car A
I found the perfect car a good price, the model I wanted. One former
owner low mileage. It was a long drive to the garage but worth it for the
right car. How wrong I was. When I finally got there I found a shabby
tired looking car with worn seats and fittings.
The condition of the car was not consistent with the mileage. The
salesman was also very evasive about the former owner.
Time to walk away! Lesson learnt.
Car B
Two owners 31,000 miles. Privately owned right model and milage. Perfect. But given my experience of a couple of days earlier I thought I would run an RAC vehicle check on it. Glad I did the RAC check it reported the milage as 110,000 miles!
Apparently up to 30% of cars in the UK have their odometers falsified. It's very easy to do with a laptop and some software.
But heres the thing its not illegal to reduce the odometer reading! It's only ilegal to sell a car with a false reading!
There's a major loop hole in the law here I think. I can smile about this now because after these experiences I went to a large dealer and bought a decent car (I hope) and checked its history with an RAC vehicle check.

Scam 2. The ESCROW Caravan Scam.
I was looking for a 6 berth caravan for the family. I found one that looked good and it was about 20% cheaper than similar models on the caravan club website. I contacted the seller via email. Turned out to be a couple of pensioners who no longer wanted to tour. It sounded great until! They said they were living in France but would bring the caravan back to the UK if we were serious buyers. They also mentioned the only payment they would take was via a system called ESCROW. At this point I started to get suspicious so a Googled a few key words. It turns out this is a classic scam. Where you end up paying and the caravan never appears. Now there was no way I would part with money this way but some must fall for it.

Snow in Yorkshire

Arrived in the UK to gentle snow and cold temperatures.