Back and Blogging

Hello everyone! How are we all? Five years later and we’re back. What’s been happening?

Betty went to a new home but was later involved in an accident. I believe she was then bought from an insurance company and put back on the road, I did see her on eBay a few years ago, but resisted the temptation to buy her back…

Where have we been? Betty was replaced by Godzuki!, a 1995 Toyota HiAce. Slightly newer, but not much. In most respects, very different from Betty. He’s taken us around the UK and through various bits of Europe.

We’ve just started a new blog, as we’ve decided to spend a bit more time travelling a bit less time working, so we’d be delighted if you joined us over at 3tenths

Good Times, Bad Times

It’s been pretty quiet on here of late. Betty Bus hasn’t seen much use over the winter months, in fact we struggled to find time to run the engine in.

Sadly, we’ve decided it’s time for Betty Bus to find new owners and she’s up for sale.

We only intended to keep her for a year, to find out if we liked the campervan life before committing to a newer, more expensive van. But over five years later and we’ve had some great adventures with her. Sure, we had our share of frustrating moments and breakdowns that come with driving an older vehicle, but now we look back on them and they weren’t so bad and we met some lovely people along the way.

Now it’s time for us to move on to that newer van and for someone else to create memories with Betty.

Thanks for reading the blog and contributing to the comments, we hope you’ve enjoyed the travels, maybe even been inspired to visit some of the places we wrote about.

Hopefully we’ll be back with a new blog soon.

If you are interested in buying Betty, you can find her advertised on eBay.

Happy travels,
Dan & Rosana

Halcyon Days Revisited

It was on the way home from this year’s HUBB UK meeting at Baskerville Hall (inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes adventure) that we dropped into the Nagshead RSPB reserve.

We sat patiently in the pond side hide, camera trained on a log at the water’s edge. In-between torrential downpours, Rosana finally got her photo.

Halcyon Days

There it was. A blur of blue and orange.

Did you see that?

No, what?

I haven’t seen one for years – get your camera ready, it will be back soon.

 

 

We waited, quietly, still like statues. The water gently burbled and babbled beside us. Not that deep nor all that wide, but enough that we’d needed to use a fallen tree as a makeshift bridge across this New Forest stream, the ford too deep with recent rainfall to navigate on foot.

What did you see?

A Kingfisher, it will be back soon.

We waited, patiently. Nature came and went, we waited some more. The trees rustled in the cool summer breeze and we waited.

Whoosh. That same blur, heading in the other direction now. Electric blue and burning orange.

Did you see it?

Yes.

Did you get a photo?

No.

Doesn’t matter, you saw it.

Yes, it was beautiful.

Springwatch

Spring, a time of rebirth and renewal.

New life appears in nests, in burrows and barns and in farmers’ fields – tweeting, grunting and bleating and all of it wanting to be fed.

Colour erupts around the countryside and the sun starts to warm our cold bones.  The sweet smell of pollen lingers in the air, the bees begin to buzz and butterflies flit amongst the flowers.

Betty feels the change of season too. Regular readers might remember a breakdown a couple of years back, an inexpensive valve failing and destroying a very expensive cylinder head. There were ongoing issues leading to a subsequent complete rebuild of the engine that should really have solved every problem we had.

Instead, things were about to get a whole lot worse.

Crossing the Houtribdijk last year, the little red oil light of doom illuminated. We checked, we had oil. We didn’t have any strange noises…yet. The light went out.  Volkswagen, in its infinite wisdom, designed a very complex oil pressure monitoring system to monitor a very simple engine. A system which is prone to failure. A combination of two pressure sensors and input from the alternator. We knew we had some alternator issues so put two and two together and came up with three.  The van got us home and we replaced the alternator and the pressure sensors. It didn’t solve the problem. Connecting up a pressure gauge revealed the ugly truth.

So here we are, emerging from the depths of winter and Betty is reborn with a sparkly new engine. Our journeys now lacking the colour of a multitude of warning lights, the unpleasant bouquet of leaking diesel and the cheerless chirping of unlubricated metal on metal. Nothing screams to be fed oil or coolant.

Dull and dark winter journeys that bring exciting, bright and vibrant springtime joy.

Betty Bus reborn, back on the road and back in a field.