For us, camping holidays evoke wonderful memories of leaking tents, collapsing chairs, charred burgers and UHT milky tea. Cross the channel in 2012 and it’s a very different story; in Denmark you find what can only be described as five star luxury in the guise of camping. A toilet block on a campsite should be cold, concrete, poorly lit with the floor awash and those little rock-like soap bars that never produce any lather. For the Danes at Ribe campsite, a 2am trip to the loo and there are night-lights in your toilet cubicle and Bruce Springsteen piped through all the bathrooms (communal of course!). The children’s bathroom tops this; a floor to ceiling fish tank behind which a huge plasma TV screen plays ‘Finding Nemo’ 24/7 while kids scrub-up in a marine-themed washroom complete with pirate ship baby bath (not that there was any mud on this site). In stark contrast the bathroom for our next nights camping looked like this. The grass looked like it had been meticulously trimmed with a spirit level and nail scissors and each highly manicured pitch was perfectly symmetrical to the next, separated from your neighbours with a privet hedge.
Primus stoves precariously balancing a pan of beans are a thing of the past; Danish glamping has a modern kitchen with cooking stations dotted around the walls complete with oven, hob and microwave. No more wobbling on fold-out stools around an inadequately-sized formica-topped (bubbled with damp) camping table; there is a dining room with sizeable and stable furniture. Caravans still account for a large proportion of the outdoor-seeking masses but across the channel this alone is not enough. Huge awnings, marquee-sized tents and gazebos stretch out from all sides and people even erect full-scale adjoining decking terraces with garden 3 piece suites. For Norwegians, the cabin is the outdoor abode of choice; villages of identical, twee wooden mini-homes dot every hillside with a pretty view (ie most of Norway). Complete with fridges, ‘proper’ beds and often satellite television these luxury huts accommodate swarms of tourists fleeing the cities during the Scandinavian summer months. As we head west from Europe into Asia we will be denied the option of checking in to organised camping with it’s hot showers and flushing toilets and face real wilderness survival in the great, beautifully disorderly, outdoors. Emma
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Owing to our delayed departure and a pressing need to ‘Rush to Russia’ to maximize our visa validity we motored the first part of Europe- England to Denmark- at quite a pace. Our passports were literally swept from the postman and into our rucksack on Thursday then we hot-footed it down to Dover and watched the white cliffs fade into the distance as we sailed into the channel towards the French coast. On arrival in France we instantly went the wrong direction (possibly not a good omen) but were soon back on track and settled a couple of hours later in a layby nestled amongst a row of camper vans.
A quick diversion into Blankenburg to start the day Belgian style with a hot chocolate sat on the square of a wonderful bustling market. Belgian and Holland were raced through on motorways (a few windmill pics taken at 60 mph) and our second stop for the night was in the ‘Wilderhauser Geest’ woods in Germany. A glimpse at a sunny Saturday in Germany made us want to temporarily take root in Bremen- rows of tables in beer tents along the riverside with bands playing and Bratwurst vans sizzling but we had culture to absorb and it was in every direction in this city. A staggeringly impressive cathedral and town hall around the main square and a maze of tiny streets packed with haphazard, Lilliput-style buildings housing art galleries, cafes and shops selling kitsch statues of the classic ‘musicians of bremen’ animal ‘stack’. With time to make up we travelled north into Denmark and settled in what can only be described as the most orderly, scarily sterile ‘glamping site’. Due to long days behind the wheel we have been alternating our camping spots between proper camping sites and wild locations. A meander all the way along Denmark’s stunning sand dune and moorland west coast brought us to Thy national park where we camped more comfortably in silent forested wilderness. To round off our final day before crossing the water to Norway we visited Grenen, the most northerly point in Denmark where a sandy beach tails off into a sandy spit at which point you can stand with one foot in the Skagerrat and one in the Kattergat sea. A Wadden Seal bobbed in the calm waters as we walked back down the beach and headed for Hirtshals and our ferry to Norway. Emma We have now embarked on our trip and have arrived in Norway after driving Bee-Bee for 6 days up through France, Belgium, Germany and Denmark. After a nice little relax in Tønsberg we are about to heard North into the Norwegian wilds. The country is huge and with a population of just 4.7 million the roads are likely to be quieter than Denmark (which was very quiet). More detailed updates to follow shortly, for now if you missed our BBC film you can watch it here.
Andy Having drafted our ‘ideal route’ (roughly W. Europe - Scandinavia - E. Europe - Turkey - Iran - The ‘stans - Russia - Mongolia) we started to look more closely at a time plan. This led us to the realisation that we would be hitting Southern Siberia mid- winter and could expect to face temperatures of -15⁰C to -39⁰C. In a tent.
This presented us with two choices; spending an extended amount of time in Europe (expensive and, let’s face it, less adventurous) OR speeding through almost a third of our planned route in a few months. Cue a world map and some scribbling with red pens and we now have a brand-spanking new route (the black line) which will see us back-track through Russia and travel south through the ‘stans and Iran with the winter behind us. It also gives us more time to explore Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro. This is at the sacrifice of our sensible plan to spend an initial 6 weeks to road-test Bee-Bee and our equipment in the U.K. Aaah, she’ll be fine. This also means we have the far easier and cheaper task of shipping the car from Iran to India rather that navigating across the China Sea which was proving to be a mission (note to Russian shipping companies: if you’re company folds, remove your website!) Emma Emma is currently with me in Guernsey, we are doing some serious planning. Due to a new starting point for our expedition, Europe is gonna get it first. We have decided that a lap of the United Kingdom would be a great way to test the car and all the equipment. This lap will take us the length of the country from Weymouth right up to the tip of Scotland. Due to the colder climate in the UK we have pushed our start date back to the beginning of March 2012. As a result of our new departure point we have updated the route map.
Europe, the birthplace of western culture, is the second smallest continent in the world, covering only 2% of the earth’s surface. It is comprised of a surprising 45 countries and varies hugely in topography, climate and culture. Our route will be by no means straightforward, although perhaps a gentler initial phase of the expedition. We hope to eventually pick up our original route in Iran, approaching through Turkey from the West. 45 countries!!! See how many you can name, then check your answers (honestly) here. The new European route will take us through 24 countries and as far North as the edge of the arctic circle. We have tried to travel through as many countries that neither of us have visited before as well as countries that will offer truly stunning scenery. We have also designed our route to visit as many friends as possible. |
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