A Long Weekend

1100 miles long, in fact. A visit to the Adventure Overland

Show at Stratford-on-Avon.

 

 

This event has been a favourite of ours for a few years, but this year I was due to be working overseas so Sue accepted an invitation to a "girly" weekend in Dublin. In the usual way of things, though, my trip was postponed until next year and Sue had already bought her tickets so...I had a solo weekend which I filled with the trip Down South.

We'd read a fair amount of criticism of the show over the last year, mainly from folk who feel it should offer more to encourage their attendance. Our take on this...the show exists, for us, as a venue for like-minded people to meet, chat, share views, ideas and offer inspiration. The trade pitches are interesting and a useful source for those just starting out in the game, but not exactly essential for us. By contrast the seminars and hands-on sessions are of more interest and only work if there's an enthusiastic, engaged audience. In other words, the show only works if it's supported by people who are prepared to contribute something, even if this is just their presence.

Tom McGuigan, the organiser, threw out an All-Comers invitation - or perhaps that should be "challenge" - for anyone who had a passion for a subject to share this with everyone via a presentation at the seminar venue. Given that this seemed like one of those "money-where-your-mouth-is" moments, I volunteered to give two 45 minute presentations on navigation-related subjects. Tom offered free entrance and camping for the duration which wasn't a bad swap given that I was intending to go down anyway.

A couple of weeks later and I had two fairly polished slideshows. Tom then decided that the subjects could be used as a basis for a "workshop" on navigation. Hmm. The structure of my slideshow didn't really work like that and anyway, I've got no real idea of how a "workshop" works other than imagining a classroom with a dozen big tables covered in maps and a lot of strangers standing around looking at each other and shuffling their feet. I would have to lead the discussion, or whatever it turned out to be, and unless the room was full of enthusiastic amateur explorers, would probably have to keep talking. With that in mind, Sue and I rehearsed it and decided to keep it in the "Chalk and Talk" format just for the sake of time. I talk, they listen, questions at the end.

We packed Elly for the trip and I made a few last-minute adjustments. Another drainpipe was added to the passenger side and we put some of the kitchen stuff back in so I didn't have to live on Mars Bars and pot noodles. We pre-chilled the Engel and I filled it with all the essentials of life...curry and beer. The wireless temperature sensors appear to work well, but the position I chose for the display unit makes it difficult to read as it's in deep shadow compared to the brightness outside, and my eyes are taking longer to adjust from "outside" to "inside" viewing nowadays. I finally ditched the HUDL tablet for OSM (maps) or anything else - it's just given up, I think. The touchscreen is now a "hit it with something hard" screen and even then it's a lottery if anything appears so it's gone into the bin.

The trip down was marked by the high winds and torrential rain further south. In fact, the further south I drove the worse it got. Just after Carlisle I stopped to change my trainers for waterproof walking boots as my right foot had been soaked by water dripping from behind the dashboard. I'd cured the overhead shower with the drainpipes but clearly there's wet stuff getting in somewhere else. Need to find that before it does damage, I thought, about 10 minutes before the windscreen wipers and heater went onto "permanent transmit". I couldn't turn either of them off which, given the conditions, wasn't a major problem. Later on, though, I had to keep squirting screenwash to keep the wipers lubricated and stop them squeaking across a dry screen. In the end, and when the rain stopped, I pulled the fuse out. 
The bigger door mirrors don't cope well with high speeds. Well, anything over 65 is "high speed" in this vehicle, and at that velocity the mirrors vibrate in the slipstream so badly that they're almost useless. A bit of tightening and tweaking of the support arms improved things a bit, but the view needs improving, particularly now the fridge cuts the rear view in the internal mirror by half. What I could see in the blindspot mirrors was useful, though.

 The weather forecast for the weekend wasn't too bad, but the arrival of Storm Ali had made the journey down and the first night a bit of a challenge. My plan had been that if it was too bad I could always sleep on the Wolf box bed, but in the event I decided to give the roof bed its first real bad-weather test. I slept like a baby despite the gale outside, and only minimal rocking. I did, though, make sure I was pointing into wind to give it the best chance. A check around in the morning revealed some - actually, quite a bit - of condensation on the channel around the top of the side curtains. I'd not realised that this was bare metal, so it'll have to be insulated with something. There was still a damp patch at each rear corner too, so I put some seam sealer onto the curtains where they were stitched.

I put the new rear awning up in a stiff breeze, so it was a bit of a struggle. Once up, though, it did a great job. The springiness in the fibreglass pole was enough, once I'd stopped it being displaced by the wind, for me to get rid of the guy lines completely. It rained hard on Saturday night but the water just ran off exactly as predicted! Very pleased with that...and the fact that some folk declared their intention to copy it.

I did the two talks which seemed to go down well although the room that'd been set aside for them wasn't well signposted and I think that some of my potential audience might just have given up looking for it. It took me 2 hours to find the right place as well, and I thought I knew where I was going! Several bum steers and a lot of to-ing and fro-ing later, everything eventually came together although it was a bit of a last minute thing, which I gather is Tom's style.

Like I said, the weekend, for me, is all about meeting new people and exchanging ideas and experiences. I had a warm welcome from these guys...

BOOBS - the banner tells the story.

The banner says it all, really. They made me very welcome at their gazebo-cum-chatroom and we shared a common interest in making something useful out of the junk in our sheds and local skips. Their firepit/brazier made from an old washing machine drum is a stroke of genius and a work of art. We swapped a few ideas and addresses, stories and beer.

One of the guests who dropped by was this chap:

Richard Matthews has some tales to tell...

who'd just completed a round-the-world drive in a Nissan Micra! Quite a trip, and probably a book in it, I think.

The trade stands were set up by the Usual Suspects, really. They weren't doing what you'd call a roaring trade due to the howling wind (Saturday) or the lashing rain (Sunday). A few folk commented that the numbers weren't anything like those of the previous year and I did get the impression that things were a bit quiet. There didn't seem to be much to interest the ladies, either, which possibly meant some of the guys didn't hang around any longer than the time needed to do a couple of circuits of the "shops" in the wet. Certainly, I didn't feel inclined to make my normal examination of the campsite for Good Ideas that I could steal.

I bumped into Kelly and her partner from Doncaster on the LVB stand. She was the lady I spoke to after Larry's phone call back in June who persuaded us to get moving on the AluCab conversion. Her Defender has probably got the most unusual colour scheme I've seen so far - Shocking Pink isn't in many people's off-road palette.

It's interesting to see that so many folk use the backs of their trucks as storage space, not living space. The most common solution for cooking is a gas stove on a backdoor shelf which is great if the weather's kind but a bit limiting in our experience. Kelly has the large swing-out awning though, so provided it's not too windy or there aren't too many bugs, this would work well with the addition, perhaps, of some side curtains if it gets cold. The awning you see above though is serious money which we haven't got, now that we've blown the budget on....

...a Wallas diesel hob and heater. The UK distributor was there and I'd spotted the banner from my parking spot on the other side of the course. Having not seen one of these "in the flesh" I wanted to get an idea of how it performed, heat, noise and all that before parting with the cash. Brett didn't have a unit I could take away, which I found a bit surprising, but we agreed he'd waive the shipping charges for a deal...

The rest of the shopping consisted of a new horn to replace the one that was drowned a while ago and has never really recovered, a socket-and-chain gadget that will make getting oil filters off a bit easier and a "snow cowl" for the fan/heater intake. This won't fix the present problem but it might make it less likely to occur in future...assuming I can repair it first. The next guy in the line, who'd been humming and hah-ing over what he might buy so allowed me to jump the queue, also asked for one, but...
I'd walked away with the last. I offered to sell it to him for cost plus a tenner, but he wasn't playing. He looked a bit grumpy...

The journey home was uneventful but the damage to trees from the previous storm was obvious - lots of mature trees, including oaks, with broken trunks and ripped boughs.

I'd read in my research for the talks that "equinoctial gales" aren't statistically as common as we think, but when you see this every year, it makes you wonder what's going on. Anyway, I got back home on Monday having spent the night, comfortably, in a roadside car park near Carlisle. The joy of a pop-top...stopped at 2030, ready for bed at 2035! Slept like the dead for 10 hours...bliss. This was the first multi-day outing for the new accommodation and I have no complaints - it worked perfectly, so now all I have to do is get used to the fact that I can stand up to get dressed. Old habits die hard!