Things to Fix - the After Action Report

We've got a few jobs to do as a result of our experiences -

1.  Sort out a decent waterproof cover for the roof tent. Even if it didn't let water in, the present one is just too tight a fit unless it's warm and dry. It's stiff and unmanageable when wet and cold and can only be fitted from "on top". This involves kneeling on the roof (and the cover), gripping the corner with both hands and trying to push it down over the corners of the folded tent base. Sooner or later my hands are going to slip and I'll pitch head first off the roof with potentially fatal consequences. The new one will be a little larger in all directions and we might try to get away without using a zip like the last one. We have an appointment with Tim at "Stitch it". Bespoke. Bigger and with better fastenings. Patent Pending...


2. Experiment with a different power source for the fridge. The Waeco EPS-100 which was supposed to do an automatic changeover from 12v to 240v site power has now been tested and it doesn't work on 240v AC so is now a pretty useless Black Box. We'll get a 240/12 transformer with a "cigarette lighter" socket on it and do the switch from truck power to site power manually - automatic stuff is useless if it's unreliable.


3. Get a more reliable - ie working - power source for the GPS etc. The multi-socket extension we used just doesn't have the muscle to charge the HUDL, Garmin and Sat phone together and they all began to run out of puff towards the end. I'm not sure how much "oomph" each needs but clearly what's available isn't enough. Using the inverter to charge them worked but is inefficient and requires a lot of faffing about with long cables which then get in the way.


4. The filler for the water tank isn't large enough to let the water flow in (from a bottle or can) without "choking" and spilling out of the inlet. We took a hose to fill it from site taps but none of these were close enough to use with our 6 feet of hose. I'd intended that we'd just extend the hose provided by the site....The breather tube I'd installed in the filler leaked and allowed water to spill, unnoticed for a while, into the storage areas. Not good. Rusty tools. We need a better method. This looks like being a simple funnel, pouring the water straight into the tank, possibly through an open window. Makes the fancy chrome filler a bit redundant. Tricky to estimate how much to put in, too. I have a dipstick for the tank that I made up before we left so I know how much more the tank will hold. However this means we have to fill from a measured container, not a hose, or risk overflow going everywhere. Not ideal.

5. We bought some new toys because they looked like a Good Idea At The Time. With reference to the problem above, this 10 litre water (or other fluids) container is an example.

the hidden tap is protected from breakage - good idea!

 It has a "hidden" tap inside the larger screw cap which protects the tap in transit. "What a good idea", we thought, "since we have to fill the water tank from a measured container, We'll have one". Those of you who are cleverer than us will spot the problem straight away....With the tap in place  - it replaces the small cap - there's no way for air to get in to replace water coming out. The resulting suction and increasing low pressure stops the flow. This is physics. Not difficult. And easy to discover when you do your product testing prior to trying to sell it to mugs like us. Yeah? You did test it, right? I had thought, stupidly, that the design would somehow allow for that trivial detail. "Oh, you want water to come out when you open the tap? What an unusual thing that would be. No, that's not part of the design. It's just a water can. The tap is just for decoration." is what we might have heard if we'd actually asked the question.

In other words there's no breather and it takes over 40 seconds to fill a small mug with water. I timed it. After I'd bought it. The flow rate can be increased by loosening the large cap but at the risk of water running out all over the place until the level is almost down to half the contents.

not one tap but two

Given that somebody had to design the mould for this thing...was this so difficult to work out? Sorry, but this is a bit of a "hobby horse" of mine. I did a design course years ago which has left its mark - if something doesn't do what it's designed to do, the first time and every time without messing about, it's just junk.

A Good Idea let down by poor design. If the large cap was on the short side....which becomes the top when in use...well, I'm sure you see what I mean.

 So, we could either chuck it away or make it work. We chose the latter option. I drilled a 14mm hole in the only place that wasn't going to compromise the dimensions  - not any deeper nor wider - and put in a Shraeder valve with the core removed. Now, when the valve cap is off and the tap opened, there's a full flow of water. Brilliant. Now, was that so bloody difficult to work out?


And a few thoughts on how we might use what we have a little better. Take the accommodation options, for instance. You might remember my comments on roof tents vs ground tents in a previous post. On this trip we were more or less forced to use established campsites every night, which isn't our preference but the thought of being thrown out of our chosen field by an irate landowner or forest warden at some ungodly hour wasn't appealing. We've proved, though, that the back of Elly is a reasonably comfortable place to sleep and, without the obvious tent advertising our activity, it might be possible to get away with just parking somewhere quiet in Spain or France. Certainly it'd be feasible to use the Aires without any problems (other than the noise of motorway traffic all night).

In other situations the side curtains to the awning would also provide a sleeping option although a little more obvious. For a "campsite" option, though, it'd be pretty good if combined with a groundsheet if it was wet weather. Not totally weatherproof though as the seal with the side of the truck isn't close and in a wind we'd need to seal the gap under the chassis, perhaps with Wolf boxes or something. Certainly not midge-proof. Outside of Western Scotland, though, it could mean saving the weight of the roof tent and perhaps replace the Oz tent as well if the weather could be relied on to be consistently good. Probably never, anywhere we're likely to go.


We took the woodburning stove, its chimney, a big bag of fuel and the Cadac cooker. We used the Cadac once, the stove never. For a summer trip (anywhere south of the Scottish border) we won't take the stove and think seriously about the Cadac even though we used it all the time in Morocco. The reason for this might be that we were cooking whole chickens a lot in Maroc as this seemed to be the best source of fresh Joined-Up Meat. This isn't a problem in Europe and the inside stove is OK for steaks etc and easier to clean. With this in mind I saw this camping stove "grill plate" from Aldi which we thought might let us grill bacon etc on the inside stove without the mess that goes with it. Sue tried it out today in the kitchen and the fat that ran into the "easy clean" gutter under the grill caught fire....perhaps this wasn't a fair trial as it was on a ceramic hob, so we'll try again on a gas stove - but outside Elly's kitchen, just in case! From the size of it, though, it will probably fit the Cadac perfectly.
(Actually, it didn't. It wasn't the right diameter to fit the Cadac's pot "grips". Returned for a refund)



As for the mechanical stuff, the suspension set-up worked well and despite the weight on the roof I didn't feel that we were "rockin' and rollin'" too much. I had my doubts about the heavy-duty springs and shocks but everything seems to go together very well. The steering guard absorbed at least one heavy impact that would probably have bent the steering rod...I'm glad I fitted the diff guards although the rear guard never took any hits. This is probably just as well given the state of it. I've seen some rubbish in the years I've been working on Landrovers, but this piece of crap really took "rubbish" to another level. Paddock Spares never replied to my complaints so that's the last order they'll get from us. [ After some weeks of being ignored they eventually refunded the cost, but it took a lot more correspondence than it should've done] If I hadn't left it so late to order it I'd never have fitted it, so I guess that makes it All My Fault? When I've saved up enough pennies I'll buy one that fits correctly and does the job properly. Harrumph!

The leaks in the fuel system need to be properly sorted out. I can do a proper job on the bits I can see but given the level of amateur bodging discovered so far I think I need to drop the tanks and have a really good look at everything. There's still a small leak from somewhere at the top of the main tank....but I've fixed the problem with the fuse box. There're supposed to be 4 screws that hold it all together. Only 2 were fitted, so the bank of terminals on the bottom were loose and only making an intermittent connection. Two M5 screws and a couple of minutes and all's well.

The most pressing job is to replace the tent cover, so we're getting the tape measure out to make sure the new one fits.....a bit better than the one on it now. We might, given the potential cost, have Tim make a cover that goes over what's there now. This will be an easier solution since we won't have to take the tent off to do it. Believe me, this is a major faff!

Just going home.

"Just". Makes it sound like it's just around the corner. In fact the distance from Plymouth to home is further than the distance we've just done across Spain. On top of that we can expect some poorer weather - according to the forecast delivered by a passing Messenger of Doom at our last stopover - and we still have to get The Wobble sorted out.

We drove the coast road from St Jean de Luz and very pleasant it was too. Clearly a popular holiday spot, there was lots going on and everywhere seemed pretty busy. We searched for a nice spot to have lunch and settled, initially, on a grassy bank adjacent to a beach. The area was packed with families with kids, all making quite a row, but the decision to move on was made as we prepared to leave Elly and walk down to the beach. The disco started up....a bloke with a loud hailer plugged into an amp the size of a wardrobe began his warm-up, Butlins-style, and nearly knocked us over with the blast. We got back in and drove a few hundred yards further along the road to a lay-by where the noise was a little more bearable, it being only traffic. Of course, as we drove away having eaten we passed an ideal quiet spot just down the road....c'est la vie.


We'd intended to stop at a post office and send the tea to Marc but we were across the border and into Spain without noticing it. (I packaged it up and was then going to send it from home, but the cost is twice what the contents are worth, so we'll find another way. Sorry, Marc).The border is the river, I guess, but there's nothing to show it other than signposts to "Francia" suddenly appearing. With nothing else to do or places to go we decided to head for the ferry terminal, even though we'd be about 6 hours early.

 We were surprised, then, to find quite a large number of cars were already there. We joined the queue and set up camp, just like in Plymouth 3 weeks ago, and cooked an early supper.
 Sue has perfected the use of a thing called a "Wonder Cooker" which looks just like a saucepan lid with a few holes in it. This little bit of kitchen magic lets you make toast in a frying pan and chips without oil. We used it now to make pizza - on a camping gaz stove. How's that for  a trick? The other folk in the line gave us some odd looks, but that was probably more to do with the washing hanging out than anything else. Or the smell of our supper as they ate their sandwiches from the cafeteria.😋

The ferry crossing was very pleasant. Flat calm and sunny, in fact. This is the 5th time we've done it and have been blessed with these conditions every time. That's probably the Kiss of Death now; all future crossings will be rain-lashed and stormy. Should've kept quiet. As usual, too, the SS Pont Aven was comfortable and certainly better than flogging the same distance up to the Channel ports on the Autoroutes. Something seems to have happened to the Internet-at-Sea facility though...a bit like the "free wi-fi" on camp sites. Only available if there's an "R" in the month and you know which tree to climb to snare the signal. Since it's "free" though, it makes it impossible to moan about it....


We waited a long time to board but as a result were once again at the front of the queue to disembark, so were at the Landrover dealer in Plymouth in time for them to have a quick look at the problem we believed we had with the steering. Mike had e-mailed them with part numbers etc but none of this was necessary. They tightened up the nuts that we were frightened of shearing off, test drove her and pronounced Elly "fixed". Needless to say we were grateful that the problem was relatively minor and we could get on our way immediately, rather than spending the night in Plymouth. The service manager made no charge for the work, either! Unfortunately though, we hadn't gone more than a couple of miles before The Wobble was back, and as bad as before. Do we turn around and go back, or carry on? We chose the latter but stopped for the night at a very pleasant campsite just outside Buckfastleigh....

 This wasn't the easiest place to find as the proprietor - Andrew - doesn't advertise. We spent an amusing 20 minutes negotiating the back streets and by-ways of the village, using OSM mapping to find the site. This took us, in true Satnav style, down some very narrow lanes and streets which nearly cost Andrew some business - Mike nearly gave up and went somewhere that was easier to find. The Navigator did a fine job, though, and the effort was worthwhile. A lovely site; quiet and with a beautiful  view. We heard the bells of Buckfast Abbey...and we watched the swallows doing their low-level formation passes over the field, catching moths 3 inches above the ground.

The 660 miles from Plymouth to our back door were driven at an average of 45mph. Any faster than that and The Wobble would start and stuff like steering wheels, bottles and tooth fillings would begin to rattle. The outside of the front NS tyre looked more worn than the inside and different to the OS tyre, so we suspected that the wheel alignment might have been affected by our off-road activities. We decided to press on rather than trying to find someone to check it, and made another stop near Carlisle for the night. We chose the site because it was on the OSM map and close to the motorway. So we shouldn't have been amazed at the exhorbitant cost for a night's "parking". We didn't want 'lecky, though. "Electricity is free" said The Manager. Most, nay ALL sites charge extra for this, apart from this one. This Free facility meant we got no discount for not wanting it and not using it. Clever or cynical? Reminded me of the "free showers" in the Atlantic campsite in Morocco. They didn't work, but because we hadn't been charged for them my complaint fell on deaf ears....despite the fact that it was the only reason we were in the bloody place to start with! If it weren't for the (inoperative) showers we'd have been down on the beach. For free.

Having done another security check of the steering everything still seemed solid and OK to carry on home. We were both very tired and tetchy by now and decided not to put the roof tent up as we hadn't yet tested the on-board sleeping arrangements. This means rearranging the back end to provide a "double bed" or more accurately a large single. At this  stage it was clear that one of the air mattresses had developed a leak so wasn't going to be too comfortable, but as there's only room for 1 and a 1/2 of them anyway, this wasn't a big deal. With the curtains closed and the blackouts on the side windows we were cosy and not particularly cramped, and the insulation stopped any condensation even though it was damp and chilly outside. We had to unplug the fridge to prevent it bothering us and blowing hot air in Mike's face all night but apart from that the setting-up was easier than we thought. For a "single" it would be a much better overnight arrangement than lugging a 65kg roof tent around and lot less obvious, too.

We also set up the awning with its side curtain for the first time and this gave us somewhere sheltered to eat. The dark colour meant they got very warm in the setting sun and this would be a problem in hot weather. On this occasion, though, they acted like large radiators - very comfortable on what became a dank evening. We'd hung the awning at what might be called an "upside down" setting which makes using the zip on the roof tent cover much easier. The 15cms or so of reduced height does make setting the side curtains more difficult and they didn't want to hang straight. Maybe we'll experiment more with this since, on level ground, the front of the truck is going to be about 10cms higher anyway on the levellers, which will also affect the heights of the "front" and "rear" awning curtains. We also might think about some kind of skirt to seal off the wheel arches and the gap under the chassis. If we do this we'd have quite a comfortable sleeping area that wouldn't be as quick to set up as the roof tent but quite a lot more convenient in some ways.

We finally arrived home almost exactly 48 hours after leaving the ferry. We, like many people I guess, don't think that the drive home is worth reporting. However, we live in a beautiful part of the country - somewhere that many make a holiday destination in itself - so we decided to take the scenic route through the Highlands instead of our more usual A-Roads. The extra speed the A-roads allow wasn't going to be an advantage to us anyway, given The Wobble, so this was a good opportunity to make a Grand Finale.

The mountains between Perth and the Moray coast aren't in the same league as the Pyrenees in terms of height but just as scenic, so we stopped more often than we'd normally do to take photos:

A Well-Kept Secret....a lovely road and no German motorbikes or Dutch motorhomes.

This also gave the traffic that built up behind us the chance to move on at greater than "walking pace"!

Just one more mountain to climb. The Lecht ski area is just over it.



Us alongside Ben Rinnes. He wasn't in. I dunno what the mountain is called....

The next day Mike got busy with the hose and washed about a ton of Spain out of the wheel arches and chassis rails. While doing this he found the real cause of The Wobble - the NS front wheel had lost its balance weights. Checking the others they were all in place but on the inside of the wheel and hard to see. Looking carefully around the rim it didn't look as if any weights had ever been there but this can't be true or we'd have had the problem much earlier. Anyway - lesson learned - change the wheel next time and that might sort it. We'd turned it through 90 degrees to see if things changed and thought that if it was a balance problem doing that might make a difference. Obviously not. Anyway, a visit to one of our local tyre fitters has solved the problem - the guy who was doing the balance made the comment "Ye must've had a serious wobble fra' this'n". Not wrong, mate. He added what seemed to be about a pound of lead to the wheel....at no charge. I'd mention his name but Head Office might give him a hard time if I did.

So, that's it for this year as far as long trips are concerned. Time now to think about what worked, what didn't, what we took and didn't use and better ways to do things.

Journey’s End for the Road Book

But not for us, yet. We still have the ferry crossing and over 600 miles of the UK to traverse before we’re home, which we had hoped would be sometime  on Friday. Once again, though, the Plan has had to be changed as the “steering wobble” that we mentioned a few days ago has got worse and needs some attention before we go much further.

We finished the “original” Road Book route on Sunday in Carcastillo…

After a long day of pretty varied scenery which began with us leaning heavily on the bell push on the wall outside recepcion, attempting to summon El Gerente – the manager. We’d warned him the previous afternoon, when we’d eventually found him, of our departure time. In fact, he’d found us as we wandered about the site looking for somewhere to park and, with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, he didn’t look best pleased at being disturbed. However, after a very windy night under the pine trees we just wanted to get away, so shoved the fee under the door, making sure it was witnessed by a passing resident.

We retraced our steps to Luna and picked up the route again. The scenery today is very different to previous sections of the route, which had been densely wooded, steep – sometimes vertical on both sides, up and down – and recently very muddy. In fact Elly now looks more like a large yellow pig that’s just spent a happy hour wallowing in deep and sticky ooze. Not much yellow visible below her waist.

The tracks on Monday were generally on the flat. Though still rough in places they were straight enough for us to get up some speed and it was quite exhilarating, not to say challenging, to drive it like a rally stage at speeds that required some fast fingerwork with the pages. For a change we could see the road ahead making its way to the horizon without much in the way.

Sue coped well with the navigation but we did have one glitch which wasn’t her fault. The route had changed slightly since a new bridge over a railway had replaced the one in the book – or so we believe. Anyway, we made a “left or right” decision which turned out to be the wrong choice and spent a while exploring old railway workings, canals and decrepit bridges until finally admitting defeat and going back to Square One and trying the other way, which was, of course, obvious within metres once we’d started.

The morning gave us some items of interest to explore. Passing between the pillars of a Roman aqueduct we tried to workout where the water was coming from or going to, but the whole edifice seemed to be almost a monument, with no obvious purpose.

We spotted the castle of King Sancho 7^th and stopped for a look around. This is a first class example of an original “Crusader Castle” of which I had a plastic toy when a small boy. This one lacked a drawbridge and portcullis but had an equally effective guardian in the form of a local historian who was giving a guided tour and quite clearly wasn’t going to let anyone in to mess it up. We gawped from outside, instead.

There were churches everywhere, some abandoned, others less so.

We passed below a score of small villages, all clinging with more or less success to the sides of the hills and with no visible means of support – architectural or economic.

What, we wondered, do people do up here for a living? There seemed to be little in the way of “passing trade” and we’ve seen very few people about anyway, let alone vehicles. While we discussed this we were back on tarmac and approaching a junction. Traffic coming from the left, our 7 0’clock and coming steeply downhill was meant to stop – I saw the sign as we approached, at speed, on the main road. I also saw a modern Peugeot estate car coming down the hill and, if he didn’t stop at the junction would smack into us like a galleon’s broadside. Now, sometimes you get a bit of a sixth sense about things, and here was one of those times. 2If he doesn’t stop”, I thought” he’ll hit us”. I began to slow down so that, at current rates of closure, he’d join the road as if from a slip road, about 10 feet ahead…Clearly he was unaccustomed to checking or giving way, and he came on to the main road as predicted, just ahead. At that moment he must’ve caught a glimpse of us in his mirror because with a violent swerve he went off the road to the left….Scattering stones, he came to a dust-enveloped stop. We didn’t. I checked behind and he was shaken, stirred and perhaps a little more awake.

Lunchtime brought us to the Bardenas Reales , an area of largely flat vistas with some fantastic rock architecture poking out of it. Flat-topped mesas, sandy pyramids and piles of boulders that, without some scale, could be pebbles.

We thought the whole place resembled the set of an old black-and-white Western movie, with cowboys camped in the ruined stone huts and Apaches lined up on every ridge. It's difficult to convey any sense of scale in a photo, but the pyramid in the shot on the left is about 100 feet high at a (very) rough guess. I'm sure someone will put me right on that eventually.


We stopped for lunch in the shelter of one of those abandoned farms as the wind was still blowing a hooligan. Despite the shelter we still had some dusty seasoning added to our sandwiches and the reason for the weird erosion of the rock was more obvious.

We decided to end the day a little earlier than usual as we posed by the finish line at Carcastillo. We had time to do the route’s extension to St Jean Pied de Port and we really wanted to do this as it gives a more satisfying finish. We’d be climbing back up into the mountains again to cross the border back into France, and this would be a great conclusion to a great trip, we thought. We found a pleasant campsite – out of the wind – at Lumbier, sharing the site with some Swiss and German bikers. At least one of them is the Snoring Champion of the EU (not the Swiss) although he was outdone some of the time by a cacophony of canines that must’ve just been imported from Morocco as they’d learned to bark all night without more than a minute or two to draw breath. At 0700 the peacock decided to add his voice to the choir and we got up and were clear of the site just over an hour later. The promised bread was nowhere to be seen and neither was the site manager, so we decided to press on while the weather was still good. There were clouds on the northern horizon where we were heading and we didn’t want to be caught in rain on those tracks if we could avoid it.

Up into the hills again and mostly on good tarmac, if a little patchy in places. The local dialect was now definitely something very different with lots of “K”s and “Z”s in the village names reminiscent of Greek, not Spanish. The general feel of the landscape was different, too. More like open woodland with plenty of grassy meadows that’d be ideal wild camping spots if you thought you could get away with it. Plenty of herds of well groomed horses seemed to be wandering freely which probably explains the neat look to the grass. We were held up for a few minutes by a herd of cows being brought in for milking but generally didn’t see anyone else until we were almost at the Col d’Orgambide and the border – shrouded in mist as the clouds rolled over us.

It was a moment to enjoy though, despite the temperature. A foot in both countries like we’d done 9 days before.

Once we’d lost a little height the view of the French side was of green rolling hills as we made the descent to St Jean Pied de Port (“at the foot of the pass”). It was in this area that the evasion lines of WW2 operated, escorting Allied servicemen and agents from Occupied France to Spain – where they were promptly locked up. The terrain must’ve presented quite a challenge to undernourished, poorly clothed and perhaps injured people desperate to escape, and without the benefit of 4 wheel drive, either.

We finished as we’d started – in the Lidl carpark.

We’d wanted to spend some time sightseeing in the town but as it was market day the place was packed and with nowhere to park remotely close to the “action” we decided to press on and find a campsite on the coast…where the true End of the Route ceremony had to take place….

Both feet in the Atlantic, and a Sea-to-Sea crossing of the Pyrenees completed.

Just got to get home, now. We’ve declared a Day Off today, Tuesday, in our camp at St Jean de Luz where Mike’s tried to sort out the steering problem and Sue has organised the BBQ dinner for tonight, by which I mean she’s allocated tasks:

The former event hasn’t improved things much so we’ve booked Elly into a garage in Plymouth on Friday. We know what’s wrong but Mike a. hasn’t got the part we need and b. doesn’t want to try tightening anything else in case it shears off, leaving us in a worse position than we’re in right now. At least she’s driveable as long as we keep the speed down below “shimmy-critical” and once we’re off the ferry we have 2 days flex in the onward plan to absorb the delay.

So, that’s about all for this trip. There might be more drama to add about the last leg of the journey as the forecast isn’t great and neither is Sue’s stomach on a rolling sea. I guess the next instalment, barring shipwreck, will be the After Action Report, once we’ve absorbed all the lessons and re-designed half the truck. Just like last time. Plus ca change…..

Rocks, mud and monuments

I'm writing this standing up, as it's too windy to set anything up under the awning - it's just blow away, so this is me in The Office...

Apologies for all the typos etc but under the circumstances I'll have to edit this post when conditions are more favourable; ie warm and windless. Connection is great here though, or I wouldn't have made the effort.

After a late start at  0930 - I didn't hear my watch alarm, which is becoming a persistent problem, we did our best to make up time but were frustrated in the end by a section of the route that is now closed, so had to make up our own down rutted and muddy tracks to the main highway. We'd noted earlier that campsites were going to be hard to find, so now we're set up in  Camping Le Temple, quite a way from where we'd ideally like to be but grateful to have found somewhere to sleep without the risk of a knock on the door by a forest ranger or the Guardia at 2 in the morning. We arrived here to find the office unmanned so tried to sort ourselves out. This site is clearly a permanent one - that is the pitches are reserved year-round and "touring" pitches are few - and all being used by the residents to park their cars.

The "patron" announced that the "site she is full" but since we'd had 15 minutes to case the joint we were able to point out 3 plots that would be big enough for us. Good thing too, as we didn't fancy the idea of searching for one of those elusive Wild Camping Spots at nearly wineo'clock.

Its been a bit chilly for the past 2 or 3 days and this has put a bit of a blight on things from the lazing in the sun point of view. The other Points of View, though, have been outstanding. We've seen a huge variety of architecture, both natural - rocks and unnatural - buildings - or rather what's left of them:

Rocky bits that rival Norway in their stony grandeur:



 

a one-way street. At least, that's what we hope!

The weather, as I said, hasn't been quite what we expected for summer in Spain, but compared to what the folks back home have experienced we're probably quite well off. However, setting up for the night in a Force 5 to 6 is a bit challenging given we're sleeping "up top" and this can be a bit rocky in a wind.

We were chatting to some ex-pat Brits yesterday while waiting for the vultures to appear (of which more later) and I mentioned that there were items known as "bonking bars" that one could purchase; these fit under the back corners of the truck's chassis and provide props to prevent the body rolling around when..it's windy. OK? That's how it was explained to me, anyway. What else could they be for?

The tracks for the last 3 days have been either very "close" or "wide open". By that I mean that yesterday morning, for example, I was reminded of driving in The Bush in Belize. The trees overhung the track so much that we had to bash our way through with only a few feet of the trail visible in front of us. This made progress very slow since I didn't want to run full tilt into a nasty rock or rut. Of the latter there were plenty, and all, like Belize, full of muddy water that could be 3 cms or a metre deep. No way of knowing unless we were prepared to get out and probe each one. If we'd done that we'd still be up there, humming and Hah-ing about the risks. As it was, we just blasted through and Elly's previously scratched paintwork is now nicely camouflaged with Pyrennean mud.

We did, though, take every opportunity to stop and take photos, even diverting off the main route to do it. We haven't yet managed to explore any "villages abandonnees" but this will come, we hope. Of the other diversions, the bird watcher's hide at...was a highlight of today. Apart from the rocks and cliffs - amazing in themseves - we wanted to spend longer watching the soaring flight of the Griffon vultures around us. Unfortunately the biting wind- nay, gale - kicked that idea into the long grass pretty quickly.

The exploration of the little hermitage and bigger castle were shortened for the same reason - the temperature has been hovering about 13C all day, and with the wind chill that's probably brought it down to single figures...and us in shorts and T-shirts. Well, not for long, as this shows..

"Hurry up...I'm bloody freezing".

We had an enforced off-route excursion to find fuel and groceries in Ayerbe, a stilted conversation with a petrol pump attendant who had a friend in Cardiff, and a less interesting one with the locals in the grocer's. The former was helpful, the latter couldn't-care-less. We had a similar response to our "Gracias"later, when negotiating a traffic jam in a tiny village. A farm wagon was manoeuvred out of our way and we were waved on with a "F*ck Off out of my village" response to our thanks...As a result of our discussion regarding this bit of Inter-European co-operation , we missed the next track junction, sped off downhill in the wrong direction and then spent 30 minutes sorting ourselves out.

Anyway, more on this will have to wait as supper's ready and the Inner Man must be fed. More photos and the inevitable edits to come when the weather improves.  Bye!

Trails and Trials and Tribulations.

We’ve had all of ‘em over the last 2 days – we’re now Thursday 29^th June. I think it was 2 days ago that I last tried to upload something but the connection was iffy and the word processor crashed before I managed to save what had taken an hour to write, so I think I gave up. I can’t check, actually, to see what I achieved since the wifi at our present site can only be connected by walking 200 metres up the hill. That little trek will have to wait until the bar opens, I think.

We’ve stopped early today since our nerves are shredded and we’re physically knackered after 2 days of quite demanding driving and navigation. Last night was cold and wet and packing up this morning took longer than we’ve become used to as all the covers were cold and wouldn’t fit anymore. By the time I’d spent 40 minutes crawling about on the roof, trying to zip up and tie down all the stuff, I was soaked. Last night we had another thunderstorm. The pattern appears to be a clear morning, getting up to about 22C by early afternoon, then getting increasingly cloudy until about 4, when the thunderstorms begin. My Granny used to say that “thunder is the noise God makes when He moves the furniture around in heaven”. If this is true, then he was throwing all his pianos downstairs last night.

Yesterday morning brought us to the hardest, rockiest uphill track we’ve found so far, and the first time The Navigator had to dismount to see me safely over the boulders and gullies. These are noted in The Book with warning triangles such as “Ornieres Profonde”, “Ornieres puis Piste Cassante” and “Gissante par Temps Pluvieux”, all of which can be summed up as “bloody tricky ground – go slow!” The recent rain probably hasn’t caused these deep ruts but the overnight rain hasn’t made them any easier to negotiate, particularly as the earth is a sticky-but-slippery red clay. 

At the time it seemed like real knife-edge stuff but I’ve just had a look at the video and some “after action” photos and you’d be forgiven for yawning and asking what the drama was about. They really don’t do the situation justice but we had our heart rates raised by quite a bit. Maybe like the fisherman’s “one that got away” story, but we’ll never convince anyone of how it feels to be halfway up a mountain, committed to going forward because we can’t go back and expecting a nasty mechanical crunch at any second which will bring us to a shuddering halt with a major problem to solve. On our own. Over the last 3 days we’ve hardly seen a soul while we’ve been away from tarmac, which has been most of the time. Progress has been measured in single figures per hour for most of yesterday and today but we still appear to have no major damage.

There’s a lot of cosmetic wreckage but I’m sure it’ll polish out….In addition to the scratches there are a few bent bits and some dents, a lot of mud and some shiny bits on the chassis that weren’t there a week ago. I’m really glad that I put the bush cables back on as the foliage we’ve bashed through over the past 2 days would’ve done some damage otherwise. Today I caught the whiplash of an overhanging deadfall pine as it sprang back through the window, luckily missing my eyes. Windows up halfway from now on. Lotsa fun, though! Nothing appears to have fallen off. Yet.

Elly has had her share of tribulations, though. I mentioned the fuel leak –the second one – and we fixed that with a short bit of fuel hose and an M8 stud tightened down with a nut.

The original “modification” involved a valve cap, bodge (that is, “duck”) tape and a jubilee clip to hold it all together. Dead professional and presumably done by the people who rebuilt the chassis although I think I recognise the handiwork of PITA again. It might be fine for the wild terrain of Haywards Heath but F*ck All use in the conditions we’ve been driving in. Or anywhere else, actually.

The Demented Budgie that’s taken up residence in the engine room is proving hard to trap. I thought it was the bearing in the belt tensioner, but having applied some 1^st Order Mechanics to it, I might be wrong. The squeak is getting worse, so pretty soon I’ll just have to change it “on spec” to see if that cures it.

The electrical power to the back end – the kitchen – failed completely one night and this needed me to get access to the fuse box. I’d hidden this out of harms way but accessible – but in accordance with the Engel fridge plan.

Now that we’ve decided to use the Waeco fridge which sits on top of the fuse box area….not so easy and required a major unload. Anyway, the culprit was a broken earth connector inside the box so I swapped it for one that wasn’t and lights and water pump were restored. This will have to be rethought at home and a decent fuse/CB panel built in to replace the present Oriental item. Still, that’s what “shakedown trips” are for, innit?

More importantly, we lost a lot of our braking power when the friction pad on one of the front brakes broke off. The nasty graunching sound – and a grinding feeling through the pedal – was a bit of a clue that things were suddenly Not Right. We were about 5000 feet up a very windy track when this little snag was discovered. We limped down the mountain in Low box, using the engine as a brake as much as we could, until we arrived at the main road. Alongside this was a goat shed and goatherd. We explained the problem we’d got and asked for the nearest garage. Now, I’ve often had to drive to the next town, or even city, to get spare parts or work done on cars, but never to the next country. The nearest “help” was in Andorra, an hour away, he explained, and with generous gestures indicated the dangerous, downhill, hairpin-bend nature of the journey. He obviously thought we wouldn’t make it….but not only could we get new pads, we could get another flag sticker for the scoreboard!

Well, with a bit of help from our family IT consultant/International search engine back home we limped into the Jaguar Landrover dealer in Andorra la Vella just in time to see them bugger off for a 2 hour siesta. We spent the time camping in their carpark, bedding hung out to air, looking like a couple of Pikeys and attracting a lot of sniffy looks from the Mercedes franchise next door. The Navigator got the phrase book out and wrote down an appropriate form of words so we were at the desk seconds after the doors reopened. We left with a brand new set of front pads, “pastilla de freno” if anyone ever needs to know, while they took possession of 103 of our Euros…I could’ve bought 3 sets for that money at home. Which is probably what PITA did and the reason they fell apart.

It being well after 3pm we decided to make for the nearest campsite to get Elly sorted out but, as we had to pass the biggest supermarket we’d seen in Europe on the way out, it wasn’t going to be a quick exit, was it? We also took the opportunity to refuel now that it wasn’t all going to spill out and found that the price of diesel in Andorra is about 87 cents a litre – about 2/3rds of the price just over the border. This might explain why the parking lot was chokka with “E” plated cars.

The job on the brakes took about 90 minutes and was interesting for what it revealed about the condition of the brakes on the “good” side.

When I took those pads out the inner one just fell apart in my hands. I’d checked these before we left and I estimated they’d got about half their life left. Hmmm. The outside half of both sets were still barely worn, so something’s not right there. The NS disc is quite scored too, which isn’t surprising given that we’d been forcing the bare metal backing plate against it for most of the day, so that’s another job for back home. It’ll do until then.

While I was working on the brakes I had one eye on the weather, particularly some very threatening looking clouds that were building up.

This is the underneath of a Cumulo Nimbus cloud, and is the first one I’ve ever watched “boil up” from almost nothing right before my eyes. From a few puffy clouds, this monster appeared in about 15 minutes, bringing with it a really violent squall. No booming thunder or flashing lights, though, which made it all the more threatening, I thought. Luckily everything was re-assembled and tools stowed away before that happened.

Finally, at least on the list of woes, the steering has developed a nasty wobble at about 50mph. Fine at slower speeds and last night I jacked her up and had a really good wiggle of all the joints and checked the wheel bearings with no obvious culprit found. It feels just like an out-of-balance wheel and only made itself felt after I’d done the brake repair, so maybe if I turn the wheels a bit on the studs, or swap the back wheels for the front…? I’ll do that tomorrow before we leave. I don’t fancy having to drive 1000 miles home at 45mph.

As for the scenery, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we’d stopped looking at it, which certainly isn’t true, although what’s happening 6 feet in front of us has held the attention a lot recently. We’ve done a lot of climbing up on rough tracks to get views like these:

Looking back to where we were 5 minutes ago

And driven a lot on narrow roads that, back home, would be little used farm tracks but here are obviously major routes between villages, most of which are isolated and perched on impossible slopes or pyramid-hills. An example was Pesonada – a true One Horse Town and it was away on its holidays. Actually nobody ever seems to be at home, horses or otherwise. A few of the tracks have passed through these places and the Road Book helpfully suggests that we should “follow the main road through to the other side”. The main road, though, bears little difference to all the others which can be side streets with dead ends or impossible corners. All are barely wide enough for us to negotiate, generally steep, of mediaeval dimensions and with no way to see around the next corner to predict what lies ahead. Several times now we’ve finished up in someone’s back yard and had to make a very slow and careful retreat to the sound of angry dogs, and GPS is no help either. Our Garmin, if we choose to use it, doesn’t seem to know where most of these little places are, let alone that “Main Street” can only be accessed by passing under an archway that is quite a bit lower than our roof is high. We really must make an effort to stop and explore some of these but so far we’ve happened on them late in the afternoon when the focus is on finding somewhere to stop for the night, which is often more of a problem that we’d expected. Generally solved by the use of several sources of information, but our electronic “devices” are beginning to play games with us so perhaps we need better maps….some old story, eh? “Yer can’t beat the Old Ways….”