It’s time for my turn to have my two pennies’ worth on the blog, so move aside Louise here I go. Two weeks ago, on December 3rd, we celebrated 6 months in the campervan in Europe. Yes, 6 months since we caught the boat from Dover to Calais and what an amazing time we have had so far. I must admit, sitting on the cross-channel ferry we were both very excited about what would lie ahead, but there was also a heap of apprehension. Driving on the other side of the road in a vehicle that is over 7-meters long, what would the campsites be like, how and what would we cook, would the budget we set ourselves be adequate, would we be fit enough for what we wanted to do, how would we cope living in a confined space, would we be warm enough, will I like the beer (ha-ha) and so on. The only thing we weren’t worried about was the language barrier as we have both travelled a lot in Europe and we knew we could communicate.
Some years back I was speaking with a friend of mine Don Menzies, who owns the travel company Travelcom at Mount Maunganui. He was telling me how often people went to book their trip of a lifetime with the idea of doing so many things, and he often had break it to them gently that what they wanted to do was out of their physical capabilities. He is right, travelling can be exhausting and to make the most of it you must be physically capable. An ex-colleague of ours Ray Douglas made a comment on Facebook the other day that we looked “travel fit” and he is right. When we first started planning this trip I bought a Fitbit. Louise already had one. Whilst a Fitbit isn’t the be all and end all when it comes to fitness, you can gauge how much exercise you are doing, and I can assure you it helped me no end in the 9 months preparing for this trip as we do a heck of a lot of walking here. If I hadn’t prepared I wouldn’t have been able to complete our 6-hour climb up Kjeragbolten in Norway, one of the highlights of our trip so far. To give you an idea of how far we walk, in the 6 months we have been on the road we have walked nearly 2,500 kilometres which equates to walking the length of New Zealand and then some, and we have cycled double that amount. No wonder I am 6kgs lighter, and I had already lost 5kgs in preparation. In fact, I am the lightest I have been since I can remember.
Without wishing to be rude, we often pass tour buses arriving at various points and see the passengers getting off – they come in all shapes and sizes, young and old – and by looking at them I know for many their lasting memories of Europe will be whatever is within a couple of hundred metres of the bus stop. To explore these magnificent historic towns, you must be prepared to walk, 12 to 15 kilometres some days and with a lot of the terrain being up-hill. Many castles, forts and towers can only be accessed using stairs. If you can’t climb the stairs you miss out on so much.
A great investment we made was our bikes. These are a God-send and so many fellow motorhomers have them. So, if you aren’t that fit make sure you can ride a bike. Europe is very bike-friendly, with dedicated cycleways everywhere. Most campsites are 4-5kms out of town and the majority are linked to the central city by cycleways; even large cities like Berlin, Amsterdam, Oslo, Copenhagen and so on. Bikes have allowed us to use our time well by arriving at a campsite in the early afternoon and cycling into the city straight away to get the lay of the land before exploring further the next day. Of course, now there is a huge range of electric bikes available to make life easier. I recently read that in Auckland there’s debate about shared pedestrian and cycleways not working, however, here in Europe they are everywhere and seem to work perfectly. There’s an obvious pecking order here, with pedestrians at the top, cycles a close second, and cars very much at the bottom.
Generally, Europeans are very active and cycling and walking is part of everyday life, even the elderly are out and about walking or on bikes, and many cities have free exercise equipment in parks. As most historic towns are made up of narrow lanes, many of which are pedestrian only, the New Zealand mentality of driving around until you find a park right outside a shop is redundant, you simply must walk.
So, leaving the fitness behind, here are our figures for month 6. But, before I leave you for another month you may be interested to know that in the first 6 months we have travelled 11,481 miles or 18,369kms, an average of 100 km’s a day; we have spent NZ $3,784 on diesel; stayed in 80 different campsites for 156 nights, the other 26 were house sitting or with family; and spent $6,521 on campsites, money well spent for having nice facilities.
