Meet Ollie-van-deux
So we’re on the road again and I’m boring the pants off everyone blogging. This is our first outing in Ollie-van-deux. The last van (a Vee-Dub California) was called Ollie-van-der (Olivander if you didn’t get it already). And of course this is our second van so he’s Ollie van deux… deux… French for two… geddit? Well if you have to explain it then it’s not funny, is it?!
The Trip
So, we’re heading to Ireland. We were going to go somewhere around the south or Portugal. But the weather’s been brutal in mainland Europe this year, and a) we didn’t want to sit in a camper van, baking in 45 degrees, and b) we didn’t think it was responsible of us to head out that way when they’re struggling so much with wild fires.
So Ireland it is. We’ve been threatening to go for 30 years and this was the perfect opportunity. At least the weather won’t be as hot. Well… the forecasts are actually looking quite wet. So this 4 week epic journey might turn into 7 nights getting rained on and a dash back home. I don’t think it’ll end that way, surely it can’t rain for 4 solid weeks!?
We’re spending one night on the Welsh West Coast before hopping on the Fishguard to Rosslare ferry tomorrow. We’ll then to a 4 week clockwise tour taking in the south, west and then north of Ireland. How far we get, we’ll have to see. If we don’t do it all then that’s a great excuse to go back.
We did Dublin a few weeks ago when we went to see The Cure and spent a long weekend there. So at least we don’t need to do Dublin again on this trip. And now I have it on good authority (from the tour guide at the Guiness factory tour) that Guiness is gluten free… what could possibly go wrong?
Will they survive
And I don’t mean just us. Without getting too boring, we’re rocking a new Starlink Mini and bike setup. That is very boring isn’t it! Sue really should edit these posts before I send them out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Starlink
We have a Starlink Mini. Don’t all shout at once. Yeh, we’re not big fans of Elon either. But you do have to admit he’s changing the world.
If you don’t know… Starlink is a satellite internet connection. You stick a rectangular antenna panel out in the open, with a clear view of the sky, and it connects to Elon’s satellites to give you super fast internet, pretty much anywhere on the planet.
The Starlink should mean we don’t have to worry about dodgy 5G or Campsite Wifi when we’re parked up (or even on the move). It’s a luxury for sure, but then we are running around in an expensive caravan on wheels… you’ve gotta retain some sense of proportion when talking costs.
We’ll have to see what the 5G and Wifi situation is like as we travel around Ireland. But even on a campaign trip to Dorset earlier in the year, we were on a site with no 3G, 4G or 5G and the Campsite Wifi only worked 10m from the reception, and that was really slow and flaky. Which meant we actually had a to read a book… for two nights!
But will the Starlink survive?
I’ve mag-mounted it to the roof of the van. The StarV Mount says it’s good for this sort of install, but we’ll have to see if it flies off the back and dangles from it’s lead before plunging with a shattering crash to the slow lane of an Irish motorway at some point on the trip.
It has survived the first day’s driving at least.
Eventually we’ll get the Starlink panel permanently fixed to the roof and the cabling routed properly. But I’m hoping that for this trip what I’ve done will survive.
But… the Starlink internet connection is awesome. At least for our first stop, the internet it delivered was fantastic. Not like we get at home on a fibre connection, but still pretty amazing given we’re in a field.
Bike Rack
We also have a new bike setup. Our 13 year old bike rack didn’t quite fit on the new van. First I had to tweak the electrical connection bracket so the cables would connect, but I also found out the day before we set out that the bikes won’t sit on the rack as close like they usually did. The handle bars hit the van’s double-glazed rear windows (they stick out further) and so the two bikes have to sit on the rack slots 2 and 3 instead of 1 and 3.
Again, they’ve survived so far, but they may also get deposited on Irish tarmac if the hitch socket gives out.
Hmmm.
Coffee en-route
The trip over to our first stop was pretty uneventful, though we totally failed to find a National Trust property to visit on the way like we usually do. We tried Stackpole but by the time we’d parked, the coffee shop had closed, at 3, so we had a quick coffee in a pub we happened to pass as we left.
First Night’s Stop – Hilton Court Campsite
You never really know what a site is going to be like until you arrive. We lucked out with this one. Really quiet. Loos are spotless. And there are acres of grounds to explore.
The solar-room (on the right of the picture below, not the greenhouse on the left) was epic and of course needed the 360 camera treatment
The accoustics were awesome…
Walk to the beach
And of course after we’d had our customary protein and salad evening meal (sausages this time) we went for a walk to the local beach, Norton Haven. 40 minutes there and 40 minutes back. The beach wasn’t anything to write home about but the views over the bay were great.
And on the way there we spotted this campsite reception (not Hilton Court I should add). We’ve turned up at some interesting sites on our travels, but I think even we might have turned back if we’d pulled up at this reception… it really was a campsite reception…
That’s it for the first day. We’ll let you know how the sleeping arrangements work out in the new van. But we’re really enjoying the extra space at the moment. We still miss our old van. And we’re really not sure this new one can replace it. But we’d out grown that Vee-Dub Cali experience, so we had to try something different.
J&S
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