3 months long we worked like crazy to prepare the bus and it was ready just the day before we left..
With an insecure feeling we left southwards.. why, because the bus had not done many miles since I had the bus ( it had also been stored for 30 years), I had done 95% of the work myself and there were a few leaks.

Anyway heavily loaded we left on Friday the 13th :-S at 5pm for 2 weeks.

I quickly reaslised that the bus and I had to get to know each other and like all experienced bus drivers know they have a soul and so later on during our holiday I could feel when she had good days and bad.

It’s Saturday 5pm after u full day drive and 1100km further we finally arrived on a campsite in Capbreton to pickup my daughter who was staying with her Mum on a surf camp .
The next day we took off to Bidart at a campsite named Oyam were we stayed for a week, at first we were happy we found this campsite as due to their national holiday (15th) all campsites where packed! It’s when we moved out of the campsite we got presented a bill at a 43€/day rate where I got really ...... off, specially knowing it was just a regular 3 star camping with nothing special and a stinking sanitair !!

After we dropped off Sam in Capbreton we headed a little bit back up north for a local show in Soustons, once we paid and arrived on the field we realised this was not our cup of tea, the location was great (at a lake) but the combination of their 25th show and the amazing weather made it to a completely packed field, we didn’t find a spot and at some point ended on a dead end, the road was very bumpy and driving backwards wasn’t a possibility so I took a right in the grass between a few busses and some tents and all of a sudden it goes .. BANG.. I tried first gear but no movement I tried reverse but with no result.. Luckelly the van was popular and so a few Spanish people came up and after a few Chinese hand signals the guys lifted the van up front and I moved backwards.
Apparently it was the leftover from a sawn tree that was hidden in the grass.. after a few mins later and no result for a spot we just had it turned around and left! Later on I checked the underneath and noticed I got some serious chassis damage that didn’t make me happy..

Anyway from there on we decided to go back south and drove past San Sebastian were we spent the night on a parking. The next day we got up started driving further south and swapped Spain for Portugal
It’s not untill 11pm before we stopped in Belmonte Portugal after a frick’n hot day driving, at some points so hot that I had to shut the safari’s as it felt like a hairdryer blowing in my face..
Through “Dombutler” from here on the forum I received some info (cheers for that mate!!) about spots which were worth a visit and so we did Tomar which was beautiful with it’s old town and amazing (big) castle.

The next day we took off to Antonio of Vintagevans who is based just under Lisbon. He’s the man who found my hi-top and ever since I got it the plan was to meet up and so this became reality, we arrived there at lunch time and received a huge welcome from Antonio and his team and “MattfromPortugal” (the cool hippie) . After a tour in the shop, Antonio took us out for lunch!
I told Antonio I wanted to do a check up on the van and so he put it on the bridge.. I noticed that my gearing wasn’t going properly and was right about my feeling as one bolt on the nose was loose and apart from ½ litre gearbox oil and the left front wheel bearing that needed a bit of tightening everything was fine.. We also adjusted the springplates a bit more as there was hardly any space for them with all the weight..

Antonio realized he had something left for me and all of a sudden he showed up with 1 litre green and 1 litre white of the exact matching paint so I can blend in all the welded areas perfectly.. Wow what a nice surprise (Antonio if you read this I’m still very thankfull of what you did for me, you are a great man!)

Matt, kind as he is, offered us a nice hot shower at his place and later on that evening we all went out for a lovely dinner.
We stayed around Matt’s for 2 nights and slept on his parking lot, we made a visit with the ferry to Lisbon and did the climb (with the buggy it’s not easy believe me ) to the castle which was more than worth it in the end.
Later on the day we headed back up north to a place called Obidos which was beautiful.

Over the next days we did a few more places and ended up by the river in Porto were we met a young Spanish couple in a brand new T5 California beach.
Funny was that the guy (Walter) showed me a rolling shot of the Highroof when passing a few hours earlier on the highway.
The next day we visited Porto and after that we went further north to a place Walter recommended, after a bit of searching we came to a very very cool and quiet bay, absolutely lovely and hardly any tourists (mainly locals).

We parked right on the beach and had a nice dinner under a beautiful starry sky ..

The next morning we got up early and did a nice long beach walk over the different bays, at lunch time we realized there wasn’t any food left and so I went on the hunt for mussels, half an hour later they were served with fresh garlic, black pepper and some toast and they tasted great.. however our tummies didn’t agreed with this and so we had a few toilet moments over the next days..
A few days later when driving near to Santander I noticed there was something not right with the engine, I felt a lot less power and wen going into a higher rpm she was protesting..

I called my mechanic Lesley in Belgium to see if he knew what could be wrong and his first guess was that the contact points needed to be changed, since the engine is in the car they were never replaced (at the last check they were still fine) and so far we had done around 4000km’s, I took the van to the next big village because I didn’t had the right tools and because I’m not experienced enough with this fine-tuning and thought I’d look for a garage the next day.. After another call with Lesley were I specified my problem better he answers “nope, it’s not the points but there’s some dirt in your carbs”!
After a horrible night on the loo (those mussels needed to come out ) and a great cold shower on the beach I decided to check the carbs and as usual Lesley is right (with these things), I cleaned the carbs, and put it all together and took her for a spin.. yup she was even going better than before!!

We decided to drive further north and after passing Bilboa, which is apart from a cool name very boring, and San Sebastian (for the 2nd time, this is simply nothing for us, loads of tourists and no parking spot after 45 min!) we ended up late in Biscarosse (France). I did a road trip 3 years ago and had a great time and so we decided to spent our last days here for some surf and relaxing at the Lake..

We were witnesses of a massive fire opposite the lake, apparently a campsite and 200 ha of forest were on fire in just a few hours, we saw how “canadairs” were working the whole day to control the fire..

Saturday 5pm we started driving back home and arrived sundayafternoon tired and contented from our holliday/roadtrip..
We had an amazing time with some lovely memories, the van who officially became a member of the familly now carries the Stella and has never let us down not even when the thermometer reached 40° ..
We’ve been away for 24 day’s and the speedo counted 4383 miles or 7053miles, however due to the smaller tires it’s not that much and with a more precise calculation we came out on 5700km which I think is good for a first roadtrip and after 30 years being stored...

Anyway enough talking it's time for pictures now!!!

For those who don’t know us (yet):
Lucy

Me

Sam&Lowie

And stElla!

Just before leaving..


Stopped after Paris to get some sleep.


The next day @ Bordeaux where we came off the highway due to traffic jam and because my knee’s were sore so I needed a bit of exercising.. (ps: a lot of pics are in sepia we decided to make a vintage photo book for the kids)



Arrived on the campsite in Capbreton to pickup my daughter and we stayed here for the night, this was probably the only time we had a bit of rain!


This campsite (Oyam) in Bidart was awfully expensive!! We spent a week here at a rate of 43€/day ??
Anyway, quite happy that I brought the old awning as sleeping with 4 in the bus made the highroof still very small and we were very happy to chuck all the crap in the tent


I’ll need to find somebody who can photoshop the cars out of this pic, the sea just behind the hill was very close to the campsite..


Sam loves climbing and so I abused that a bit whenever we needed to fill up the fridge with some Beers or getting the empty ones back in the crate


While Daddy was doing the BBQ and Mum was feeding little Lowie, Sam found the camera and enjoyed it a lot .. 70 pics taken in 5 mins

A few impressions of how much fun she had.. 



Little Lowie getting a nice fresh bath every morning
[img http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/4279/p1040727d.jpg [/img]

and as usual the safari’s came in handy for the laundry


A little trip through the Pyrenees..


where we eventually stopped at a River that had a current and so Sam had a very good time in there


Compared to our last roadtrip in the UK where we saw a lot of splitty’s we only saw 3 in France..



Even Sam says that a Holiday in the van Rocks!!


And when the kids are off to bed… ..


Daddy&the kids on the last day before Same goes back ..


From this point on it was road trippin and so no more campings, on our way to Soustons for a local show we stopped at Hossegor lake to cool down a bit as it was very hot


By the amount of pics i’ve taken (2) i know how much i liked it :icon_shaking: not even a splitty ?? you can see here that it’s a cosy field but it was way too packed for us..


As said this is the damage i got from getting stuck.



On our way too San Sebastian

This is probably why it’s so touristic (in combination with the old but which we never saw..)


This is where we spent the night after passing San Sebastian


A quick stop for stretching our legs before we do the long drive to Portugal.


The evidence we’ve been in Spain


On our way we stopped for lunch and for those who ask themselves how we shower, well..


And because it was so extremely hot, we decided to give the van a bit of rest as i noticed she was struggling in this heat. Very noticeable was the price for the cheap petrol in Spain! (1.10/L compared to the most expensive in France 1.51, a big difference!!)


En back on track.. well with a chick on the back seat i wasn’t always focused on the road


Sunset cruising..


Eventually we arrived at 11pm in Belmonte next to the castle where we went to bed after a few beers


This was our view in the morning..


Also Lowie loves the highroof however he thinks it’s a bit tall


After a nice breakfast we decide to move on and a few hours later i left the motorway because i saw a little road heading to the top of a mountain

A very steep little road..


But once we arrived the view was all worth it



The cruise down was very cool as well!

A bit later we arrived in Tomar with it’s lovely old part

We went up and visited the amazing big castle.




Because we ran out of water we decided to camp here and have a good shower too (12€)


The next day we headed south to Antonio of Vintagevans



Passed Lisbon over the River..

Portugal is very religious


Eventually we arrived at Vintagevans and got a tour



Left here is Matt unfortunately i didn’t make any proper pics of Matt and Antonio..

This is where the highroof gets a check up next to a barndoor pickup, i now get to hear the story that the nr 08 on the back is the speed limit 80(somebody must have put it upside down ) and not the nr as i thought it was referring to the schoolbus history. It was used for a company to drive their people around..

The egg shaped trailer in the back is completely handmade from A till Z and shows that these guys know what they’re doing


After a nice shower all clean and on our way to the restaurant


After a good night sleep we stayed at the beach near Matt’s place



The next day we took the ferry into Lisbon


Cool city with there lovely trams

The climb with the buggy wasn’t a pleasure..

But once there it was definately all worth it



After a few hours we decided to get the ferry back and pick up the van…


And a few hours later we arrived in Obidos, a very historical village surrounded by the walls of the castle



On this spot we got to refill our water supply

And little Lowie getting is morning routine..


A little drive get’s us in Nazare, arriving at the beach gives us this bizar view of a massive cloud laying on the water right in front of us..

Nazare wasn’t our thing and after a crazy incident with guy a suddenly braking in front of us and jumping in the middle of the street asking/shouting us to stop for a picture we decided to take off..

We got a lot of attention with the bus and I guess there must be taken more than thousand pictures and movies, people running next to the van, scooters where doing weird stuff just to get a snap of the bus but sometimes it wasn’t nice anymore.. everybody likes a bit of attention but we felt like everywhere we stopped people jumped on us to take a picture or came for a chat or whatever. Don’t get me wrong but we liked our privacy and we felt a lot of the time people didn’t really respect that



This is were we met the Spanish couple in Porto who took a roling shot of the bus


Old vs New


We drove over the bridge straight into the city


Very Handy these truck mirrors



Yep, Father&son will be best friends for sure!!


After a nice day in Porto we came in to this very small town right at the beach



You meet Dutch people all over the World :-P


Bedroom with seaview, aaahhh you got to love it!!


Lowie als like to relax on the backseat;-)


This is were we left Portugal and drove up North into Spain, a lot more hills and some nice bridges






The Spanish fella we met in Porto told us about a nice place and he was right!!! Parked right on the beach!


The lovely dinner under the starry sky

We got up early for a nice walk at the beach..




Around lunch time there were more people but generally still very quiet


No food so let’s see what the sea offers..
cleaning

Fresh garlic and pepper

Served with a toast

They tasted great !! (unfortunatly our tummies didn't felt the same way )


Another beach were we stayed for a while..


The next day on a break in between driving


We passed las Vegas :-P


Coffee break


Bilbao, nothing to see here :-s

Cruising


We came in Biscarosse very late and decided to spent the night here, exact same spot as 3 years ago, right in front of a hotel


In the morning whilst looking for a parkingspot in the center i came across this splitty


After a good breakfast, off to the sea fors ome surf and to give Lowie the “baby on Board” feeling


After a nice day at the beach we decided to have a look at the lake..


Offcourse BBQ


This little fella came past us on the beach..



The next morning when taking this shot

I nearly tread on this little friend

But when he realised he’s small and i’m big he decided to went for a quick getaway :laughing11:


Later on the day we saw this happening..


However it’s sad to see the forest burning, it was quite spectacular seeing how these plains came into the water




On the last day my baby treated me with breakfast in bed on the beach


And after a good conversation with my son, were i told him we’re planning a trip “around the World in a splitvan” we packed and left back home..



It's our 3rd Roadtrip without any bus problems and enjoyed every single minute, met a lot of nice people and came to some very cool places ..

We loved it!! i hope you enjoy it as well..

Dude, this should go in the SSVC mag!!

rikki james wrote:Dude, this should go in the SSVC mag!!

yep... it should

Now thats some road trip mate , well done ! See you both @ Brighton

Epic.... Amazing road trip Stephan

Happy to include in the SSVC Mag

See you guys next month for the Breeze

Cheers guys!!

Still can't get my head around work this week..

Wicked road trip great photos

wow thanks for sharing that!

looks like a superb time was had.......................

what a great road trip and full respect for doing it and with loads of picture`s .
excellant pic`s as well

Looks like you had a brilliant time,
thanks for sharing it with us

Fantastic road trip!
thx for sharing!!

Love the way you write this story!

PS tu parles français?

truly inspiring road trip..... im most impressed with this......
shows what these busses of ours are really made for...brilliant

cool road trip stephan

thx again guys

hoodcrew wrote:Fantastic road trip!
PS tu parles français?

un peu..

i speak and understand french, but far from good, let's just say i manage to get what i need..

Awesome trip dude, makes our summer jolly look tame! Loving the pics, makes me want to start planning next summers trip!