Author Archives: Ian

Park Ups at Bury CAMC, LadyWharf Boatyard and Lyons Boatyard

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We have a campervan convoy travelling south with park ups at Bury CAMC, Lady Wharf boatyard and Lyons boatyard. The first few days are reserved for sorting out any teething troubles with the newly converted Peugeot Boxer campervan and then we have park ups at the two boatyards. We haven’t parked up the campervans at boatyards before and I’ll be happy to do so again. Secure sites and friendly people made these park ups enjoyable.

We also spent a couple of nights at Great Orton and travelled to Bowness on Solway for a walk along the beach and to visit the end of Hadrian’s wall.

Parked Up at Bury CAMC Site

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We spent a few days at the CAMC site in Bury, near Manchester. This is a nice site with a pub immediately outside the barrier and a cafe a couple of minutes walk down the hill. There’s a large grass area busy with people relaxing and walking dogs and nice walks along the river Irwell.

There’s also a train track at the rear of the campsite with steam trains running back and forth. It’s a nice well laid out and maintained site.

Parked Up At Druridge Bay Festival

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We attended the Druridge Bay Festival for the first time. This is located in Drudridge Bay Country Park in Northumberland. It’s a really nice location with good park ups, a lake and a nearby beach.

We arrived later in the evening and missed the first day’s events, so we caught up with some friend and enjoyed the events.

The event was well organised and well run and we plan on returning next year.

Vanlove Fest 2025

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We left Calais, France in the morning and drove to Elvington airfield in York to attend Vanlove fest 2025. This is our third consecutive year at Vanlove and the scale of it keeps increasing with more than 1,200 vans on the runway. Queuing to get access to the pan was awful and the four queues were not taken in order. Vanlove can definitely do better than this! Parking on the runway was a similar experience with vans not taking in order of arrival. Thereafter we had a nice time. It was good to see Bobby, Marie and their dogs from One Life Truck It at Vanlovefest and hear Mark (Bobby’s dad) talk about their plans for the MAN 8X8 truck and how it will be used in the future. Sadly, Guy and Jo advised this is the last time Vanlove will be at Elvington airfield so we’ll wait to hear where the new location is and if this works with our commute from Europe enroute home at the end of our summer tour.

Touring France Coast to Coast

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In this video, we travel from Roses near Girona in Spain crossing France’s southern border and travel north to the aire at Calais. We have four overnight park ups at Roche De Glune, Lamarche Sur Saone, Saint Imoges and Calais. The island at Roche De Glune is interesting and we return to Lamarche Sur Saone after 12 years so it’ll be interesting to see if it’s changed. We often try to stop at Epernay to allow Wendy to stock up on Mercier’s rose champagne and we hope to stay at the Epernay aire if there is space. Whilst we are parked up at the Calais aire we meet Rose and Paul, a lovely couple who are parked up in the same aire and are also travelling to Vanlovefest in York in the UK. The power of social media connected us!

Exploring Roses, Spain

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We’ve headed sixty miles north up the coast to Camping Rodas in Roses, near Girona. This is another lovely beach resort with the campsite about a 15 minutes walk from the town sea front. Camping Rodas is a large well organised campsite. There’s both a Carrefour market and a Lidl within walking distance of the site too. The beach area nearest the campsite has a few bars and restaurants with mostly large hotels. The other end of the beach has more restaurants, bars and beach bars around the marina. The beach looked lovely although dogs aren’t allowed on it at this time of year so we didn’t use it. There are cycle lanes along the boardwalk although there are some warning signs prohibiting cycling in certain locations and apparently the police do fine cyclists for breaking the rules. We hired a boat here and enjoyed sailing around. The people at Boats Mediterrani were extremely helpful, and were happy to speak English. This is our last stop in Spain before heading north through France.

Investigating Lloret De Mar, Spain

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Lloret De Mar is the most southerly point of our trip. We are staying on a campsite at Camping Blau/Lloret Blau. This is a 10-15 minute walk from the beach. It’s a nice campsite with most pitches surrounded by trees. Our Starlink was partly obstructed as a result, but we still got good reception. There is a lovely well kept beach here, with many beach bars and restaurants to choose from. The larger hotels are typically at the southern end of the beach up the hill. There’s a castle at the northern end with lovely views over the cliff onto the crystal clear waters.

Outstanding Medieval Carcassonne, France

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We spent two days at Carcassonne in France, exploring the medieval village and the new town area. The medieval village is spectacular. There’s lots to see and do inside the walled village. We couldn’t book the aire so booked the adjacent campsite. This is ideally located, just a short cycle from Carcassonne itself.

Europe 2025 Tour. Glasgow, Scotland to Lloret de Mar, Spain.

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Well, it’s been a while since we posted touring videos as we have been focusing on converting campervans and haven’t toured much in 2025. We are now starting our summer European tour driving from the Glasgow area in Scotland to Lloret de Mar in Spain. This video captures our travels to the tunnel in Folkestone and into France, parking up at the Merlimont plage aire. Wendy has used TravelBoast to illustrate our whole route south, through France and into Spain.