Haven't updated in a while! A mixture of a lack of signal, lack of data and lack of time! (Actually it's just laziness!)
After spending the night in that beautiful layby, we started our journey north through Snowdonia National Park, home to the tallest mountain in England and Wales, Snowdon.
After spending a night in a very noisy layby, we decided that a campsite was needed for the following night. We picked Cae du Campsite approximately 10km south of Snowdon, with the intention of climbing Snowdon the following day.
This was a real beauty of a site, silent, sheltered from the wind and very friendly and helpful staff.
We were advised of a 3 hours hike taking in the surrounding hills and ridges and a beautiful mountain river and decided to give it a go.
It was worth it!
Easily the most beautiful hike we have ever been on.
The next day we woke up late and missed our Snowdon window. Not wanting to risk a decent in the dark, coupled with cloud cover below 600m ment went continued on to the coast of North Wales. Spending a night in a slightly better layby, we headed to Llandudno, to see Great Orme (a headland that juts out into the Irish sea)
(These are flattened 360 photo which is why some of the perspective is a little off!)
We spend the night on the sea front in Rhos-on-sea a few KM west of Great Orme. It was a cold and windy night which made for a lot of movement in the RV suspension and a bad night sleep for me! (Not so much for her though, as she would sleep through a hurricane!) At 5am I'd had enough and I decided it was time to get moving.
After spending some time napping in a MC Donald's car park we continued on to what would be our final stop in Wales, Flint.
We visited the ruins of Flint castle, a 13th century strong hold built by King Edward I, and used to successfully conquer Wales.
The view from one of the towers was quite breath taking, overlooking the river Dee and across to England, made more interesting by 100km/h winds!
You can see why King Edward wanted this castle here, with such easy access to England and a marshy surrounding area, made it difficult to attack.
That even we carried on into England and spent the night in a horrible little layby outside of Chester.
The following day we continued on towards the Peak District, arguably the best looking part of England! Although today was not an easy drive in a 6.5 tonne vehicle, up a winding mountain road with 80km/h cross winds and heavy snowfall the previous night making it "impassable" (says the local police!)
Well it wasn't impassable, it just needed to be taken carefully!
We spend the night in a beautiful Peak District hikers car park.
The next day it had warmed slightly -5c instead of -7c but a wind chill down to -15c made the hike rather unpleasant!
We still managed to get some winter wonderland style photos however!
That afternoon we continued down towards Buxton (home of the famous spring water!)
And came across our first major problem.
We had managed to damage an inner rear tyre so much that a huge bulge had developed in the side wall. We ended up pulling over in a little layby next to a cemetery (spooky!)
Thanks to the AA however, we didn't have to change it ourselves. But we did have to wait until 2200 hours for a man with the correct lifting gear!
We decided, at that point, to book in for all new rear tyres to save this from happening again!
The next day we continued on to another Peak District walkers carpark, where I took advantage of the lovely British weather and went on a 5 mile hike, while she stayed behind, to continue her hobbies.
The Tissington Trail is a disused railway line, closed in the 70s that was used to transport milk from the farms in the mountains to the cities below. It now makes up around 20km of relatively flat walking with scenic views out over the Derbyshire countryside.
This takes us up to just a few days ago now.
We have learned a number of things so far about full time RV living/touring in the UK.
First of all Motorhomes and RVs are not welcome on small roads!
Secondly finding a place to dump waste water is a major issue here, there are no service points like you find at most major service stations in other European countries.
Thirdly, finding places to overnight is again, not easy. Laybys are really very hit and miss and 'funny' people seem to toot there horns as the drive past to make your horrible night sleep even worse. Coupled with our archaic laws surrounding the legality of wild camping.
We really need to take a leaf out of Sweden's book, where you can wild camp pretty much anywhere.
Still enough moaning, the ferry is booked and by this time next week we will be in The Netherlands, Harwich to hoek-van-holland.
Thanks for reading.
Total km 1024