Category: Our Story

Croatia is different. It is Europe, a very nice part of Europe. The hospitality is not as forthcoming here, but as there are many tourists on the coast now, I guess this is to be expected.
The island of Vis is our third somewheredifferent destination. It is the furthest island off the coast and I think by far the nicest. It is full of yachts, 15th century houses, hidden little bays and loads of vineyards that have endless amounts of rather potent local wine!
On arrival we were told ‘there are no campsites here, we only cater for up-market tourists’. Ah… well we thought… stuff you, and parked right up in the middle of town and used the public showers on the beach every day. Penny did her best to keep us ‘up-market’ but we kept (ok just me) letting the side down. So my t shirts weren’t well ironed… but I ask, how am I supposed to be all crisp when we don’t have an iron or anywhere to plug one in if we did?
I really flew the Brits abroad flag on about the third day. The ‘poo pipe leak’ situation had escalated and I spent the day on my back pulling the piping apart with ‘black waste’ or what I would call shit put through a blender and then left to fester for a few days in the sun, dripping out all over me for most of the day. Our ‘up-market’ tourist friends were, how can I say, not impressed. Penny and Sasha would not walk with me in public for the rest of our stay.
I was always jealous of people who could wear those ‘another shitty day in paradise T shirts’ as it meant they weren’t there just for two weeks. Been there and done that now.
We have bought 7,500sq.m. of land on the east end of the island in a valley that is not overlooked by another (lived-in) house. A ten minute walk takes you down to a private little bay that can only be reached by sea and that most locals haven’t even been to. It has a perfect sandy beach surrounded on each side by classic Croatian coastline with crystal clear water and great snorkeling. It’s like being in a swimming pool full of sand and fish. We had the place all to ourselves for most of the day right in the middle of August – perfect!
Vis island was a military base until ’89 and so missed all the trashy ’70 hotel development that is elsewhere in Croatia, which is nice. There were 32 military bases on the island at one time and now there is one (ish) left, down the road from our land that has more sheep in it than squaddies. It is being closed down and doesn’t do anything now. On walking past, Angus wanted to take a closer look to see if they had any SFOR helicopters and tanks in there like they did in Bosnia. They were a bit thrown with having guests and went all formal on us. ‘You are not allowed in here… Army base. need special permission.’ Angus thought this was quite cool but wasn’t convinced. ‘Are you a soldier?’ ‘Yes’ ‘…you ever killed anyone’ ‘No’ ‘…do you have any bullets in your gun?’ ‘…..no’. ‘Mum can we go to the beach now?’
On leaving Vis we went to the island of Brac (not a touch on Vis) and then on to Split to see the lawyer. I though we were going to be in there for five minutes. I ended up in a notoriety’s office for two hours on my own with our rather fit and immaculate assistant Anna Maria and two other women. The looks I got started me to think that maybe I was wearing that same T shirt as I was on that bad poo day.
You know things are supposed to happen when you travel, you loose your passport or you have a blow out and all sorts of things start to happen. Well we had one of those ‘it just happened’ but we didn’t need to loose a tyre to get it. We got a call from cousin Charlie ‘Hey dudes, I hear you’re in Croatia? Where are you’ ‘We’re in Split’ ‘ Cool, just head for the biggest mast in the marina and I’ll be on deck’.
The tallest mast in the marina… nice one.
Split has a big marina and our expectations of what Charlie’s boat was like were kind of met. 40m (not feet) yacht made of mahogany. Instead of finding the local supermarket and dining out in the local port car park like we did on the way out, we were treated to ‘who wants to be a millionaire for the day on Charlie’s boat’. The kids OD’d on DVD’s, coke and chicken nuggets and suggested that we stay with Charlie for the rest of the trip and … well move in basically. Charlie was on fine form and it was really nice to blow the breeze with someone you know and like. Thanks Charlie…
Montenegro, very nice, like Croatia, lots to see and explore, got nicked parking in a bus lane and was let off by the copper in the end as we spent 30 minutes showing him we really didn’t have any euros on us. We didn’t… which was good as he wanted 20 of them. Sveti Stefan half way down has a hotel on an island that used to be a small village. Some one got there before us and bought up the whole place and made it a paradise. We parked in the car park, put on our best togs and blagged our way into the terrace bar. They have a huge restaurant right over the sea, very nice, but at 27 euros for one round of drinks, very expensive.
The kids have been a bit disappointed with border crossings so far, most countries look the same when you get into the new one (except Bosnia) and it takes a while for you to see the difference. On going into Albania they were not disappointed. You drive down a road in Montenegro for about an hour and you’re the only vehicle going either way. The border was full of ‘don’t look at me or I’ll puncha ya face in’ gangster types. We got stung 109 euros for more insurance and went in. The change was instant. The road would be ok and then suddenly stop and go off down a track, without warning. The first shop we saw was in an old van. Shite everywhere all over the place, plastic bags, cars, factories just falling apart, bridges out etc. etc. Yet EVERY car was a Merc. Really nice Merc’s, big 500 Mercs. Brand new big 500 Mercs… all flying down these dirt tracks looking very hard.
Albania is a very safe place, we had no hassle from anyone. In places like Egypt we will be a magnet to every local wheeler and dealer. In Albania I think if we were into drug dealing, EU fund stealing, Mercedes Benz smuggling… we’d get a lot of grief. But as we were just tourists, no one was in the slightest bit bothered about us. ‘You come to visit Albania, for holiday… with your children?’ and that ‘you could have gone to Disneyland instead’ look. They have a lottery in Albania, if you win; you get to live in America. How sad is that. It’s a really mashed up place. But the people are great and they love to give the kids big kisses!
We didn’t see the nice parts of Albania as they are further south and we have come over to Macedonia, so we cannot do it justice, the riviaria is supposed to be very nice and unspoilt, and Rothschild has apparently just bought 15 miles of the coast down there, it could be the future med destination… honest.. We have driven through some real end of the world places and seen stuff I have never seen before. We have driven down very old roads… and very new roads, so new the tarmac was sticking to our tyres as the guy who is supposed to wave us off down the other road went to lunch. The kids… have been totally unfazed about the whole thing. Luckily Albanians treat their animals well and so Sasha was not subjected to any nasty scenes. Sasha has sussed people are mad and live their lives in crazy ways, but if she sees an animal suffering, that’s not fair.
Macedonia; Lake Ohrid is very nice … and cheap. Internet cafes are 40p an hour, hence the travel log update. Dinner for 5 right on the lake with beer and wine last night was 15 quid. Nice.
I have swapped the day job for ‘keeping this 7 tonne lump of metal on the road’ which has at least one thing fall off it each week, the other day it was the fridge door… on my foot, and the table cracked in two when I sat on it. One careful owner…n’t. It is coping well and does not break into a sweat when climbing a few thousand meters in short distance.
We are all getting on and everything is a bit very normal. We haven’t really changed our ways since leaving St Albans, we still bicker, still loon about when we shouldn’t still have egos and still can be arseholes. Only now we are doing it with each other and not our peers, which is nice. We are hoping that one day we will wake up and be a united team and not 5 individuals who have been thrown together because we had this mad idea. We are hoping it will happen soon. And if it does the off-roading in a 20 year old camper will all be worth it!
See you soon.
I am just loving it…

The most exciting thing that happened between Dover and Slovenia was the toilet seats in Germany… they have this funny habit of spinning around and getting themselves cleaned when you press the wrong button to flush. Hours of fun! One big autobahn all the way. We slept in the service stations and it took three days to get to Croatia.
On leaving Austria we where told we had to have a ‘GO’ box and should have paid one euro per 10km and… well they wouldn’t let us leave. It was only after having many conversations and getting someone with half a brain on the phone to realise we had blagged our way across the whole country telling the toll booths that we were 3.5 tonne max when we are really 7.5 tonne max, which made them all look a bit silly. On asking the kids when Penny was inside this rather scary iron curtain type customs building what we should do if they locked mummy up for the night the dilemma was… “Does this mean we get to eat out tonight… and can we have coke?”.
Arriving at the Bosnian border we were presented with this state of the art border crossing, it looked like a new airport, EU grants at its best! We thought, hey hey! this good… Bosnia is not a 2nd world country after all. We drove down to the border saying to the kids “look guys, look how smart this border crossing is” only to discover that a hand painted sign leading you down a dirt track showed a different story. We drove off the road and joined a que of cars and trucks leading up to a shipping container with a window cut into it and some dodgy looking border crossing type cop eying up the drivers….nice. Welcome to Bosnia.
“Papers…” it was finally our turn. “ This green card does not cover you for Bosnia… turn vehicle around ” his hand pointing back the way we had just come. “Can we have coke tonight dad?” “ not now Claudia…” On sitting on a dust track with a dodgy copper looking at us like ‘ ha, got you there!’ thinking, shit… Penny suddenly says “ Oh silly me, I have the right documents for Bosnia here” I pass him a brochure on car insurance for Europe. “International?” he asks, “ Yes…” I say without blinking. He waved us on and well here we are.
Bosnia is beautiful. Mountain after mountain, lakes, rivers, and I still can’t get over seeing people baling hay by hand high up on the hills. We have stayed in some amazing places, woken up seeing waterfalls, mountain ranges, pine forests and all free!
People here are either from SFOR (American Army) and travel by helicopter, or are farmers and drive old golf VW’s. Not much in between. Angus met a ‘real’ soldier called Scott who has had to eat spiders to stay alive! I have never seen him so impressed. Last night we parked up outside this old communist era hotel in Jahorina where the winter Olympics were held in ‘84. The kids spotted the indoor swimming pool… and I noticed the group of 30 or so women who had been marching up and down the mountain all day were now taking a dip… it was a tough job but I thought it was only fare that the kids were allowed a swim. I tell you, this country is full of crumpet!
Sasha has been very brave; she has had toothache and has had to have a tooth pulled out. The dentist was very nice and the ice cream cones at 15p a go have helped sooth the pain.
We are trying to find a real estate agent in Sarajevo at the moment to see if we can buy one of the lodges up in the ski villages. Some sleep around 10 people and are right next to the ski lifts. The word is they cost around 20-50,000 euros.
We need to find that agent!

Today I realised it is not a dream anymore… it’s not something that might happen in the future, the journey for me, started today.

I was hammering our new (20 year old) American motor home down the Reborn Rd with Dave our loyal mechanic who had his head in the exposed engine inside the cab as it blasted out all sorts of noises, fumes and unidentified flying objects. The engine gets hot through the protective cover that is normally there, but today it is blasting red hot air straight on to my legs which I have to keep checking are not on fire. You know the mad max films… I felt like Mel Gibson and Dave was the guy in the little aeroplane saving my arse!
We have a fuel starvation problem and the bus as I call it, will not go up hills. As the Balkans are probably one of the hilliest parts of the world (Macedonia is 80% sheer mountain) we are keen to get it sorted before leaving. Dave speaks English, knows a lot about engines and well… has some tools. Breaking down in Bosnia is something I am keen to avoid at the moment. Tomorrow we will cut the fuel lines and feed the engine through a hosepipe out the window with a petrol can on the end of it. I feel Mad Max 2 will be the order of the day.
We are pretty much ready to go with the kids being far cooler about the whole thing than we are. “I’ve decided what teddies I’m taking Dad and my teacher knows that I’m leaving, so there’s nothing else for me to do until we leave.” Negotiations on special treats due to lost birthdays in the UK over the next two years have been their main focus with two sleepovers covering one birthday and the school hall, complete with hired D.I.C.O equipment covering the other. I’d like to thank Rick for doing the DJ’ing. The kid who thought you where Nati’s older brother will get a shock when he see’s you pick him up at the school gates in your suit.
The build up to this trip is like when your wife is pregnant for the first time, you get 9 months of peoples advice telling you how much of a nightmare or how much fun or full of poo a baby can be. You can’t make any comment, you jut have to take what you hear and extract the advice that sounds good and ignore the rest and think, it can’t be that bad, or we all wouldn’t be here. When we tell someone we are about to go through places like Bosnia, Albania, Romania and then go and live in a remote part of Sri Lanka (we got a think about countries ending in a) with our three kids who have never moved bedrooms let alone house, the advice tends to be along the lines of “Here is my shrinks tel no.”, a long… ‘your friggin mad!’… kind of look or that knowing “your 40 this year aren’t you” or the more popular “ I know some one who went there in the 80’s, it’s an absolute night mare, your kids will hate it”.
In two weeks we will start to find out if this really is the trip of a lifetime or if there really are vampires in Transylvania and two weeks in Spain would have been a better idea.
What ever the out come of our two year adventure, we will all be living our lives, we will not be reminiscing about the old days or dreaming about the future, we will be totally focused on the here and now and hopefully enjoying every minute of it!
That’s providing the engine gets fixed tomorrow and well… we actuality make Dover…
Bring it on!