Better Late Than Never

A few days later than planned, here's the latest from the deck of the Starship Laika, currently parked up 20 ft from the Mediterranean Sea just south of Alicante.

Having neglected (on purpose) to book a ferry ticket until the day we wanted to leave, I shouldn't have been surprised to find that the only sailing to Dunkirk was at 0200 hours, a little later than hoped for. However, having made the booking through the Caravan Club as opposed to directly with Norfolk Line, we got a return ticket for £85.00, saving around £50 and making things look really rather good. Even better, on arriving at 9.30 we were offered the option of taking the 2200 sailing which should have cost an extra £20.00 but which we were given for free.

Stopping in France to use the Alden Netmaster and start posting to this blog, I discovered that the Netmaster wasn't working correctly. Although disconcerting, that's the whole reason that we're on this trip and a short phone call to Alden revealed that one batch of components used in the system's controller was faulty. As we were due to visit Alden, we just had to go without Internet access - hence the delay in getting this blog going.

Alden are based in Strasbourg, France and we arrived in Strasbourg on the Saturday and parked up for the night on the other side of the Rhine in Germany. I almost never use camp sites, preferring to park in a quiet street somewhere, preferably with a pleasant view. This particular street had a great view across the Rhine towards Strasbourg but we hadn't spotted the church tower just a hundred yards away. Sometime very early on Sunday morning, the bells started to ring out and so we made an early start by crossing a spectacular footbridge to wander round a park on the French side. There we discovered a special area for motorhomes to stay the night: a fenced-in piece of waste ground with about a dozen motorhomes packed in so tightly that, if they were farm animals, the authorities would have closed the place down on the grounds of cruelty.

We'd heard of the "famous" Strasbourg Christmas market. So, it would seem, had several million other people. Still, we managed to park the motorhome just a few hundred yards away and joined the crowds: just a throng at twilight. If you like Christmas markets selling Christmas gifts, it was a great place to be.

Visiting Alden, we replaced the Netmaster's control unit and learned of some interesting developments in satellite and solar technology which they and we will be introducing in 2008.

I had arranged to meet Brian, Dawn & family of Usonthebus fame. Now that the Netmaster was up and running, I got on line to download several days' worth of e-mails and saw one from Brian. They had encountered some problems on their journey and, worst of all had been robbed while they were asleep in the bus, parked up on an aire in central France. The thieves had taken cash, credit cards, their phone and Dawn's computer amongst other things. Because they had lost their phone, they were now relying on the Netmaster to communicate. I contacted them using Skype and arranged to meet up later that day.

We are relying on the Camos GPS navigation system to steer us around Europe and it really is a superb system. It's easy to use, quick to respond, has loads of useful information - including a database of around 3,500 campsites - and the 7" screen is bright, clear and so easy to see. It's especially useful in the motorhome where the unit is further away than it would be in a car and, driving on the Continent on unfamiliar roads, the screen size makes a big difference. We use the monitor to keep an eye on what's going on behind us and also as a TV monitor, of which more later.

Anyway, the Camos GPS system enabled us to find Brian & Dawn quickly and easily and then to negotiate the Lyon traffic to sort out some paperwork with them. They had really had some major problems and were now resigned to returning to England to regroup. I'm sure they will be recounting their adventures on their website and I wish them loads of good luck for the future.

The cold weather had taken Brian & Dawn by surprise and it certainly was getting chilly. Undeterred, we decided to visit Andorra and see some mountains. I'm sure there are a lot of visitors in the summer but, in mid December, we saw hardly any other motorhomes or caravans. Even the skiing season hadn't started but they were obviously getting ready for it as the snow machines were blowing out the white stuff at the resorts. There had been snow but not enough for serious skiing.

We parked up for the night at one of these resorts. It was at an altitude of approx 8,000 ft and the temperature outside was -10. Inside, it was a slightly more comfortable 14 degrees but, come the morning, it was -3 inside and everything that could freeze had, including the water in the kettle and the water pump.

Undeterred, I did some serious satellite testing and can confirm that, not only does the 40cm Camos sat-dome pick up all U.K. TV channels all over France, it also picks them up in Andorra.
There were interesting results from the Multimo and the new Camos Flat-Sat too which I will compile into a full report later.

Filling up with diesel at around £0.65 per litre, we headed south hoping for some Mediterranean warmth. It did get warmer but it also started raining - for the first time since I'd left Daventry and just exactly as I was on top of the Laika, checking skew angles on the satellite dishes. Having had the luxury of being able to always use automatic satellite systems, I'd forgotten that the big disadvantage of manual systems is that, if it's raining, you tend to get wet. This came as a bit of a shock to me but I persevered with setting up a 66cm dish on a tripod. I managed the task OK but then the wind blew the whole lot down. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.

Meanwhile, inside the motorhome, the automatic systems are all working perfectly and the sat-dome is doing sterling work providing us with British radio - including all BBC stations (except for 5 Live) - as we're driving along. The system is so good that, apart from brief breaks in transmission when going under bridges or through tunnels, it's really no different from driving at home.

We spent almost the whole of today testing all the dishes, both manual and automatic, between Barcleona and Valencia. Very interesting results for me which I hope will prove very useful for people wanting to use satellite TV in this part of the world. For now though, with an outside temperature of 15 degrees and the sea pounding beach just a few feet away, it's time to turn in.