Mountains, Mongrels and Motorhomes

Update 6: Goodbye Mountains

rachelsimonanddog — Sun, 27 Nov 2016 18:00:00 GMT

24. Arco, Italy (27th September – 4th October):

As Pisogne was effectively battening down the hatches for the winter, we decided to go to Riva del Garda on the shores of Lake Garda as we thought that the summer season might be slightly longer there and we knew that the nearby town of Arco was a world-famous climbing hotspot - we fancied a bit of rock climbing as a compromise between staying in a warm climate and doing outdoor type stuff. We took the Passo di Croce Dominii as our route which was predominantly on very narrow roads through an almost deserted countryside which didn’t look unlike the Lake District in England (aside from the lack of traffic) and, for some reason that I cannot explain, the van got completely covered in cow shit. We arrived in Riva del Garda with the van looking like a farm vehicle and were amazed to find that the place was completely rammed. We were somewhat overwhelmed; the campsite was absolutely huge but had only three available places and everyone (and I mean everyone) was German. The sheer volume of people came as a complete contrast to what we had become used to so neither of us felt inclined to stay. Moreover, although I am a fan of the Germans, seeing a place so completely overwhelmed was a little too much. All of the cars on the roads had German plates, everything written was in German and when shop owners or people in the street spoke to you, they simply used German. We learned later that Munich is often called the most northern city of Italy but the reality is that Riva del Garda is more of a suburb of Munich. To escape the crowds we headed up the road a few kilometres to the town of Arco itself and found the campsites to be active (most plots had a slack line slung between two trees, you know the type) but a lot less busy.

The very next day we set off for our first taste of rock climbing in the famous Arco aided by a free guidebook to the most well known crags. Now, Rachel does like rock climbing but only if the weather isn’t wet... ...or too cold... ...or too hot. There also needs to be enough people but it cannot be too busy. Oh yes, the climbing cannot be too hard or too easy and the routes need to be not too short or too long. Provided the walk in to the crag isn’t too hard or the crag too difficult to find and if the routes are clearly marked with good protection then she does quite enjoy it. The upshot of this is that I had braced myself for disappointment but, by some form of miracle, all of Rachel’s criteria were met, not just once but repeatedly, and we spent the next fortnight climbing every other day. We both really got back into it and everything started to come together and in the space of a couple of weeks Rachel was leading 4b confidently and I was leading 5b and seconding 5c (which is a lower grade than the pre-middle-aged me used to be able to lead but higher than I had expected). The only person who was not so keen on the climbing was Hilda who, apart from getting rather bored at the bottom whilst we went up and down the rocks, she re-discovered her old fear of flying people that she had previously overcome. What set her off were the wing-suited base jumpers deploying their parachutes just above our heads having leapt off the top of the huge rock face behind where we were climbing – Arco is that sort of a place.

On the off days, we spent time in the town of Arco where there are more climbing shops than food or clothes shops and we did a couple of local via ferrata. Arco, despite it’s fame as a climbing venue and the German invasion, was a friendly town and a nice place to be and had not taken on the intimidating or "too cool for school" atmosphere that, in my opinion, places like Chamonix have. That said, the people of the town were all slim with slightly over-developed shoulders and mostly wearing something in lime green which is obviously the in-colour for outdoor fashion this year. The abundance of climbing shops also yielded a new pair of boots for me - which is no easy task given that God had to root though the spares bin when it came to my feet - and, guess what, after trying on fifty three million pairs, the only ones that fitted were lime green! I am now in fashion (or at least my feet are) for the very first time in my life.

25. Milan, Italy (5th October):

By the 5th October, the whole area had started to empty out and, although the weather was still fine, there was a chill to the air and the trees had started to turn autumnal. We were driving to Milan where I was planning to meet up with my old team from work who were all having a meeting there. The drive took three hours (half of which was driving down Lake Garda – it is huge) and we arrived to find the campsite at Milan to be empty save for an encampment of Irish gypsies who yelled at each other from one van to another. I left Rachel in the early evening (half expecting to return home the next day to find the van on bricks and ransom note for Rachel’s safe return) and took the bus and tube to the hotel where my ex-colleagues were staying and joined them for drinks and then dinner. It was a really great evening and fantastic to catch up with everyone and the whole evening went by in a flash. It is amazing how, in such a relatively short space of time, the lives that my ex-colleagues are leading now and I myself was leading only a few months ago, can seem so incredibly hectic.

26. Riva del Garda, Italy (6th October – 14th October):

The following day, and with a significant beer induced headache, I got back to Rachel and we set off for Lake Como as there was some good rock climbing in the area but when we got to one of the very few open campsites, the place didn’t appeal in the slightest so we had a dirty MacDonald’s in an attempt to cure the hangover (it didn’t work, it never does, I don’t know why I keep trying) and headed back to Lake Garda. This time, the place was much quieter so we stayed in the town of Riva del Garda and were back rock climbing the next day only for Rachel to take her first lead fall. The weather remained pleasant (we were still wearing T-shirts in the day) but by 9th October there was snow on the higher hills so the activities in the days that followed were determined by temperature and turned out to be a mix of running, walking Hilda, via ferrata and more climbing. I managed the Monte Albano via ferrata in Mori which is one of the most difficult in Italy which I was rather pleased with myself for and Hilda learned to body surf which she found fantastic fun and was a great spectacle for us and a crowd of other onlookers - it basically consisted of swimming out to fetch the ball and then riding the waves back to shore.

27. San Gimignano, Italy (15th October – 17th October):

By 15th October we had climbed most of what we were able to do in our free guidebook and the weather was deteriorating so we resolved to head south in our continuing quest to prolong the summer. We headed for the town of San Gimignano on the grounds that it looked like a nice place to start our time away from the mountains. The drive took around four hours in total and we were treated to our first taste of the gradual decline in civilisation that occurs as you head south. Initially this manifested itself in even more impatient driving and gradually deteriorating roads but we got there in the end and settled in a campsite a few kilometres from the town.

The following day we strolled into town with Hilda. It was a lovely hot day (ten degrees warmer than Arco and getting towards thirty degrees by early afternoon) and San Gimignano turned out to be a very quaint old town surrounded by typical Tuscan countryside. The town itself was quite small so after an hour wandering around the small streets we decided to have a lunch to celebrate the formal end to our time in the hills and do some people watching. I ordered a lunchtime beer for the first time in ages and, before we knew it, the whole afternoon had been spent in the central piazza enjoying the sun and chatting to whomever happened to sit next to us which culminated in being invited to Transylvania by a pair of Romanian's that we had a great time with (it is an offer that I would really like to take up one day). By early evening we meandered back to the campsite having soaked up the atmosphere (and quite a lot of cash) and were promptly invited to join two other Brits. that we had spoken to earlier in the day for an evening drink in their van. We duly obliged and finally made it back home at 1.00am. The next day, to clear the head, Rachel used the interweb to find a long walk from the town through the Tuscan landscape of vine yards, olive groves and old houses. It was a really lovely walk and the blue sky showed off the autumn colours to best effect. That evening we walked back into the town for a meal to get a feel for the place at night and were not disappointed with either the food or the atmosphere.

28. Siena, Italy (18th October – 19th October):

The next day I felt rather restless so ran the walk of the previous day with Hilda and then set off for Siena. The drive was short but the roads were ropey and the general standard of driving was now way beyond bad. A typical scenario was an occasion when two lanes merged into one due to roadworks on a dual carriageway. There was plenty of warning and the carriageway had clearly been closed for a long time given the weeds growing out of the tarmac, nonetheless, the final closure of one lane took the locals by complete surprise and the merging of traffic was a pantomime of last minute breaking and swerving. We made it to the campsite in one piece (interestingly there were no Brits. at all – do we not travel any more?) but we were rather tired so we had an early night before setting off on the bus to Siena the next day. The bus in was fine and we mooched around Siena for most of the day. We had the obligatory ice cream, took in the Duomo and clock towery type thing and went to the various squares. It was a pretty place indeed and more interesting for there being lots of independent shops as oppose to the usual chains that have taken over many similar sized cities. However, personally, I lean more towards the natural than the man-made and am somewhat of the view that once you have seen one enormous Gothic marble Duomo you have seen them all, so by early afternoon we decided to head back...

We waited at the bus station at the allotted stop but no bus came at the allotted time. The driver of another bus told us that the information boards were wrong and that we needed to be at another stop. Having some experience of southern Italy we knew that neither the driver nor the information boards could be trusted so we stood in the middle of the bus station and waited to ambush the next bus wherever it stopped. When it arrived our plan worked out and we got on the bus. The driver immediately told us that Hilda needed a muzzle (which we knew about and she was wearing but he hadn’t noticed) and then said that she was too big for the bus. This completely stumped us. Nobody had ever mentioned that the size of the dog was an issue and it hadn’t mattered in the morning. Moreover, we had paid for our tickets and this was the only way home. The bus driver told us to get off or he would call the police so I told him to get on with it and went down the bus hoping that he would get over himself. He didn’t get over himself and instead called the police and stopped the bus. In the following stand-off, I felt increasingly uneasy about inconveniencing the other passengers (some of whom had already got off sensing that this fiasco was going to go on for a while) so when one chap explained that "the bus drivers are crazy, you just have to live with it" we took it as an excuse to back down with some face and got off the bus. I was furious. We had no way of getting back (dogs are not allowed in taxis and we couldn’t walk as we had no idea where the campsite was), we had paid for our tickets and it had gone fine in the morning so why had the rules changed now? As we wandered the streets, I happened to spot two Carabinieri (a sort of step above the local police) in a car so went over to explain our problem. I was fully expecting to be told to get lost and stop wasting police time but what happened next was even more bizarre than the bus incident...

After five minutes of internal dialogue between the two coppers in the car and a phone call to somebody they asked me the weight of the dog. I was not sure whether or not weight was a formal criterion that determined whether or not the dog was allowed on the bus but, if it wasn’t, why were they asking and, if it was, how could it ever be practically measured? Whatever, when I told them Hilda’s weight there was then another phone call and after five more minutes (Rachel was timing this) the question came up as to whether any passengers objected to the dog. They hadn’t. At the fifteen minute point, I was asked if I had a ticket for the dog but when I told them that it wasn’t needed, they seemed to accept this and there were more phone calls. After a full twenty minutes, I asked the killer question "How do I get home?". When the answer came back "It is very difficult" I began to question my own sanity. In the twenty minutes the exchange had taken I am pretty sure that they could have driven us to the campsite and driven back again but this hadn’t occurred to them. Indeed, given the time that this episode had already taken, their next move was astonishing: they told us to walk back to the bus stop where they would join us and wait for the next bus and speak to the driver. I was extremely grateful but couldn’t help be staggered at their choice of action. Two senior coppers were going to wait for what could be up to an hour for the next bus! Fortunately, good luck went our way and when the four of us arrived at the station, the bus was due in just five minutes. When we boarded the driver let us on without a question! We thanked the Carabinieri profusely but we were left wondering whether it might have been easier to have had a set of rules, I don’t know, perhaps even a notice or something, just to make public transport a little less ambiguous.

Anyway, we got back after what had amounted to nearly three hours of trying, only to discover that we had run out of dog food and needed to do an emergency shop. Nothing of this is of note other than the car park of the shop was a single lane road with parking spaces off to one side which meant that you had to drive in but reverse out the same way. As I was waiting, I watched one car reverse out just as another car was coming in. The rational next step would have been for the driver coming in to simply reverse back out, let the car that was vacating the space leave, and then go back in and take the space or, failing this, the car leaving the space could simply have driven forward, let the car behind park and then reversed back out. Neither of these things happened and instead both drivers got closer and closer to each other, got out of their cars, had an exchange of some sort and decided that the best course of action was to squeeze past each other in a space barely big enough for one car. They managed it but I was left aghast for the second time in the space of few hours at what passed for common sense around here.

29. Greve in Chianti, Italy (20th October – 24th October):

That night we had a great meal in the campsite restaurant and the next day set off towards Florence as we were due to meet my old pal Alex and his partner there on the coming Tuesday. When we left we made two attempts to fill up with petrol and a failed bid to check the tyre pressures - nothing, absolutely nothing, is straightforward in southern Itlay. We had resolved to stay in the Tuscan countryside to do more walking before getting to Florence and, after driving to the first campsite and finding it closed (should we have been surprised?) we drove to the town of Greve in Chianti as it looked pretty and stayed in the camping car park which was thankfully free and busy enough not to be vulnerable. We spent five days there mainly doing lovely walks through the countryside and enjoying the continuing good weather and picture postcard scenery (the only exception being a day spent in the local launderette getting through our enormous pile of washing that had been accumulating for far longer than is healthy). On a couple of occasions we passed through the very pretty town of Montefioralle and stopped off for cake in a very quaint tea room and on another walk we somehow got involved in a wild boar hunt! The latter event, as these things often do, evolved rather quickly and one minute we were walking along a path minding our own business and then, during the course of the next minute, we first spotted men with guns, then spotted three wild boar running for their lives followed by a pack of dogs and then suddenly were dancing like puppets on a string as a volley of shots went off from just behind us. It was hard to know what to be most scared of given that the guns, the dogs and the wild boar were all potentially rather serious health hazards, but in the event, I was actually more concerned about Hilda!

Photos: Update 6

rachelsimonanddog — Sun, 27 Nov 2016 17:00:00 GMT

Update 5: Hello Italy

rachelsimonanddog — Sun, 13 Nov 2016 18:00:00 GMT

23. Pisogne by Lake Iseo, Italy (6th September – 26th September):

The drive from St. Anton to Lake Iseo seemed longer than the four hours that it took but with each mile the temperature crept up until we had moved from a daytime temperature of fourteen degrees back in St. Anton to thirty degrees. We had expected the campsites to be somewhat empty on the grounds that it was the end of the season in the hills but the first ones that we came to along the lake were completely rammed so we carried on up by the side of the lake until we got to the town of Pisogne and found Camping Eden. In truth, the name Camping Eden did seem like somewhat of an oversell but we had a plot by the lakefront with fantastic views and, on our first day in the town, we discovered the most perfect chocolate ice cream and in the evening found Pisogne to have a lively and friendly atmosphere. We were not sure how long we were going to stay but in the end we stayed for nearly three weeks...

After the exertion of the mountains, I think that we both needed a rest but, whether we needed it or not, we definitely did a lot of resting. A typical day in the first week consisted of breakfast al fresco, some sitting by the lake in a reclining chair playing Sudoku or reading, sleeping a bit, lunch al fresco, a walk into town for chocolate ice cream, more reading, Rachel and Hilda would go for a swim together (which did look rather sweet), an evening meal then bed. The net effect was, that in the space of one week, I became somewhat of a Sudoku ninja, managed to add one inch to my waistline (which had taken three months to shrink by three inches in the mountains) and read a great book called Children of Time (which was mercifully short on the children part).

It always strikes me just how different Italy is to Austria and you don’t have to be that far from the border to sense things changing. For a start, in Italy, the supermarkets are noisy places where people spend more time chatting than shopping which makes the Germanic supermarkets seem like libraries in comparison. Outside there is a constant background noise of church bells, motor scooters and sirens and even the air seems thicker somehow with frequent wafts of cigarette smoke and drains; both of which smell strangely appealing in the hot climate. Austria is a place to do stuff but Italy is place to be on holiday. Don’t get me wrong, I do love Italy (well, at least the northern bit) but the downside is that nothing is ever simple here. I have mentioned before that doing even the most basic of tasks can be hard work when everything is unfamiliar but it is harder in Italy than anywhere else. I have many, many examples of being completely and utterly exasperated but my attempt to travel from the town of Arco to Milan to meet some friends sums everything up. Initially, I thought that I would get the train but when I went to Tourist Information and asked for train times, I was simply told that they couldn’t help me. I was not offered an explanation as to why Tourist Information could not give information to a tourist, it was just the way it was. I went to the train station but it was closed. I asked at the campsite reception and they looked on the internet for me but couldn’t understand what they saw. I gave up on the trains and I decided to drive but wanted to check that the campsite in Milan had availability. I tried to call the phone number shown on the campsite website but it was dead. I sent an e-mail to the address on the website but it was rejected. I tried the automated booking system but it didn’t work. In the end, I had spent nearly ten hours trying to find out how to get to Milan and had got nowhere. As it turned out, I took a chance and just drove anyway and it all worked out but, to this day, I am still struggling to accept that doing anything in Italy can - actually, not can, will - turn into an epic.

Anyway, the choice of Lake Iseo was partly because we had never been there before and partly because there was a Burstner dealership and, if you were thinking that the van was starting to behave, then please let me disenfranchise you of that opinion. Instead of peppering this update with the various failures, I’ll get it all over with in one go (oh, and whilst I am at it; fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking van!). As it stands today:

1. The ski locker door is so warped you can see daylight between it and the frame.

2. The main locker also leaks.

3. The alarm system on both lockers is knackered due to water damage.

4. The bathroom door handle keeps falling off.

5. The fridge has stopped automatically switching from electricity to gas.

6. The cruise control has decided to become intermittent.

7. The glass bathroom cabinet doors keep falling off their hinges and it is only a matter of time before they smash.

8. The main window won’t close properly so you have to go outside and perform the closing spell.

9. Something has gone wrong with the bed and it is now like sleeping on moving platform.

10. The interior lights are fading for a reason that defies scientific explanation.

11. The oven light doesn’t work.

It may surprise you to hear that the last point is the one that irks the most. They say that small things please small minds and I was thrilled with the oven light – I don’t know why, it was just cool and something the last van didn’t have – and now the fucking thing doesn’t work. I think it has become the embodiment of the injustice that I feel at having paid so much money for something that doesn’t work and nobody wants to fix. Anyway, you may remember that we had made a four-hour round trip to a Burstner service centre in Switzerland to have the leaking lockers assessed. They had promised to discuss the issue with Burstner and then agree a date for us to return to get the repairs done. Following our visit, they didn’t reply to our e-mails and, when I called them after two weeks, they hadn’t spoken to Burstner. When we got an e-mail to say that we needed to drive all the way back (now an eight-hour round trip) just so that the same person could look at the same problem again we got the hint that they were not inclined to help us so we tried Iseo. As it stands today, we have driven to the dealership twice and they have made some positive noises but the current state of play is that they claim that Burstner have not responded to their request so they cannot help us. So now we have a pattern of problems with the van, a lack of interest from the service centres in fixing it and a lack of interest from Burstner. Fucking van, fucking Burstner dealers, fucking Burstner.

OK, that out of my system, life in Pisogne continued. We discovered the local market, ate more ice cream, realised that Tourist Information was completely useless (compared to Austria this was a real shock – the girl who worked there didn’t know, and was unable to find out, whether or not a bus ran to the next village), ate more ice cream and I missed out on a firework display whilst trying to calm an extremely anxious Hilda. On 12th September we did something vaguely constructive and caught the ferry to Monte Isola (a large island in the middle of the lake) and walked around it. It was meant to be traffic free but nobody seemed to be taking any notice which made the stroll somewhat unrelaxing and, after a short walk of just nine kilometres, I slept all the way on the ferry back home. A few days later we took the train to the town of Iseo which was nice enough but didn’t have the cosy feel of Pisogne although we did meet a couple of Brits. at a bar who also had a Burstner motorhome and hated it with the same fevour as us so we spent a good hour or so comparing stories. It is interesting to note that, on our previous trips, you could often tell the nationality of a complete stranger most of the time by the way they looked and dressed but, now that the fashions have become much more widespread (rather disappointingly beards, tattoos and overweight kids are everywhere), it is harder to tell from just looking who is from where. There is one exception; you can spot Brits. from a mile away.

Back at the campsite we got chatting to a young German couple and spent a few evenings with them either having a drink outside the van (the view over the lake at night with the lights of the various small towns reflected in it made for real 'on holiday' evenings) or going into town for pizza. This was all good fun but, by now, we had been lounging around for nearly a fortnight and I was getting restless. We did a walk to the next village which was our first real exercise and was pleasant enough although pretty stressy at times due to the Italian penchant to keep guard dogs that go berserk as soon as they sense man or beast approaching so every time we passed one of the many small houses en route we were praying that the gates would be shut. Indeed, the further up the hill we went the more aggressive the "Beware of the dog" signs became until they evolved to say "Beware of the dog and the owner" and then started to show pictures of guns. It taught me one thing – if I ever want to break into a house in Italy, I need to be armed. Strangely enough, on the return leg we came across a heard of llamas but that is Italy for you. That weekend turned out to be the Gruppo Alpini Festival in Pisogne so there was a parade on the Friday evening and another larger one the following day. For a small town this was obviously a big thing and there were even a few TV cameras around but the whole event was uniquely Italian with dignitaries dressed in some very fancy regalia giving long speeches and the parade itself being made up of people who seemed to adhere to no standard dress code. Occasionally, the whole parade would have to stop when a delivery lorry would block the road and folk would get split off and then have to run to catch up with the others.

However, I was now really keen to do something climbing related so the next day we went to check out a local crag which involved a ferry to the next village and was not at all easy to find. When we did find it, Hilda was attacked by a cat and the Feng Shui of the climbing crag wasn’t right for Rachel so we went home and I planned to do the local via ferrata instead. As usual, information was very limited and I was basing my attempt on a map given to me by the campsite owner. The map was clearly ancient and looked like the sort of thing that you would use to find buried treasure. The type face was straight out of the Bayeux Tapestry and, if I could read Italian, I think some places were labelled "here there be dragons". When the free Wi-Fi breezed in for an hour, I found an Italian climbing website and used Google Translate in the hope of getting some better directions but the English version was almost impossible to understand (although "lethal meadows" and "extreme caution" were oft used phrases) aside from it being clear that the route was poorly way-marked. I also discovered a link to a You Tube video of the route taken from someone’s head camera which all looked pretty scary. That evening, I tried to talk my German pal into giving it a go but he was having none of it so the next day I caught the train to the next village (the mystery of whether a bus ran or not was never solved) and set off...

After about thirty minutes I was still in the village. It must have been comprised of less than a hundred houses but, as is the Italian way, there were no signs and my prehistoric map turned out to be as useless as it looked. I made numerous attempts to find the path but all failed. I was getting extremely frustrated running the gauntlet of barking dogs whilst seeking for clues as to where the path might be when I bumped into an old lady (the full-on Italian Grandma type complete with grey hair in a bun, black clothes and a moustache) and she ended up walking me to the start of the track. I was grateful but you kind of know that you are not having the best of mountain days when you need an old woman to point out the start. Anyway, I got going and was soon very much alone in the hills. I knew this for two reasons. Firstly there was only a very distant sound of strimming. Strimming is a national sport in Italy and you can never be more than one kilometre from a man strimming wherever you are in the country. Secondly, there was a distinct absence of human excrement and toilet paper. For a reason that I cannot explain the Italians have a conditioned reflex to shit whenever they get to a mountain path. Anyway, the walk did start to feel somewhat spooky as the path ran through woods and, despite being a long way from the next person, I began to imagine that I was being followed. This all stopped however when I came across the "lethal meadows". The path which had been in the trees throughout opened onto a grassy hillside which was at around ten to twenty degrees off vertical and fell to cliffs above the lake. I am not sure that I have ever been on grass so steep and I would definitely describe the terrain 'easy dangerous'. In climbing terms you can have easy (e.g. walking) or hard (e.g. rock climbing on an overhang) but you can also have safe (e.g. bolted rock climbing where you don’t hit the ground if you fall off) and dangerous (e.g. solo climbing where you die if you fall off). People often assume that hard is dangerous but this is often not the case and, what I was on, was the epitome of easy but dangerous. Anyway, the answer was to take care with each step and in just under three hours I reached the cabled section of the route. It was well worth it, the via ferrata part was easy and the cable (or, in this case, the chain) was hardly necessary (indeed it would have been far more helpful on the "lethal meadows") and, although the route was short, it offered fantastic views and a very satisfying route to the summit. I managed to get lost again on the summit - which was no easy feat when you are stood on a pinnacle – as typically the way off was not way-marked so I had to explore several false paths leading to oblivion before I found the route proper. Shortly afterwards I arrived on the summit of Corna Trentapassi (1,248m) to the surprise of the twenty or so people who had walked up from the other side and, with more luck than judgement, found my way back down again to Pisogne where I met Rachel for ice cream. I learned two things that day. One was that it is impossible not to get lost in Italy so it is better to accept it than to get wound up and the second was that Go Pro footage makes things look far worse than they are in reality which, having seen some horrifying videos of a certain mountain that one day I might consider climbing, made me feel a lot better.

Anyway, in the next few days we had a look at some more rock climbing which didn’t float Rachel’s boat either, ate more ice cream, went for a run between two villages on the lakeside, ate more ice cream, had a goodbye meal with our German friends and ate more ice cream. In the middle of all of this the campsite owner, knowing that I was interested in climbing, had called his friend who had told him that there was a newly constructed via ferrata starting from a relatively nearby village leading to the highest summit in the area so, on 24th September, Rachel and I set off in the van for the village of Zone. Having had some trouble parking, we typically couldn’t find the start of the route and then realised that we were actually in the wrong village altogether (apparently the Comune di Zone is not the same as the village of Zone). We eventually found the right starting place and set off along the "Path of Gnomes" which consisted of hundreds of carved wooden statues lining the path through the woods up the hillside. After around six hundred metres of ascent Rachel and Hilda turned back to the van and I continued up the hill. Remarkably the path was relatively well signed and after a further hour of uphill I got to the start of the via ferrata section. It was a direct route up a large cliff face and looked somewhat intimidating which, coupled with my lack of knowledge about the grade and the lack of a climbing partner to take the piss, did make me somewhat apprehensive but in the end it went OK. It was steep and exposed and had a number of slightly overhanging sections and it was most certainly something that I would have derived no pleasure from at the start of the season but the summer’s experience paid off and I quite enjoyed it in the end. Anyway, from there it was only an hour on to the summit of Monte Guglielmo (1,957m) where someone had built, not just a summit cross, but a full-on church (the congregation of which I can only assume is extremely fit). From there it was fourteen hundred metres back down and I got round to wondering how you can attempt a climb that is longer, higher and more technically difficult than Ben Nevis but consider it not much more than an afternoon stroll in Italy. I soon arrived at the obvious conclusion – the weather. In this country you can actually see where you are going. When I got back to Rachel, her day had been much more eventful, involving an encounter with a posse of motorcyclists, a man looking for a dog that we had both spotted earlier and another man with a gun.

Back in Pisogne, it was the first evening of the Mushroom and Chestnut Festival which was another huge event (for a small town these guys certainly knew how to throw a party) and the square was filled with stalls selling all sorts of local produce (albeit orientated towards the mushroom and chestnut side of things), fair rides and even a stage. We had a meal on the first evening and then spent the next day mooching around. Rather refreshingly, it was good to see that kids are actively encouraged to dick around on fair rides in Italy and, on the ride where the metal chairs hang down from chains and then rotate and swing out (you know the one) you actually got a prize if you could get your mate riding on the inside chair to push you out at a certain point on the circumference so that you could grab a feather hanging from a stand. This might all sound fairly benign but the feather was placed very high above the 'orbit' of the chairs so your mate needed to give you one hell of a swing and the return from the apex of that swing resulted in multiple chair collision mid-ride which everyone seemed to find great fun.

Anyway, by now our campsite had officially closed and we were one of a handful of folks still allowed to stay so we had a final day of life admin. then went into town for a final meal and then sat outside the van with a beer for a final night looking at the great view across the lake. The following day we first went to the Burstner dealership in an attempt to find our whether they would fix our van and then drove back to Pisogne for our last ice cream - only to find that the shop was closed. I felt like a heroin addict outside the house of his dealer with the full knowledge that the goods were inside but there was no way of getting to them. I seriously considered breaking in, stealing my last ice cream and leaving the money for the damage. It was obvious that I had developed somewhat of an addiction and, when we looked back and realised that we had spent over one hundred Euros on ice cream, the seriousness of our habit was apparent. In desperation I tried another shop but that was a huge mistake and so it was that on 27th September we left the lovely Pisogne with literally, but not at all metaphorically, a bad taste in our mouths.

Photos: Update 5

rachelsimonanddog — Sun, 13 Nov 2016 17:00:00 GMT

Update 4: Goodbye Austria

rachelsimonanddog — Mon, 31 Oct 2016 18:00:00 GMT

21. Paznaun Valley, Austria (22nd – 23rd August):

The only other thing of note that we did in Ischgl since the last update was a walk from the van to the small lake Bergli. Rachel had had her eye on it since we arrived but it involved a sustained steep climb and decent so she was worried about being able to make it but the morning of 23rd August was bright and fresh so we went for it. In youth terms she 'smashed it' and the lake, which is often used in publicity photographs, was worth the effort.

22. St. Anton, Austria (24th August – 5th September):

Having done pretty much all we wanted to do in Ischgl we headed off down the valley and then up into the Arlberg valley to St. Anton which is a ski resort that I have been to previously but was not that taken with at the time. Anyway, en route Rachel spotted a mountain hut in a stunning location high above the valley and commented on how great it would be to stay there. When we got to St. Anton, we had a mooch around the town then found ourselves a nice campsite and a plot by a mountain stream (ideal for the Hilda whom, by now, was refusing tap water and drinking only from fresh sources). The following day we did a much longer than expected circular walk from the village of St. Christoph to the Kaltenberg Hut.

The 26th August was our 'anniversary' (not of our wedding but of our first date when Rachel crashed my new motorbike) but the weather was fantastic so I decided to do the Alberger Via Ferrata which is reputed to be the longest sport via ferrata in the Alps as well as the one of the most pretty and most difficult (although I have been to so many ski resorts claiming to have the longest/steepest/hardest/baddest black run in the Alps that I take such claims with a pinch of salt). To be honest though, I underestimated it somewhat and left relatively late in the morning so, by the time I had caught the two lifts and walked in I knew that I would be pushing it to make the last lift back down. It turned out that the route was indeed very long with three kilometres of cable and quite tricky in places but my biggest problem was that I had forgotten my gloves. After just half an hour of climbing I had managed to acquire seven blisters on my computer soft hands and, when one ripped open and left a large chunk of skin attached to the cable, I knew that I was in for a painful experience. On the summit of the first peak, I dug out my first aid kit and taped up my rather raw hands and resolved to use the cable as little as possible. One of the downsides to climbing on your own is that, in the absence of a distraction, you tend to focus on the pain so the remaining four hours of climbing were not the most pleasant but all was well with the world when I arrived at the lift back down to find that, although it actually closed fifteen minutes earlier than advertised, I had made it - albeit more by luck than judgement - with less than two minutes to spare. I had overtaken several groups on the route and I was relieved that I did not have the two thousand metres of decent that they were now going have to do at the end of their long climb. To make things even sweeter, I even got a “hello” and a smile from a group of Hasidic Jews coming up the lift in the opposite direction which was very much out of character from my previous experience and led me to assume that their outburst of friendliness was a consequence of also having made the very last lift and thereby extracting the absolute maximum possible value from their lift pass.

We spent the next week or so doing small walks, the odd run, shopping for new boots for me and taking trips on the lifts to use our passes (basically anything that didn’t involve me using my hands as I had accumulated fifteen blisters in total some of which turned out to have blisters underneath the blisters). From our campsite we could see the same hut that Rachel had spied from the drive in and during the course of our stay, its’ appeal to her seemed to grow stronger. We had assumed that the huts would not take dogs overnight but, upon enquiry, we found that they did and, to our amazement also learned that having a dog in tow entitled you to a private room – I wasn’t aware that such things even existed. So we bit the bullet and planned a three-day walk overnighting in two huts with the latter being the one we could see. The walk was a two-day section of the thirty three stage Eagle’s Trail (the whole of which involves a mere thirty one thousand metres of ascent and is four hundred and thirteen kilometres long) with the second day being a technically difficult and exposed outing so we packed the rope and some climbing kit to be on the safe side.

The morning of 2nd September was a fantastic clear day but I departed in a foul mood primarily because my rucksack was so heavy I could hardly lift it which will teach me to pack after a beer (I think that the alcohol gave me a slightly exaggerated view of my own strength). Anyway, we caught the bus and then two lifts and set off walking. In fairness, my mood lightened as I got used to the weight of the pack and the weather and the views were perfect. We stopped at the Leutkircher Hut for a hot chocolate and then pressed on to the Kaiserjoch Hut where we would be staying. On arrival we were shown our private room - which turned out to be more of a mouse hole being only two foot high at one end with a sloping roof rising to a positively roomy five foot at the other - but at least it was just the three of us and I calculated that the toilet was only serving fifteen people which, in comparison to some huts, made that almost private too. We were both feeling great, the walk had been lovely, the weather beautiful, I had not collapsed under the weight of my pack and the hut was friendly and cosy. We had arrived earlier than expected so I made the most of the fine day to climb two nearly by peaks (the Griesskopf at 2,581m and the Malatschkopf at 2,368m) which turned out to be an extremely weird experience because, without the weight of the pack, the sensation of walking uphill was akin to someone pushing me from behind – indeed the ascent felt so easy that I had to concentrate to stop myself from overbalancing. When I got back, Rachel was on the terrace and told me that she had spoken to one lady who said that the route the following day was not suitable for dogs and one chap who had tried the route but turned around because it was too dangerous. She was clearly having second thoughts but we were soon joined by a German couple, Manfred and Maike, and got chatting. The beer went down very well and Manfred (who turned out to be a full-on, bona fide, commune dwelling, money sharing, long haired hippy) and Maike were great company. When it got too cold to sit on the terrace we moved inside and found a cosy corner and continued chatting. I am not sure how much we had had to drink by the time we went to bed but it was a lot and the result was that the four of us would do the walk together the next day.

The next day turned out to be another beautiful mountain day but the hangovers were significant and Rachel was very nervous at the prospect of what was to come. Nonetheless, we set off and a combination of not wanting to bail out in front of an audience and lots of support and guidance from Manfred got Rachel past the first few exposed gullies. I don’t think that the walk could ever be described as relaxing as, for the most part, the path was traversing steep mountain side or crossing dangerous gullies but Rachel (and Hilda) made a sterling job and when we passed the last technical section we all had a lie down in the afternoon sunshine. After a short nap, we made the final pull up to the Ansbacher Hut and had a drink on the terrace. In the next ten minutes a somewhat tired Rachel managed to drop Hilda’s lead which resulted in a public telling off from the hut owner who was afraid that Hilda would attack their enormous free-roaming pet rabbit (for the record, in a fight between that rabbit and Hilda, Hilda would have had no chance) and then nearly broke both ankles trying to walk in the clogs that were the alternate footwear of choice when in the hut (clog induced injuries being somewhat ironic after the potential hazards of the walk). Shortly after our evening meal, we were treated to a stunning sunset which the location of the hut allowed people to experience to full effect. Rachel went to bed (this time our room was a relatively spacious affair with a window and views across the valley) and I stayed up chatting with Maike and Manfred.

The following day we said our goodbyes to Manfred and Maike (we will be seeing them again – although they both claim that the commune is not what it used to be so I will not be breaking out the kaftan for a while) and set off downhill. We skipped breakfast at the Ansbacher Hut as we knew that we would pass the Fritz Hut en route where we had eaten frankfurters and chips on a previous walk so we did the same again. The weather was again perfect with crisp feel to the air and a deep blue sky and by lunchtime we were back at the campsite where Hilda was met by two of her dog mates who had been waiting for her to return. After a manic session of chase involving lots of jumping into the stream she had to call it a day (this is the first time that I have seen Hilda actually give up) and Rachel and I treated ourselves to pizza for tea.

The following day we awoke to snow in the hills which was forecasted but still came as a surprise and we could see the Ansbacher Hut (with Manfred and Maike still staying there) now nestled in a winter setting. It was 5th September, the lifts had closed and we needed the heating on at night for the first time so we decided to extend the summer for as long as possible and head to the Italian lakes for some sun and well earned rest after our the summer in the hills.

Photos: Update 4

rachelsimonanddog — Mon, 31 Oct 2016 17:00:00 GMT

Update 3: Getting Going

rachelsimonanddog — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:00:00 GMT

13. Molveno, Italy (28^th June – 30^th June):

We left the lovely Lake Idro and headed for Molveno which is another Italian lake but this time in the Dolomites. The town of Molveno was nice enough but, it now being high season, the campsite was expensive so after a mooch around we found a large lay-by on the road leading to the town and decided to base ourselves there. This turned out to be a smart move, not just because it was free and the view over the lake and on to the mountains was stunning, but at night the air was filled with fire flies doing their glowing thing – I have never seen this spectacle before but it was a genuine treat and something that I will remember forever.

The following day we walked the sixteen kilometres around the lake and had a picnic by a smaller lake nearby and the day after we took the gondola and then chair lift up into the Brenta Dolomites and did a circular walk taking in two mountain huts before returning back to the town. It was a great walk with beautiful wild flowers in a hidden valley and an interesting descent path though an ancient forest which had the added benefit of being cool in the afternoon heat.

It was also a day of firsts for Hilda. She had been on her first gondola and her first chair lift, she had been to her first mountain hut and she did, by accident, her first via ferrata. In fairness we had spotted a short cabled section of the path on the map but checked at the hut and they said that it would be fine. We took the section in descent and it didn’t seem to be too bad but we passed two Germans mid-way who were clinging to the cable and looking at us with complete disbelief. We had assumed that they were just inexperienced walkers but, when we got to the end of the cabled section and looked back, we could see what we couldn’t see coming down but they could see going up – the drop from the three foot wide path was four hundred metres directly into the valley below and looked the most unlikely place to be walking your dog (before anyone reports us to the RSPCA, Hilda was wearing a full harness and was roped to me so, had she taken a dive off the edge, she wouldn’t have gone far).

14. Lago di Tovel, Italy (1^st July):

Although Molveno was nice, access to the mountains was limited so we decided to head towards Madonna di Campiglio, a town in the valley on the other side of the range. It is always remarkable how far you have to drive in the mountains to get somewhere that is only a few miles away as the crow flies and en route Rachel spotted a white road on the map leading up into the mountains so we decided to follow it. To our surprise it ended in a toll but for €9 we were told we could stay the night. We parked in a small clearing and then walked a few hundred metres where the path led up to a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains on all sides. It was indeed a lovely spot and we spent the afternoon walking around the lake and throwing sticks into it for Hilda.

15. Madonna di Campiglio, Italy (2^nd – 12^th July):

After a run around the lake in the morning we continued our journey to Madonna di Campiglio. We had been there on a previous trip but it was late November then and, although the mountains were spectacular to look at with their early snow covering and crystal clear blue sky behind them, the lifts and huts were closed so there was no practical way to get into them. We found a campsite down the valley and spent a few days doing some life admin. and some walking (the highlight being the very impressive waterfalls along the sides of Val Genova) and we even spent an afternoon rock climbing at a nearby crag which was the first climbing of the trip. But I was keen to get into the big mountains that I had wanted to be in since I saw them ten years ago and with Rachel not being keen on via ferrata and the need for someone to look after the dog, I either went on my own or hired a guide. Ten years ago I would never have even considered a guide especially for a via ferrata but these were big hills and going alone can be a very bad idea so I walked in the Guide Office at 6.00pm on 5^th and by 6.30pm I walked out having booked a two-day, thirty kilometre, four thousand metre climb taking in four of the most famous routes in the region.

That evening I didn’t sleep too well. It was only a via ferrata but the middle-aged demons were taunting. The routes were towards the hardest grading in the guidebook. Was I fit enough? What if I couldn’t handle the exposure? What if I slipped on the unprotected sections? What if the weather changed – being strapped to metal cables on a committing route high up in an environment prone to storms is never good? Why was it that I now thought about these things when not long ago (in my mind) the only emotion would have been excitement?

Anyway, at 5.30am I met my guide who was a nice chap with good English and conversation flowed easily and by 6.00am we were walking into the hills. It turned out that my fitness was actually good and we made good time to the first hut. The next section was a glacier crossing and by now the sun had come around so the views were spectacular and it felt good to be back in crampons with their reassuring bite into the hard snow. We reached the col where I could see all the way into the valley we had been walking in from Molveno a week or so earlier and clipped into the first cables. The route and views were superb – ladders, narrow ledges (often no more than a few feet wide with six hundred metres of vertical drop off the side) and paths with every corner giving a new view of the dramatic Dolomitic rock pillars. It was all so comfortable that I was just wondering whether I should have tried to have done it alone when we turned a corner to find the route completely covered in snow from a storm the previous evening. I have had some unpleasant experiences in snow gullies and I know for sure that walking across them is an extremely dangerous proposition as the consequence of one slip (very easy on steep fresh snow) is an unstoppable slide to oblivion. Had I been on my own, I would have had no option but to turn around, but with two people and a rope you can cross safely. Interestingly, as the rules say that the guide has to be behind the client, I was the one who had to cross the gully first! Anyway, the gully was crossed and the route continued. We were making good time so we decided to take in a summit and then resumed the route which led past several more snow filled gullies back onto a glacier and then onto the hut where we would stay the night. We were two hours early and I had enjoyed every minute. I was fit enough and I was fine with the exposure which was a huge boost to my confidence and a real knock to the middle-age demons from the previous night.

Now, if you ever see mountain huts they always look idyllic. They are set in dramatic environments yet appear cosy and friendly. Staying in them is a completely different story. They generally have two temperature settings; arctic and tropical and you sleep (although sleep is a little too optimistic) in dormitories with bunks crammed in, often three deep and end to end. The rooms vibrate to the sound of snoring, farting and people getting up for a piss and, to top it all, the usual ratio is one toilet per fifty people. Fortunately, our hut was a remarkably civilised affair and we were in a room of just four people and, despite a party of fifty or so Italian school kids staying in the floor above and making the kind of noise that only a party of fifty Italian school kids can make, I slept well.

In the morning, I woke early for a strategic shit (i.e. the time before folk start queuing outside the door and knocking if you’re taking too long) and we were out onto another glacier by 7.00am. The second day was also perfect weather and went as well as the first. There were some great views of the Campanile Basso and again we were moving quickly so we took in an extra col with some more great views, had lunch at another hut and took a beautiful path through waterfalls back to the car. To top off the day, a couple that I had met in the hut also did the same route as us and were staying in the same campsite so they popped round in the evening. They were a very interesting pair with some great stories and the evening was really enjoyable.

It had been an expensive trip and, in hindsight, I would have been fine to have done it with anyone competent but I didn’t have a partner and, looking back, I don’t regret the hiring the guide at all. There were no dramas, no ‘moments’ and no “Oh fuck!” situations that seemed to occur far too frequently whilst climbing on the last trip and my confidence had grown as a result. I had had a great time and the cost will be forgotten but the memories will stay forever.

The following days were spent doing more walks in the area with Rachel and Hilda. On one walk we stopped at hut for a drink when one of the young cows coming down the hill managed to get onto the terrace. The hut owner was struggling to persuade the beast to leave the premises so Rachel (with her more direct approach to animal management) helped out and the young cow realised that she had met her match. On another day we took Hilda on her first official via ferrata; it was called the VF Attrezzato Umberto Bozzetto and was listed in the guidebook. She managed it very well and her tendency to relax when hanging in her harness made it easy for us to manager her when she had to be lowered or lifted.

That evening, admittedly after the odd glass of wine too many, we went to bed with the van windows open. There was the usual storm in the night and we awoke to find standing water in the locker beneath the window so the day was spent drying the kit that was in it. We must have looked like we had come back from a monster expedition because tents, sleeping bags, axes and climbing gear were strewn all around our plot on the campsite. Unfortunately when we checked the following day, the gear was wet again and we realised that our locker was leaking from the outside. Fucking van!

16. Trento, Italy (13^th – 14^th July):

A leak in a motorhome is not good so we decided to head to the nearest Burstner service partner which was in the town of Trento. It turned out to be a rather hectic day. Trento was further away than we had anticipated and we spent ages finding the dealership. When we got there they hit the locker with a hammer, had several internal arguments but the net output was that the leak was worse and they had broken the alarm sensor on the locker. This in turn screwed up the whole alarm system which led to a two-hour conversation with the makers of the alarm in the UK just to stop the damn thing from constantly going off. In the process we discovered that Hilda had picked up a tick on her face which had swollen up to the extent that she needed to see a vet. We left the dealership at 7.00pm and stayed the night in a car park.

The following day we returned to the dealership. I phoned an ex-work colleague in Italy and she was able to translate so we left the van and went in search for a vet. We eventually found one using a combination of Google Maps and following a man with a cat in a cage. Luck was on our side as the vet saw us without the required appointment and the man with the cat spoke English so could translate. The swelling had gone down a lot and the vet said that we were best to leave things. We went back to the dealership to find that somehow they had actually fixed the leak (albeit they said that it was temporary). Things were looking up so we headed into Trento and had a nice afternoon mooching round the town and then sat in a bar in the main square watching chaos unfold as a group of folk attempted to set up for some sort of cycling event in the middle of rush hour. We resolved that I would do a local via ferrata the next day then we would come into Trento again to enjoy an evening meal in the relaxed atmosphere.

The following day we drove to the via ferrata and parked in the car park nearby. It was slightly windy and Rachel was setting up the van whilst I packed my kit. The next thing we heard was a very loud bang and we both looked up to see the sky roof (a two foot by four foot window in the roof of the van) sail a few yards in front of the van then smash on the tarmac. We now had a two foot by four foot hole in the roof and the biggest problem of the trip so far. Fucking van!

We drove (very carefully) to the dealer in Trento that we had been to previously but, unfortunately, we were not welcome. The owner simply said “Nicht Italian” (I am not sure to this day whether this referred to us, the van or the sky roof) and told us to go to another dealer. The owner was the person who had argued with the person who fixed the leaking locker previously and we deduced that he was not happy with his staff doing unscheduled work on our van in preference to addressing the needs of the regular customers. One thing is for certain, he was certainly not going to help us out this time.

We drove to the place that we were sent to. They were helpful but they were not Burstner dealers and could do nothing to order new parts. They did give us a ladder, some gaffer tape and some heavy duty bubble wrap and Rachel and I spent the next two hours trying to cover the hole. Of course it was a Friday afternoon (it always is when these things happen) and when we phoned the UK dealer (from whence we bought the van) we were told that Burstner close on Friday afternoon so we would just have to wait until Monday for any news. We phoned the insurers and they said that they could do nothing other than pay for one night in a hotel! We crossed our fingers that the gaffer tape and bubble wrap would hold and limped to the nearest campsite.

17. Camping Largo di Lamar, Italy (15^th – 18^th July):

The nearest campsite was not good. It was expensive, the internet didn’t work, the showers were cold and it was rammed with kids and there are few sounds more grating than the laughter of children playing on a hot summer afternoon. The temporary fix had started to come apart and we knew it would not be watertight so the following day we took the bus back to Trento, walked to an OBI (a sort of European B & Q) and bought lots and lots of gaffer tape. Temperatures were in the late thirties and the whole trip took most of the day. The following day we parked the van near a high wall (so that I could reach the sky roof) by the toilet block in the centre of the campsite and set about making a more permanent fix. Two hours, one hundred and thirty metres of gaffer tape and two internal cupboard shelves later we had the best fix that I could manage in what was now getting on for forty degrees of heat (the gaffer tape got so hot that you couldn’t touch it after putting it on). That afternoon we walked to the lake which was a hot and crowded affair and that evening I went to a mountain festival which ended pretty much when I got there.

The following day was Monday and, when the news eventually came from the UK dealership, they told us that there were no replacement parts in stock at Burstner and it would be six weeks until we would be able to get a part. They also told us that they had the right contacts in Burstner and that there would be no point in us calling Burstner directly and they said that it would not be a warranty claim and that it was going to be a very costly to repair. I was somewhat despondent. There was no guarantee that the gaffer tape would even keep out the rain and it certainly would not hold up to lots of driving. However, Rachel took to the internet and after some digging discovered that someone else had suffered the same problem and had taken their van to the Burstner head office near Strasbourg who had sorted it. She found a number for Burstner customer services and I gave them a call. After a couple of conversations, it turned out that they had four replacement parts in stock and, if we drove there, we could have one. OK, Strasbourg was six hundred kilometres away but this was fantastic news. We resolved to leave when the prison gates were opened at 6.30am the following morning.

18. Kehl, Germany (19^th – 20^th July):

We left bang on 6.30am and made good progress initially but then got stuck behind lorries on the single carriageway mountain section between Innsbruck and Garmisch. It looked like we would still make it but the motorway to Strasbourg was blocked due to crash and the alternative route took us four hours. In the end, we didn’t make it on time but our Burstner contact told us the head office had its’ own campsite and we were welcome to stay. The temperatures had gone above forty degrees, we had eaten our first MacDonald’s since we went away and had driven for twelve hours so we were not in the best of moods when we arrived (although, miraculously, the gaffer tape held up to the drive). However, the camping place turned out to be just in front of the main head office and had electricity and good showers. We got talking to a French couple who were parked next to us and ended up spending a pleasant evening with them sharing beer, wine and salami. The also gave us some good advice, not the least of which was to get to the service centre early.

The following day we were waiting outside of the doors of the service centre for them to open at 8.00am and when they did they confirmed that the parts were in stock, it was indeed a warranty issue and they would have the van sorted by 4.00pm. This was fantastic news, not only was the problem covered under warranty but they would actually fix it - we would have been happy just to have been given the replacement part. Moreover, there was a free breakfast provided for people who were having repairs made. It seemed too good to be true. We had the breakfast with our French friends and had a laugh about a couple who were also staying in the Burstner camping car park the previous evening. I did wonder why they were not in a Burstner motorhome and it turned out that they were just there to use the free facilities and were somewhat aggrieved not to get the free breakfast - apparently people from Marseille “have no shame”. After breakfast we walked into the next village and back again and had a three course lunch at a nice hotel for €8 per head then returned to the head office and waited in the reception. All the time we were waiting for the call to tell us that there was a problem but the phone didn’t ring. In the reception we met two very friendly Norwegian and Danish families who were also having problems (interestingly one was leaking lockers). At 4.00pm we went back to the service centre and the doors opened to reveal a van looking exactly as it had before the sky roof blew off. We simply couldn’t believe it. At the very least I had expected the gaffer tape which had melted onto the roof to have permanently damaged the paintwork but somehow they had managed to get the glue off. No stock of parts, a six week wait and the prospect of paying over a thousand pounds for a replacement was in reality four replacement parts in stock, a four day wait and a warranty job. We couldn’t have asked for more. We tipped the mechanic, bought four boxes of chocolates for the head office staff and wrote a thank you e-mail to our contact in customer services. The van might not be great but the customer service at the head office cannot be faulted, without them we would still have a hole in the roof today.

That afternoon we headed for a nearby campsite on the banks of the Rhine. It was forty five degrees and the mosquitoes were ferocious as the evening came but we could not have been happier.

19. Montafon Valley, Austria (21^st July – 11^th August):

In the morning we had a long walk with Hilda along the Rhine. We had wanted to walk to Strasbourg but it was simply too hot to do anything and we were both covered in mosquito bites so we decided to head back to the Alps rather than suffer another night of being eaten alive. We resolved to head for Ischgl as it is a popular ski area and we thought that it would have some good summer walking and climbing but by now it was full-on high season and the roads were busy. It took us two hours to drive along Lake Konstanz (we even tried a few campsites by the lakeside as we were pretty tired but everywhere was rammed) so we pushed on towards Ischgl but stopped at the first campsite we could find. It turned out to be in the small town of Tschagguns and we told the manager that we would stay one or two nights but we ended up staying on and off for nearly three weeks. To date, the Montafon valley is my favourite place on earth and we loved our time there...

On our first morning we awoke to the sound of ski jumping which is not your average start to the day and far louder than you might think. Opposite the campsite were four dry-slope ski jumps ranging from relatively small to full size and they were being used by a French team - the oldest member of which looked to be in his early teens at the most. What strikes you is that, when you see a ski jumper from a front-on perspective, you realise that they are simply in freefall which is not at all how it looks on the TV. We watched them for a while and then headed into the centre of the adjacent town of Schruns and went into Tourist Information to ask about walking and climbing in the area. The response was amazing, we were handed a full OS map, a booklet of all of the via ferrata in the area (there being eighteen of them in total), a booklet on the rock climbing crags and some suggested walks. On previous trips, such information has been closely guarded by the Guide Office in an attempt to force you to use their services but here we had everything we could ask for in a few handouts. That evening we went for a run by the river up the valley which was ideal for Hilda and, the following day, given the very favourable weather forecast we bought a pair of very reasonably priced lift passes and did our first walk in idyllic Heidi-esque scenery. It was a beautiful walk and all was good with the world until we got back to the motorhome to find an engine warning light had decided to spoil the day. A quick check with the manual told us that we needed to get to a Fiat garage as soon as possible. Fucking van!

The following day, the manager of the campsite drove us to the nearest Fiat garage and we were also accompanied by the son of the owner of the campsite who could speak English. It turned out that the campsite owner also owned the best hotel in the area, a five hundred year old restaurant and private mountain hut and was clearly a senior figure in the community. During the day we got the news that the van could not be fixed so the campsite owner himself drove us to the dealership to apply a little pressure. It turned out that either the UK dealership or Burstner (it depends on who you ask) had not registered the vehicle with Fiat so there was no warranty cover but at least the van was deemed OK to drive so we could get back to walking and climbing.

And that is exactly what we did. We spent some nights on the campsite and others free camping in different valleys. We spend a few days in Lunersee where we walked around the large reservoir on one day and then did the very exposed Saulakopf (2,517m) the next with Hilda being somewhat the centre of attention as one of the few dogs to venture into such terrain. From Vandans we did the Kreuzjock (2,398m) and from Gargellen we did the Riedkoph (2,552m). The weather was generally lovely and, on the days when we weren’t doing the big walks, we spent our time running by the river, rock climbing (usually at the very sunny crag by the reservoir at Latschau) and I did eight of the via ferrata in the area (all of which were of excellent quality) when Rachel was resting - on one occasion, I was even privileged to meet one of the two guides who had constructed them whilst climbing his route. In the evenings we sometimes treated ourselves to meals out (including one at the restaurant owned by the campsite owner) and even went to a mountain bike festival where we discovered that Hilda is also afraid of live music. Aside from the fantastic scenery, the atmosphere of the place was friendly and welcoming, people left their keys in their cars when they were going on long walks as it was safer than to risk loosing them on the walk itself and expensive mountain bikes were left unlocked all around the town. Even stranger was that groups of teenage boys would always say "hello" when they passed you in the street. I know that this is not the real world but it is a bubble that I would be very happy to live in for as long as it lasts.

On one occasion I met a very friendly and charismatic guide called Martin who was working with a group of kids whilst we were climbing at the crag in Latschau. We got chatting and somehow we ended up agreeing to climb a mountain called Zimba (2,643m) together. I think that he was keen on the prospect as he offered his services for less than half the normal price and I am not sure why I was so keen on that particular mountain but the fact that it was known as the Matterhorn of Montafon may have had something to do with it. I met Martin at 7.00am a few days hence and three hundred metres of ascent, six hundred meters of easy via ferrata and three hundred meters of rock climbing later we were on the summit. Martin turned out to be excellent company, he spoke five languages fluently and would best be described as an eccentric genius. He was very encouraging of my “climbing revival” as he called it and chose a ‘classic route’ which meant that the type of rock climbing was a strenuous combination of thrutching and squirming not favoured by modern climbers and never favoured by me but he let me lead a pitch and the whole route was climbed well and, overall, it added to my growing confidence - the only exception being a mistake I made on the descent from the summit...

...We were able to walk from the top but had to abseil down the rock pitches and, as I waited for Martin to free the rope, a shout from above was swiftly followed by the sound of a large rock whistling past my ear. The party above had dislodged it with their rope which is normal but I had just unclipped from the anchor before clipping into the abseil ropes so was not attached to the mountain at all when it happened. A chap who was in my college at University was killed in our first year in exactly this type of accident and my error in unclipping before being set up for the abseil ranks as the most stupid thing that I have done on the trip so far.

Needless to say the only obstacle to our enjoyment of the Montafon valley was the van. Aside from our engine warning light issue, as we sat in the van on a rainy evening on the campsite the alarm went off. We recognised the problem very quickly from our experience in Trento – water had clearly got into the van and into the alarm sensor. Sure enough, the ski locker door was so warped that you could see daylight coming through from the inside. We disconnected the alarm sensor and added it to the collection of broken bits and, after e-mailing our contact at Burstner head office, realised that our next stop would have to be another Burstner service centre just as soon as one opened after their summer holidays. Fucking van!

By 7^th August, our lift passes had expired so we drove to the town of Feldkirch where the campsite owner had arranged for us to go a Fiat dealership owned by his friend. The following day we were indeed expected and the engine issue was fixed within a few hours, thus proving that knowing the right people can make life much simpler. From Feldkirch we drove on to the town of Zizers in Switzerland where the nearest Burstner service centre was due to re-open the following day. When we arrived we were surprised to find someone working there who told us that we could stay on the site and we soon found ourselves parked directly in front of a brothel which was next door to the dealership. We were a little nervous as we didn’t quite know what to expect but the night passed without incident and the following day the owner of the dealership and his English speaking daughter viewed our leaking locker. They had clearly seen the issue before but not on this type of van so it was agreed that they would speak to Burstner when they returned from their summer break to agree what needed to be done and then they would contact us to agree a date for the repair. They were friendly and helpful but as it stands today we still have a five millimetre gap in the locker and we cannot go too far away from Zizers as we will need to go back there to get it fixed. Fucking van!

Anyway, that day we drove on to famed ski resort of Klosters but really couldn’t see the appeal that Royal Family see in it so we drove back to Montafon (interestingly we could have walked there in five hours and the drive took two). The following day was wet so I decided to do a via ferrata which, due to its altitude, turned out to be a very snowy experience. Unsurprisingly, I was the only one on the route and it did feel rather strange climbing in August in the snow but, what did surprise me given the weather, was a call from Martin saying that I was welcome to join a party that he was guiding to climb Piz Buin (the highest mountain in the region at 3,312m) the following day.

I met Martin at 5.00am the following morning and we drove to the col at the top of the valley. He was meeting his two clients in the hut six kilometres and four hundred meters of ascent away so I set off walking and he set off by bicycle. I was completely alone in the mountains and the place looked and felt like Scotland in the winter. It had just stopped snowing and in the very early dawn the white mountains looked sinister but beautiful in equal measure. An hour and a quarter later, I met martin and his clients at the hut and by 7.15am we were the last of the parties to depart. The route involved a few miles of walking ascent followed by a few miles of glacier ascent to the west ridge. The ridge itself would have been straightforward in usual summer conditions but, in the snow, it was a little more interesting. It was exposed and there were two rock pitches but it was nice to be climbing in crampons for the first time in a long time and, despite starting late, we were the second party to get to the top. From the summit the views weren’t great due to the cloud but it was certainly atmospheric. I was asked to lead the descent (reversing the rock pitches, the ridge and the glacier) and I was rather glad of the responsibility and fortunately didn’t make too bad a job of it. We were back to the hut by 3.30pm and I headed off down the valley again to catch the bus home (it always strikes me as bizarre that you can climb a big Alpine mountain in the snow and ice and still get the bus home). Overall, it was a super day, I had been on the move for twelve hours, covered over twenty kilometres and just under fourteen hundred metres of ascent so I was pleased at my fitness but overall there were no dramas and my mountain confidence took another step in the right direction (that said, one slight thing did go wrong; the weather improved towards the end of the day and I managed to get sunburnt on a mountain that gave it’s name to the most famous sun cream in the world - that’s irony for you). The only thing that slightly spoiled the day were Martin’s two clients – they barely said hello, didn’t thank me for stopping one of them falling backwards, ate my Haribos without even a grunt of gratitude and the one in front of me farted regularly which is just not cricket when you are tied together on a rope for hours on end.

20. Silvretta Pass, Austria (12^th – 15^th August):

After treating ourselves to a pizza that night, the following day we said our goodbyes and left the campsite for good. We headed up the valley to where Martin had parked the car on the previous day and had a walk around the reservoir. We stayed on the col that night and watched a round Austria cycle race pass though. One guy could hardly stand when he reached the top and we were both amazed to see that, fifteen minutes later, his team put him back on his bike to cycle down the other side – I hope he made it.

The following day was Rachel’s birthday. A man in a green mankini ran past for some completely unknown reason and we did a great walk to Radsattal (2,652m) which offered superb views of Piz Buin and involved a steep snow gully and a huge boulder field crossing on the return leg which Hilda loved. The next day involved a walk to the Bielerkoph (2,389m) and the discovery that the fridge was at fourteen degrees. After throwing away a lot of food, we tracked the problem down to the angle at which the van was parked. This was an issue that used to affect old motorhomes but we had no such dramas with the old van so had assumed the issue to have been sorted. Apparently not. Fucking van!

On the 15^th August, we drove down the other side of the pass and I did the Silvapark via ferrata to the handsom looking summit of the Ballunspitze (2,671m) which was probably one of the best via ferratas that I have ever done and, in the early evening, the three of us took a walk around the Silvrettastausee reservoir with its’ abundance of wild flowers and then spent the night free camping and were treated to a dusk visit from a fox and a dear – I really don’t mind that sort of uninvited guest.

21. Paznaun Valley, Austria (16^th August – 21st August):

The following day we headed to the well known ski resort of Ischgl. We had mooch around the town and following a visit to Tourist Information we discovered that there was a campsite for €10/night just up the road and that staying in the area entitled you to a Silvretta Card that gave you free use of all public transport, all lifts and a host of other things. They also gave us a free OS map of the region and a book of walks! We found the campsite and it all seemed to be too good to be true but it turned out that there was no catch. In fairness, the area was not that pretty as the landscape did not have the natural beauty of the Montafon valley and the terrain was badly scarred by lifts and pistes. Moreover, there was only one local lift open and it was clear that the area was predominantly winter focussed. However, we did some running, a walk from the lift and I did a via ferrata and also joined a walk organised by Tourist Information to climb three, three thousand metre peaks in a day. It was led by a guide and there were only four other people aside from me which was fantastic value for €15!

As a footnote, it is interesting that all of the European ski areas are developing their summer season, not least because the snow in the winter season is becoming increasingly unreliable. Aside from opening lifts, building via ferratae and opening mountain bike and walking trails, the Austrians in particular are targeting the less obvious holiday makers. A few years ago, Rachel and I had a weeks’ summer holiday in Zell am See and were surprised to see many Arabs doing the same thing and we were told that the area had decided to cater for the Muslim market to boost summer trade (as there is a glacier there, you can ski in the morning and I have a clear memory of a lady in a burka photographing me skiing in mid-summer using a pink IPhone). In the Paznaun valley, they have aimed their marketing at the other end of the religious divide and, apparently, there are over four thousand Hasidic Jews in the area which, just as with the Muslims in Zell am See, does seem slightly incongruous as the mountain communities are not usually known for their cosmopolitan demographic. Interestingly, my experience in Zell am See was that the locals were less than friendly towards their guests but in Ischgl the guests seemed to be less than friendly toward the locals and, for a bunch of people on holiday, they seemed a very miserable crowd and I have to say that I didn't get one reciprocal ‘hello’ (or even a smile) at the bus stop nor an apology for being pushed out of the way at the supermarket. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how it all evolves but, one thing is for certain; the Austrians are very aware of the imminent end to skiing in Europe which really makes you realise that the climate is changing - and changing very quickly.

Photos: Update 3

rachelsimonanddog — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 17:00:00 GMT

Update 2: Getting Started

rachelsimonanddog — Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:00:00 GMT

1. Leaving England (30^th April – 27^th May):

The month between leaving work and leaving England proved to be considerably more hectic than either I or Rachel had expected. With hindsight there were two primary reasons for this. The first reason is that when you have spent a long time doing a job that involves spending lots of other people’s money, you get used to the people that you are spending the money with doing what you want them to do and trying their best to rectify things if they screw up. It came as somewhat as a shock to realise that when I spent my own money, the people that I spent it with didn’t do what I wanted and didn’t give a monkey's that I wasn’t happy when their service didn’t do what it was meant to do - they also seemed to be fully aware that there was nothing that I could do about it. By way of an example I phoned my motorcycle insurance company to ask about insurance whilst I was away. I waited for twenty minutes and when someone answered they said that they couldn’t answer my question as I was not in their renewal cycle. I decided not to bother with the insurance but a few days later got a letter telling me that my policy would automatically be renewed. I called again and waited for thirty minutes this time and the person who answered simply told me that there was nobody available to take my call and I would get a call back within twenty fours hours. They didn’t call back. Thus, I was then in a position whereby they were going to take my money for a product that I didn’t want and there was no way to contact them to tell them not to do it!

The second reason for the stressful departure was that, in the modern world of call centres, systems and templates there is no longer a place for human judgement, thus, when you don’t fit into the standard model, you don’t get what you need. The big issue was insurance and by way of example I was told by the British Mountaineering Council that we would never get insurance for this type of trip and I was told by a well known motor insurance company that we wouldn’t get motorhome insurance. In the end we got the insurances that we needed but it was an incredibly difficult and time consuming process. The absurdity of it all was captured in one e-mail conversation with an underwriter; they had imposed a climbing height limit of 4,000m so we were debating what would happen if I were to break my arm at 3,999m but the helicopter evacuation point was at 4,001m. The contrast between people in offices in London selling mountaineering insurance and the reality of the mountain environment was absolutely farcical.

Anyway, we got most things sorted but the motorhome was very late and was more problematic than we had hoped so moving out of the house was also a very frantic affair. Over the last three days we had eight hours of sleep in total and didn’t manage to catch up with any of the folk that we had hoped to, although we did have a great night in the local pub and we were both really grateful to everyone who turned up.

Anyway, the night before we left, we stayed with my old pal Alex and his family en route to Dover and spent a lovely summer’s evening in their garden and then set off th enext day in the heat and sunshine.

2. Dover, France (28^th to 30^th May):

We entered the Channel Tunnel in bright sunshine and exited into an overcast afternoon and headed for the nearest campsite to the terminal. On previous trips, getting away had been less hectic and we had always taken the ferry to northern Spain and spent some time relaxing. This time, the first days of our trip consisted mainly of re-packing the van (things were so last minute that, when we left, we had three dustbin sacks full of stuff that we hadn’t found a home for) and sorting telephone contracts and other life admin. that we had not managed to do at home. We did some food shopping and walked Hilda on the beach but the constant rain and cold coupled with the ongoing frustration of trying to explain our trip to various service providers that really couldn’t grasp the concept served to make our first few days a much less relaxed and somewhat underwhelming start to the trip.

3. Chalons en Champagne, France (31^st May):

After a huge storm in the night that scared the life out of Hilda we decided that we might as well move on from Dover and so headed in a generally Alp-wards direction and eventually ended up in Chalons en Champagne.

4. Epernay, France (1^st June – 2^nd June):

We drove to Epernay having seen a leaflet at the Chalons campsite. We had a long walk along the river in a dry couple of hours then set about fixing broken things in the van (by now we already had a box of bits that had fallen off and had become quite au fait with the wiring and fuse systems). On the second day we did the tour of the Moet and Chandon champagne cellars which, aside from keeping us out of the rain, proved to be really interesting.

5. Vesoul, France (3^rd June):

Having left Epernay we drove south for three and half hours in the rain. Although we were generally heading towards the mountains, we were in search of Burstner service centres as we decided to get a storage box fitted to the van and there were a couple of service centres in the area. This turned out to be rather a can of worms as there was no consistent story from the dealers as to whether or not a box could even be fitted and, if it could, which type would be suitable so we found a campsite and had a walk around the lake that was nearby. I called an old work colleague who now lives in Basal to see what he was up to and it turned out that he was free the next day...

6. Basal, Switzerland (4^th June):

After a longish drive we met up with Ian and Denise at their house in Basal. The sun came out and we had a lovely walk along the Rhine. You have got to love a country where dog training is mandatory and Hilda had a fantastic time playing with an abundance of her fellow species (in one particular encounter both dogs leapt/fell off a twelve foot wall which, fortunately, didn’t seem to have any negative consequences). We had a drink at a bar by the river and then spent a great evening catching up. We had breakfast with Ian and Denise the following day before heading off. It had been the first sunshine we had seen and it was great to catch up with old friends and, for the first time, I thought that I was starting to relax.

7. St-Moritz, Switzerland (5^th June):

For no reason other than we had heard of it and never been there before we headed for St-Moritz. As soon as we left Basal it started to rain heavily again and we arrived in the afternoon to a damp and misty campsite that was charging around €45 per night!

8. Forcola di Livigno, Italy (6^th June):

We had a walk around the lake in St-Moritz but we didn’t find the place too inspiring. Moreover, free camping appeared to be very much discouraged and the campsite costs were extortionate so we decided to head for Italy. We drove over the Bernina pass and found a lovely spot to camp overnight on the Forcola di Livigno pass. It hadn’t rained that much and our first proper free camp felt a bit exciting. We decided to live the dream and play on-line Scrabble on our tablets in afternoon sun using some clever gadget that Rachel knew how to work but we made the mistake of checking our e-mails first. Ten thousand pounds had left our bank account destined to load up pre-paid debit cards but the cash had not arrived. Frantic phone calls ended up with bank blaming the card provider and card provider blaming the bank. We were missing ten grand and, because each party blamed the other, neither was prepared to do anything about it. It seemed like this sort of shit was never going to end.

9. Passo di Stelvio, Italy (7^th June):

A sunny and clear morning lifted the spirits and the pre-paid card providers found our ten grand so life took a turn for the better. We headed for the town of Livigno but it didn’t really capture our interest so we decided to make a clear call – it was time to stop milling around and head for the mountains proper. We hadn’t had the best of starts and with all the van and admin. problems coupled with the constant bad weather we were not really enjoying taking our time heading to the hills as we had hoped so we decided to aim directly for the Dolomites on the grounds that we knew two friends who were on holiday there.

One potential route involved crossing the Passo di Stelvio (2,757m) which was marked difficult/dangerous on the map and Rachel had read that it was unsuitable for motorhomes. Naturally we took the pass and it turned out to be an interesting drive to say the least. There were the usual abundance of alpine hairpin bends but the tunnels where also a lot of fun – the van fitted in them with a good few inches to spare but the road was two-way. Fortunately, out of season there wasn’t much traffic but driving round a corner in a dark tunnel to meet a car directly in front of you but coming the opposite direction certainly kept you awake. En route to the col we took great satisfaction from the look of surprise in the eyes of folks who had parked up in lay-bys to take in the view. We stopped at the col (and bumped into three Brits. on Lambretta scooters who had done two and a half thousand miles in two weeks!) and decided to stay the night there given the rather special views it offered.

10. Arraba, Italy (8^th -11^th June):

After our first free camp in the snow we took the forty eight (yes, forty eight) hairpin bends on the other side of the pass and then took Passo di Sella (2,244m) and Passo Pordoi (2,239m) to meet Stuart and Morag who were halfway through their weeks’ holiday in Arabba in the Dolomites.

We very much enjoyed our time with them and we were finally walking in the big mountains for the first time. Moreover, the 10^th June was the first day of the trip without any rain! We did a couple of relatively long walks and one very wet via ferrata and did start to get a feel for why we were on the trip although, to be honest, I was still a long way off settling into the lifestyle.

11. Covara, Italy (12^th – 14^th June):

After Stuart and Morag left we headed for Covara where we had spent a two-week summer holiday a few years ago. We managed one walk in the sunshine (which we had done on our previous visit) but generally the weather was poor and the forecast was for it to get worse, the campsite was ridiculously expensive (€112 for two nights!), we were somewhere where we had been before which was something that we had decided before we came away that we would not do and we were realising that the van simply wasn’t as suitable for these types as trips as the old one was and that we had made a very large mistake in buying it. When the conversation turned to returning home to sell the new van and attempting to buy the old one off the person who had just bought it from the guy we sold it to we realised that, despite being on a two-year holiday, we were actually quite unhappy. Neither of us had relaxed since I left work and we made our second call of the trip there and then - we were going to keep the current van, head for the sunshine and spend some time chilling out.

12. Camping Pilu by Lago Idro, Italy (15^th – 27^th June):

It was sunny when we set off which seemed to test our resolve to leave the mountains and we passed what seemed like thousands of Knaus motorhomes (the make of our old van) on the motorway which also seemed to test our resolve to keep the new van but we stuck to our guns on both accounts. We stopped at the first campsite that we came to which was an archetypal ‘Italian Lake’ campsite in that the approach was not the most inviting and, on the site itself, there were a large number of somewhat shabby permanent caravans with large extensions all crammed next to one another which gave the place a shanty town feel. However, it was out of season so most of the non-permanent places were empty and we were offered a lakeside plot and free internet for €19 per night. The view across the lake and the surrounding mountains was certainly five star (even if the view behind to Sangatte was one star) and, when we put out our awning, chairs and table and sat outside in the sunshine with a beer for the first time on this trip we both sensed that we had done the right thing.

We planned on staying a few days but in the end we stayed for nearly two weeks. The weather was hot and sunny in the daytime and we were treated to some spectacular thunder storms most evenings. We had no objective other than to chill but we ended up doing quite a lot of exercise and started to get fit. We both started running – the path along the lakeside making an ideal outing - and we did a lot of walking, sometimes around the lake to the other villages and sometimes up into the surrounding hills. There were a couple of local via ferrata and we discovered a climbing park a few miles down the road which had around fifteen sport via ferrata, lovely walks and some climbing, all of which helped build up the fitness and climbing confidence...

...The only exception being the Via Ferrata Sasse. Rachel and I did this early in the morning and left the dog in the van so we were keen to get back to her before the midday heat cooked her. The via ferrata itself was an easy and somewhat tedious affair but the return path (the Senterio Contrabbandieri) was known as an exposed and exiting walk. On completing the via ferrata we were surprised to see that the path was closed but, partly to get back to Hilda and partly because both Rachel and I have had a number of adventures arising from ignoring 'road closed' signs, we took it. The path was indeed exposed but there were cables for your hands in the more dodgy sections, or, at least there were until we met the landslide. A thirty metre wide section of the path and metal cabling had been swept away and we were faced with a very steep slope of soil and tree roots leading directly to the cliffs below. The option to go back was clearly the more sensible but to reverse the path and then the whole via ferrata left us with a serious risk of roasted dog and the next thing I knew Rachel was clambering over an upside-down tree and heading across the landslide. In the absence of a better plan, I followed hanging on to bits of branch and kicking into topsoil as if it were snow in a gully. The whole surface moved and rocks and branches fell down the slope and over the cliff as we crossed (which really frayed the nerves) but soon Rachel grabbed some of the metal cabling coming from the other side and hauled herself onto the path. I am not sure in how many parallel universes we didn’t make it across but we did and to date it is the second most stupid thing that I have done on this trip.

And so the days went on. Every morning we would have breakfast outside the van looking over the lake and enjoying the morning sunshine, then we would do something energetic and then undo all of the benefit by eating pizza and drinking beer in the evening. Hilda got to swim every day which she loved and we made our first new friends of the trip – a lovely Dutch couple whom we spent a couple of evenings with.

Overall, we had definitely done the right thing. We had enjoyed the environment, started to get fit and, most of all, relaxed. I even managed to complete my tax return which was nothing short of a miracle. In hindsight, we should have done something like this from day one and it was difficult to leave but we were in a much better frame of mind and the mountain weather was improving so, with some regret, we decided to move on.

Photos: Update 2

rachelsimonanddog — Sun, 28 Aug 2016 17:00:00 GMT

Update 1: General Stuff

rachelsimonanddog — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 18:00:00 GMT

So, after nearly three months away, I have finally gotten round to writing a blog. The primary reason is to give me something to do in the evenings other than to drink beer and the secondary reason is to share what we have been up to with anyone who might be interested. I am taking a plunge into the unknown with this blog site so I hope that it works OK.

So far it has been a trip of two halves or, in fairness, more like one quarter and three quarters as, despite this being our third long trip, it did take some time to adjust to the lifestyle so the first part was not that great but the rest has been a lot of fun.

For those of you who have jobs and better things to do than read the full blown account of our journey so far, this is a general update. If you do have some time on your hands, what will follow is a more in-depth account of our adventures.

As ever, my intention is to provide a light hearted update on our trip so I apologise in advance for any offence that I will no doubt cause to someone somewhere. Also, if it gives you any inclination to come out and join us any time, you are more than welcome.

1. Hilda:

If you believe in reincarnation then Hilda is very much first time dog. In fact, I think that she may have skipped a few iterations of mammal and gone directly from slug to canine. She absolutely loves being alive and is genuinely thrilled at the prospect of each new day so her new life in the hills walking all day and doing lots of new stuff suits her perfectly. The general routine is to wake up full of beans, have breakfast, run around in the hills, get wet, have tea, go to bed very early, repeat.

She has a number of summits to her name and has completed three via ferrata (a sort of rock climbing where you (i.e. the human) are connected to steal cables fixed to the rock which should stop you hitting the ground if you fall) one of which was a proper route with a name and a place in the guidebook to the Italian Dolomites. She is now an old hand at riding in cable cars and has done a chair lift, which for such a skittish creature, was a much more relaxed affair than either Rachel or I had anticipated. She has managed to electrocute herself on a cattle fence (although you shouldn’t laugh, this was one of the funniest things that I have ever seen) and has come to terms with flying people - be they ski jumpers, paragliders, folk on zip wires or climbers lowering on ropes from above. Unfortunately she hasn’t overcome her fear of thunderstorms (which are rather frequent and spectacular here in the mountains) so has spent many a night shaking under her table in the van.

Although she is having a great time, she is of very little practical use and her primary contribution is to serve as a dirt transfer vehicle, moving sand, mud, gravel and assorted outdoor terrain into the van. She also gets in the way rather a lot and is suffering a slight identity crisis given the number of times that she hears “Hildaoutoftheway”. To avoid confusion, we nearly re-named her Stuart as her boundless energy and enthusiasm coupled with her propensity to shit five times a day gives her an uncanny resemblance to a certain Scottish Lawyer that some of you may know.

Overall, The Hilds is doing great.

2. Rachel:

It was Rachel’s birthday a few days ago and by way of a present I saved her one of my chocolate biscuits from a packet that we bought a few days earlier and she was genuinely pleased with her gift. It is exactly this type of excessively low expectation of boyfriend performance that makes her an ideal partner for me. Having spent the last trip chasing mountains and people to climb them with, I vowed that I would not do the same this time (and, by and large, I haven’t) but I have spent a lot of time in the hills without Rachel and her patience is hugely appreciated. That said, she has done much more walking than she did on the previous trip and has climbed a good handful of summits including the very exposed Saulakopf. She is doing a bit of running and also rock climbing and the improvement in her health, albeit having been an extraordinarily long road to get here, has been significant.

The key strength of Rachel as a travelling partner is her ability to stay calm and deal with unexpected problems which is not something that I do not do at all well. I have been doing more or less the same job for twenty five years and, although the faces and the places change, the problems are the same and generally, when things go wrong, I have pretty much seen it before and know how to deal with it. I have also grown rather accustomed to people doing what I ask them to. In this life, everything is new every day, things go wrong all of the time and people do not do what I tell them. Consequently, I am like a fish out of water and tend to panic whereas Rachel has the knack of keeping her cool and finding a way through things. So far she has herded a cow out of a bar full of people, found a way to fix a potential trip-ending problem with the motorhome, resolved endless issues with banks and other so called service providers and overcome countless IT related issues.

Overall, she is frustrated by her inability to do as much walking as she would like but it is fair to say that she is enjoying the trip and I wouldn’t want to spend two years in a van with anyone else.

3. Me:

I am not at all sure that middle-age is suiting me. For a start, I have developed a taste for gherkins which hitherto I found to be revolting, I have come to realise that elasticated clothing is simply more comfortable and I look at pretty young girls with a sense of wonder that such perfect human specimens exist rather than with the more primitive desires that used to prevail. I seem to adapt to change much less easily now and it was a good month or so before I started to enjoy this trip. I know that it seems extremely ungrateful for someone who is on a two-year holiday but I really couldn’t settle at first and, as the problems (both real and imagined) started to mount up, I could honestly have come home on a number of occasions at the start of this venture.

However, I can accept all of the above as a natural consequence of getting older (although I admit that the gherkin thing is a bit weird) but my biggest problem with middle-age is my ongoing struggle to accept my changing attitude towards risk. By way of an explanation...

When I was in my twenties and going on my first motorhome trips, pushing the chemical toilet to capacity was a game. I justified the risk by claiming that it reduced the frequency of emptying (a task that I was simply not designed to carry out) but in reality I simply enjoyed taking the risk. I knew at the back of my mind that the consequences of an error of judgement would be horrific and that the impact would not be restricted to me but would also cascade to those around me but I just enjoyed taking the chance. In my thirties, I became much more aware of the consequences should things go wrong but I saw these as an integral part of the game and application of good judgement made the risk manageable. Now, in my forties, I see the consequences far too clearly and in my mind I dwell on the multitude of things that can go wrong. Now, as soon as the red warning light goes on, I am itching to get to the chemical disposal just in case.

My issue is that I simply cannot accept that I have turned into a lightweight and I hate myself for letting the fear get in the way of my enjoyment. And so it is in the mountains. My fear of what might happen is now much greater than it ever was yet I still want to be out there. I just cannot seem to make a call. I either need to accept that I have turned into a fairy and only do the stuff that doesn't scare me or I need to grow a pair and get out there and do what I would love to say that I have done.

Overall, all of the above can be condensed into one very simple question – to Matterhorn or not to Matterhorn?

For what it is worth, my current strategy is to park the question. Whether I eventually cop out or face what is a part realistic and part phobic fear of this particular mountain, I will need to be very fit, much stronger and altitude and exposure acclimatised. My logic is that I can enjoy the ride getting practiced at these things and see what happens.

4. The Motorhome:

I genuinely didn’t think that I would be writing about the motorhome but, if you read what we have been up to, dealing with the many problems that we have had with it has influenced plans and taken up far more time that it ever should have. I recall a few times when minor problems with our old motorhome caused us to change what we were doing but that was over a period of two years and there was never any real inconvenience. This time it has been a completely different story...

The best analogy that I can come up with is that buying the new motorhome has proved to be an experience akin to leaving your wife for a supermodel. At the start, everything is great, your new beau looks fantastic and your mates are seriously impressed but, not long into the relationship, you start to realise that the new model is a little harder to live with and somewhat less practical than the older version. As time goes on, some really fundamental design floors start to show through and then, after a few months, you realise that you have made a huge and expensive mistake and wish you were back where you started from.

OK, I have never had a wife to leave and I am pretty sure that I am not on your average supermodel’s wish list but I think that the analogy does hold true. At the start the van was great but, within a week or so, some of the problems were becoming evident. For a start it proved impossible to open any form of ventilation in the slightest of showers which makes for a stuffy living space when it is warm and rainy. In the old van, the position of the boiler meant that the bathroom heated up first (which made it an ideal drying room for wet gear) and the living space only heated when you put the heating on. In this van, as soon as you turn on the hot water to wash up, the living space heats up (which very annoying when it is hot weather) but we have yet to get the bathroom anywhere north of baltic (which means that it is impossible to dry anything in there and it is damn cold when you clean your teeth in the morning). It takes five minutes every night to cover up the multitude of flashing lights on every appliance and the storage space is sufficient but completely impractical and we have ended up with various drawers and cupboards of discontent; so called because they mainly contain one type of kit but something else unrelated has to be stuffed in with it because it doesn’t fit anywhere else.

After less than a month we got our first taste of the poor build quality when the ‘sky roof’ (a sort of large sunroof that opens outwards) blew off on what was a breezy day at best. These things shouldn’t simply break off in a bit of wind and the result was a two foot by four foot hole in the roof of the van. We started to realise that our initial problems were more than bad luck when one of the lockers started to leak and then, when we could see daylight through another locker, it became apparent that our van was not of the quality that we had expected (to add to the frustration, the water leaking into the lockers got into the alarm sensors and now they are also knackered). We have had an engine issue to boot and are finding that the much touted extensive European service network is made up of dealerships that are simply too busy or not interested in addressing our issues - we were even told by one approved partner simply to “go away”. As it stands today, we have very little confidence in the vehicle and now find ourselves just waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

The sting in the tail is that we nearly bought our old van back from the guy we sold it to. We knew that he was likely to be selling it but we had to put a deposit down on this van to get it built in time for us to go away so we told the guy that we had a deadline. We chased him a few times but, by chance or judgement, he waited until literally one hour after our deadline expired to get back to us; by which time we had placed the deposit. I don’t know if he was testing to see whether our deadline story was a bluff but it most definitely wasn’t and his not getting back to us before it cost us our old van and cost him a few grand (we watched our old van sell on EBay for a price far lower than it was worth). With hindsight however, I wish that I had thrown in the deposit and bought the old van back anyway but there you go.

Overall, I want the motorhome to be a car and a home where I can stay dry, eat, sleep, shower and do my ablutions and it is purely a means to allow us to do this type of trip. The old van was great, this one is not. Yes, it does have some redeeming features in that the living space is a nice place to be but, for the money, the build quality should be much better than it is. The moral of this story is never leave your wife for a supermodel and never buy a new Burstner motorhome.

There is just one footnote to the van saga. Every problem with the van has been preceded by us shopping at Liddl. On one occasion we nearly shopped at Liddl but didn’t and that afternoon I nearly reversed the van into a wall but stopped just in time. I didn’t think that I was superstitious but frankly I am just not prepared to take the risk. As far as I am concerned, the curse of Liddl is real.

5. Motorhome Life:

I remember getting stressed on the last big trip but in hindsight the issues were very trivial so this time I promised myself that I would be much more chilled. It hasn’t exactly worked out as planned and, now I am back in the lifestyle I can remember why. Every day is like starting a new job but in a foreign country. You know basically how things should work but you don’t know who to talk to when you need to get something done and when you do get to talk to them they can’t understand you and you can’t understand them. In light of this, rather like the old DIY adage, when you live a life travelling from place to place, everything costs four times as much as you thought it would and takes ten times longer. By way of example, one day we drove to Trento in Italy to try to get one of the problems with the motorhome fixed and all we wanted to do was park up for a while. In your home town and in your own car this is an extremely straightforward task. In the motorhome, the following happened:

The town of Trento is pretty much pedestrianised so all parking is on the outskirts. However, all of the car parks had a height restriction so we ended up driving around for ages trying to find a car park without one. After doing battle with Italian rush hour, we spotted a sign for large vehicle parking and took the slip road. We stopped at the barrier and there was a €1 charge. We didn’t have a Euro so Rachel went to ask if any anyone did. Interestingly, she spotted two policemen but was not aware initially that they were in the process of arresting someone so she waded in and, in a typically Italian scenario, both coppers and the arrestee started rifling through their pockets for change. Anyway, Rachel came away with her Euro and the arrest continued. We put the coin into the machine and the barrier didn’t move. We were now blocking the entrance to the parking, there was no option to reverse and another motorhome drew up behind us. Rachel phoned the number on the machine and the people who answered didn’t speak English but it looked like she was making progress until she got cut off. She phoned again but this time nobody answered at all. At this point, a random man riding a bicycle and carrying a guitar rode up to us and explained in perfect English (although it was clear from his accent that he was not English) that we needed to get closer to the barrier. We went looking for more change, found some, put it into the machine and this time the barrier opened. The moral of this story is that, in motorhome life, nothing is simple but eventually the kindness of strangers will help you out. We have many examples of this type of thing and we have started to get used to it but it has taken a bit of time.

Another thing about this life is that you often end up carrying your own water, pooh and rubbish around with you which causes you to question how the western lifestyle can ever be sustainable. By way of an explanation, we use our water for washing up, hand washing and cleaning teeth and our 120 litre tank only lasts about four days of free camping during which time we usually have generated three 25 litre bags of recyclable rubbish and one 25 litre bag of ‘proper’ rubbish and filled a 25 litre toilet casette (and that is with me peeing in the trees). At home the water supply is endless, stuff in the toilet just goes somewhere else and rubbish moves from bins to dustbins that get emptied so you just don’t get a sense of the scale. I have not done the extrapolation but I cannot get my around why the developed world is not dying of thirst at the same time as drowning in a sea of rubbish and human waste.

It is also a life of contrasts. One day you can be sitting outside of the van having a beer on a warm summer evening under a crystal blue sky surrounded by a fantastic mountain vista and the next day you can be parked next to brothel walking your dog along the hard shoulder of a dual carriageway (this exact scenario happened a week ago). Also, just as the events of one day can be completely different to what happens the next day, because we are living in a motorhome, we need to do stuff that people on holiday don’t do. One such example is Rachel cutting my hair and another is hanging the bed sheets out to dry after they have been washed. I am sure that the old adage that “it is rude to stare” is uniquely British so we often find ourselves being observed by curious European types and you can almost hear them asking why I have waited until my holiday to have my hair cut or drawing the conclusion that I had an unfortunate bed soiling event the previous evening.

Another thing of note is that, when you are at work, you always want it to be the weekend or a holiday but it always seems to be a week day. When you are on a trip like this, you always want it to be a week day out of holiday season because it is quieter but it always seems to be a weekend and it is always the holiday season. Speaking of holiday season, I am tempted to make a one-man attempt to invade Holland on the grounds that everywhere we go on this trip there are millions of Dutch and one is forced to draw the conclusion that the country must be completely empty at the moment.

In terms of differences to the last trip, the primary con is the cost; everything is about 25% more expensive than it was ten years ago. I guess that this was to be expected but, in my general apathy towards anything financial, this fact took me by surprise. The main pros are that the IT works better (internet access is much more available than it was, although we now have a whole drawer full of electric things with wires and stuff) and money is easier to manage; we are using pre-paid debit cards which means that we are not getting shafted by banks on exchange rates and for withdrawing cash.

Finally, for a man who drinks as much beer as me, you would be excused for assuming that I am somewhat of a connoisseur but you would be wrong. To be honest, it all tastes the same to me so, ever since our first trip, I have been on a quest to find the cheapest beer around. On this trip I have already been below the €0.40 per 50cl can threshold but, no matter where I get this stuff, it always calls itself ‘premium’ or ‘high quality’. I have come to realise that to really make the breakthrough that I am seeking, I need to find where the ‘average’ or ‘standard’ beer is being sold. All suggestions are most welcome and, if anyone can tell me where the ‘poor’ quality beer is then I could even get below the €0.10c per 50cl mark and that would be a real achievement.

Overall, this trip is about the places we visit and the people that we meet but it is a very different life to the one we have at home and it does make you appreciate some of the things that you used to take for granted.

Photos: Update 1

rachelsimonanddog — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 17:00:00 GMT