Day One. Home to Fishguard.

It was April 25th. The day. It was chilly and overcast when I picked up our home from the Midland Motorhome centre in the village of Inkberrow, Worcestershire for the next month. A Ford Motorhome Autotrail 60 fit for Debbie and I and Leia our Border Collie.

I initially took it to our home to load it up with the stuff needed to sustain the aforementioned travellers. You would think that makers of said vehicles would at least fit it out with a reasonable amount of storage thinking perhaps that folk would be residing in it for more than say 6 hours. But oh no! So we started stuffing what we thought we would need into any nook and cranny. Well at least until we settled in and realised that what we actually needed we had left behind.

It was to be a journey of around 5 hours to get from home to the ferry but I had not driven a manual gearbox vehicle for a long time nor had I driven a motorhome on the UK roads before so rather than rush to catch the 14:00 ferry on the 26th we decided to set off at a somewhat leisurely pace, stay overnight somewhere in the vicinity of the ferry port, get something to eat, a good nights rest and then meander on down to the port at our leisure.

What is immediately apparent is the size of the vehicle. It is a nippy wee thing. Its 6 gears motor it along quite comfortably. It does lean a bit in the corners. But it is more than capable of cruising along at 60 mph comfortably. That is until you hit the roads of rural England and Wales. Then you discover the rather hard suspension causes it to crash and thump over the appalling road surfaces that pass for main highways in the UK. The contents of the cupboards rattle and bang as the van shudders over every pothole. We stopped frequently to reset the cupboards contents, stretch our legs and let to the dog out for a sniff around.

Home for the night was the Tregroes Caravan, camping and clamping park just 2 miles away from the ferry terminal. It was peaceful, quiet and set in a lovely park like area. Lorraine greeted us like long lost friends. The on site restaurant served home cook fare of lasagnes, burgers, sandwiches and a variety of other items sure to satisfy most tastes. Washed down with a pint of Atlantic IPA on tap, it was a feast at the end of the day. Tomorrow we cross the Irish Sea and hope to meet an old colleague of mine. More on that tomorrow.

Day one had come to a close.