A New Van Adventure

Van Adventure begins

   Two days before, while we were driving through the stunning countryside picking up our new chickens (which I’ll have to cover later!) I was casually scrolling on my phone and spotted a van for sale. At an unreasonably good price. It. Was. Perfect. EXACTLY the thing I’ve been window shopping for for years. Just the right combination of “finished” and “not”; carpeted and insulated, but with just a couple of old school tables strapped in the back as a bed, and a cupboard tied to the wall. Downside: it has a GIANT rainbow painted down the side, making it look like the Playbus!

So the following day, when the alternator in my van spluttered and died; I took it as a sign and bought it. Genuinely raiding piggy banks and sofa cushions and handing over a shameful amount of coins in so doing!

   I LOVE it. Almost immediately we were faced with half term; so up and off we went on the Saturday morning, threw some sleeping bags and hammocks in for the girls and buggered off to Exmoor with no real plan, to see how it all worked.  

We had a lovely time exploring rock pools, steam trains and even the steepest water-powered funicular railway in the world!

Park4life

   In true fashion, I had spent the few days I’d owned the van already getting lost in a load of online Vanlife rabbit-holes and grabbing a few resources such as:

    Our first few nights were truly delightful, there’s such a stark difference in the simple fact of not having a deadline. No “I need to get home to cook” or “The kids have to be back for bed.” Just- “Stop here a minute and I’ll throw some sausages on to cook.”

(At the side of the road…… halfway up a cliff…….because that’s when we were hungry!) 

To Vlog or not to Vlog?

  Having been ambushed by our neighbour/sometime business partner on the way out and had a snazzy video camera foisted on us to practice vlogging we discovered two things:

  1. I hate filming.

And 2. The Bigman is unexpectedly good at it. (Once you explain a few times what the buttons actually do.)

I just found that I really wasn’t paying attention to what was actually going on, and there was a lot of “stay still, kids- I need to get this shot first” which really took away the spontaneity of it all, and it just wasn’t the family time/educational experience I enjoy when out with the kids; and also, my shots really weren’t that impressive, even if I had some good ideas.

I am however, a dab-hand at editing after spending the last year or two knuckling down to help my neighbour out! So with a few discussions over division of labour, and a swift “let’s all do the exploring FIRST, then you can film” we worked out a pretty good rhythm. Even if we couldn’t bring ourselves to figure out how the gimbal worked, which turns out to have been a major error. Naturally.

Lynmouth

   Being coastal people, naturally the first thing we aimed for was a peek at the sea on the other side. Stunning! I hadn’t been overly enthused by the prospect of Exmoor, but we had a really lovely time wandering around Lynmouth in the afternoon while we looked for somewhere to stop and cook. In the end we got hungry and just stopped in a lay-by with an astounding view of the cliffs, and even Wales as a distant shore.

Lynmouth was a lovely little town, down an extremely steep cliff road. With quirky sea-farer pubs and some truly beautiful gorges and riverside spots. We spent our morning learning all about the different types of seaweed and Gastropoda we spotted along the way. How do they behave? Why and how do they cling to the rocks? What do they eat? Are they edible?

As it was getting a little late in the day, we found a good spot to stay for the night out of town (A windy but amazing spot that Big said reminded her of Swallowdale from Swallows and Amazons) and headed back the next morning to finish investigating.

Lynmouth Funicular Railway

One of the main features of the town is its Cliff Railway, an entirely water powered gravity travel system running since 1888, and still very much in use!

This uses a simple counterweight system; railed cars attached by a long cable that each have large water tanks which can be emptied at the bottom and re-filled at the top to affect the carriage’s relative weights, and cause them to travel steadily up and down the cliff, although I was too busy filming to take any good photos until later….

We then headed for a nice quiet spot for a rest and to charge ALL of the things that were now running out of battery….but got sidetracked by this amazing little Steam Railway at Woody Bay.

Of course this led to more discussion about changing rail mechanisms, how Steam engines work, why the boiler was kept running between trips and the history of transport and industry. We didn’t stop for a ride, but did wave and shout “Red Flannel Petticoats” as the train chugged past.

We also discovered a well-hidden fairy woodland walk behind the platform at Woody Bay, perfect for a lesson on identifying plants and wildlife, with interesting facts scattered throughout. What would you remember more, a fact learnt by rote at the same table you see every day- or something you were given by a fairy poking its head of a tree unexpectedly?!

Processing time

After finding a gorgeous spot by the river, and a brief scientific chat about the mineral accretions covering the arch of the bridge; we spent the rest of the afternoon working/charging everything in the adjacent pub garden while the girls made the most of their play area, burning off steam (Arf arf!) and unwinding bodily as kids are wont to do; before heading back to the van, cooking and setting up for the night. This downtime is so important and so underrated in modern society. Physicality and freedom in play allow kids to process and internalise knowledge, even in those moments when it appears there is no education happening- they are processing, assimilating and cementing what they have absorbed. And much more efficiently than if they have to sit still and listen to yet another ream of unrelated information.