The Camper Van Diaries - The early stages

Hi All,

This is my very first post and I really don't know what I am doing yet.

As the title say's this is a blog diary of mine and my families exploits in our VW T5 camper van which we converted last year.

We did the usual thing, our friends had one, we wanted one, our lifestyle is very much outdoorsy, so we decided that we would jump in at the deep end.  My wife has MS and is in a wheelchair so room to put the off roader was a priority, as was a porta potty so we could be self contained. So with all this in mind we looked around at the options, visited many conversion companies and left feeling very down and bambusaled.  The main reason for this feeling was that no one was prepared to adapt a van in the way we wanted, to allow Anna (that's my wife) to be able to use the van to the best of her abilities.

So to cut a long story short we spoke with our friends and booked the camper in with the folks that converted theirs for them.  This was great, we now had someone who would produce something to our own spec, demands and drawings, the only problem now was we did not have a van.  So the search began, Pugeot, Citroen, Fiat, Merc and finally came to rest on the VW as we initially thought we would.  So the van bought and delivered the build could commence.  But wait my luck (life is all what you make of it but bad luck does seam to come my way a lot) was going to turn and three weeks after delivery I take a phone call from the builder saying he could no longer do it for and could I come and pick the van up.  So once again I had to find someone to convert it.

A few internet searches later, a quick trip up from Wiltshire (we were seeing friends when the call came through) and 3 stops we had once again found someone who would produce what we wanted.

T4 Campers Ltd. in Ossett were fantastic and even turned our project around in 5 weeks, as we had booked to go away since the last converter had given us a deliver date.

So 2nd August 2011 we took delivery of our newly converted T5 with all the mod cons inc. an oven and the pop top for our young lad "Harry" to sleep in.

 

Since then we have had some great trips and I hope (with the help of my wife) to blog about them and the future ones as well.

So just to give you a little taster; this is were we have been so far.

Corwall & Devon

Lakes, Scotland and Nothumberland coast

Wiltshire

French and Spanish Pyrenees

Yorkshire East coast

France - Fontainebleau - Ardeche - Colliour (SW) - Pyrenees

Wiltshire - Crofton music festival - organised and headed by Steve Criddle former lead singer of the dark horse