It has been a whie since our last post which I feel bad about.
We left Orion safely tucked up in the boatyardwhilst we drove back early October. We had one or two issues with the van which John managed to fix at the eleventh hour. It was a new experience for John fixing brake pads on the Van at 10.30pm with me holding the torch to help him see what he was doing!! It was then a dash to Igoumenitsa to catch the ferry to Venice which left at 7.00 am. It certainly makes for interesting times!
Once we docked at Venice we drove through Northern Italy, Austria and Germany before arriving in Rotterdam two days later for the ferry to Hull. All went to plan there and we drove along the M62 to Warrington to put the van in for its MOT confident that our plans were spot on..... that is until we got to the centre of Warrington and I could smell burning...John having no sense of smell was oblivious...but once alerted he discovered that our alternator had siezed solid and the smell was one of the belts melting!! Just as well that we were close to the car hire depot and the MOT garage was close enough for us just to make it! The next few days were spent sourcing an alternator then John poor thing had to fit it in the rain. After a week or so the car was MOT'd and running better than it has ever done!
Our plan was to spend most of the winter months in the Southern Hemisphere and we booked flights to Malaysia... to see a good friend Bill, Australia... to spend some more time in Sydney with John's garndchildren and then onto New Zealand where we have hired a campervan to drive around both South and North Island. Whilst we are going to sail here we figured that it could be a few years before we get here and next year we plan to move slowly out of the Med and cross the Atlantic late 2013 early 2014 so might be a while before we see these guys again!
We are currently in Sydney and are flying down to Tasmania for a week or so to do some touring there. We had a good time in Kuala Lumpar which was very hot and humid. We got a good deal with a hotel which was close to the railway into the centre of KL and we were able to negotiate around the busy city in no time.
I will post some pics once I have got better access to the net.
We left Orion safely tucked up in the boatyardwhilst we drove back early October. We had one or two issues with the van which John managed to fix at the eleventh hour. It was a new experience for John fixing brake pads on the Van at 10.30pm with me holding the torch to help him see what he was doing!! It was then a dash to Igoumenitsa to catch the ferry to Venice which left at 7.00 am. It certainly makes for interesting times!
Once we docked at Venice we drove through Northern Italy, Austria and Germany before arriving in Rotterdam two days later for the ferry to Hull. All went to plan there and we drove along the M62 to Warrington to put the van in for its MOT confident that our plans were spot on..... that is until we got to the centre of Warrington and I could smell burning...John having no sense of smell was oblivious...but once alerted he discovered that our alternator had siezed solid and the smell was one of the belts melting!! Just as well that we were close to the car hire depot and the MOT garage was close enough for us just to make it! The next few days were spent sourcing an alternator then John poor thing had to fit it in the rain. After a week or so the car was MOT'd and running better than it has ever done!
Our plan was to spend most of the winter months in the Southern Hemisphere and we booked flights to Malaysia... to see a good friend Bill, Australia... to spend some more time in Sydney with John's garndchildren and then onto New Zealand where we have hired a campervan to drive around both South and North Island. Whilst we are going to sail here we figured that it could be a few years before we get here and next year we plan to move slowly out of the Med and cross the Atlantic late 2013 early 2014 so might be a while before we see these guys again!
We are currently in Sydney and are flying down to Tasmania for a week or so to do some touring there. We had a good time in Kuala Lumpar which was very hot and humid. We got a good deal with a hotel which was close to the railway into the centre of KL and we were able to negotiate around the busy city in no time.
I will post some pics once I have got better access to the net.
