A few days late, but I've not forgotten it's time to feature another of your lovely dubs. Last week it was all about Freebird ii and this week we have another very lovely latebay...
Bessie, a Type 2, 2ltr, RHD, 1979 Viking Conversion
Owned by
Rowena, Tim, Matt & Ellie Selwood
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Resting in the shade after a long drive to Genoa. (Rowena, Matt, Tim & Ellie Selwood)
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Tell me more about Bessie...how did she get her name?
She's now called Bessie as this is what the children
started to call her when we first got her – she was formally called
Florence!
How long have you owned Bessie?
We
bought Bessie in 2009 just at the start of the summer holidays. We had been looking round for one for a
while, as we had done years of camping in a tent and decided we would like to
‘upgrade’ to a van. The trouble we had
was, as soon as one came on the market, it would be sold before we had a chance
to go and look at it. Then this one came
up for sale only ½ hour from where we lived so we went to see it straight
away.
So Bessie is a Viking, what appealed about this particular conversion?
I
don’t think we had appreciated all the different types of conversions that you
could get, but we are so glad we went for a Viking. Our
children, Matt & Ellie were 11 and 13 when we bought it and as they’ve
grown they can still sleep ‘up the top’!
Matt who is now 14, generally chooses to sleep out in the awning if it’s
for more than one night, but can still fit in if necessary.
Have you done anything to Bessie since you've owned her?
We have not changed anything inside or out except for the
curtains, since we got her. She is in
really good condition and all in all, I think we got a bargain!
Tell us about your first trip away in Bessie?
As we already had a holiday planned that year in Yorkshire
and the Lake District, we decided to drive the van instead of the car, although we would
not be sleeping in it. We only had one
slight problem – a fuel pipe split and we were being followed by a trail of fuel
around Ambleside by the time we realised why we had such a strong smell of
petrol!
The friendly local garage had us on the move again within an
hour and for only £10! Can’t complain at
that!!
Phew, that sounds like you had a very lucky escape, as fuel leaks are a major cause of fires in the engine bay!!
What have used Bessie for since then?
My husband, Tim, was using the van for travelling to and
from work, but we have since cut down on the small local journeys to avoid too
much wear and tear! We have a great
local garage that has a VW expert that has always managed to repair it so
far.
So in 2010, we decided to embark on a ‘European Tour’, taking
in 9 countries – France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic,
Austria, Switzerland & Lichtenstein!
Tim planned the route and we booked the campsites ahead before we
went. There was a worrying moment when
the clutch went the Friday before we were leaving on the Monday – but our
lovely garage friends came to the rescue and had it fixed and ready to go.
We took several spare parts and a tool kit to cover all
eventuality of breakdown, packed up and
off we went for almost 4 weeks. It was
brilliant fun. We don’t have a satnav –
Tim won’t have one of them – being a true Cub Scout Leader, we do it all by
maps….which is fine when he is navigating, not quite so fine when I am. The Prague Ring Road was definitely my
undoing – we must have travelled out and back along every possible road (in
torrential rain), which reduced me to tears at one point before we found the
campsite – ironically called ‘Sunny Camp’!!!
The only 2 places we got lost were Poland and the Czech Republic – OK,
so I may have been navigating both times – but it was their signposting
honest!! It was also to Tim’s utmost
glee, that the only time we were stopped by the police was when I was
driving. They do a lot of ‘spot checks’
in Europe which can be quite comical with the language differences. The German police wanted to see the ‘Papers
of the Woman’!!!!
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| Tucked away in the campsite at Potsdam near Berlin. |
We had one ‘mechanical failure’ after we had stopped at
Calais on the way home. When we came to
start up again – nothing happened. After
several minutes of stunned silence, deep thought and rising panic, Tim was
inspired to whack the starter motor with a hammer, which did the trick!
2011 saw us camping at Treveague Farm in Cornwall – a lovely
campsite where you can walk to the beach (a good 20 minutes!) and in the
evening they have a hide where you can watch a badger set.
This year, as we failed to get Olympic tickets, we decided
to do another ‘European Tour’, this time going to Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg,
Switzerland, Italy, and France. We
booked most of the campsites ahead this time, but not all of them as this
allowed us to be more flexible. We could
probably have got into most of them by just turning up without a booking. The exception was Florence, as there only
seemed to be one campsite within walking distance of the city and we are
definitely glad we had booked as it was really full. We try and pick campsites that are either
within walking distance of the places we are visiting, or have easy access to
public transport links. It just saves
having to keep packing everything away & the hassle of trying to find a car
park without a height restriction!
We spent the majority of the time in Italy, driving as far
south as Rome. We were meant to go to
Sorrento too, but it was so hot (high 30s and up into the 40s at times), we
decided to stay put and visit Pompeii by train from Rome. This worked well even though it was a long
day. The electrics on the van also
started behaving strangely – no headlights, only side lights and the wipers
only worked if you held it on main beam and neither the horn or the hazzard
lights worked. But, we had no mechanical
problems despite the heat and driving 2590 miles! Not bad for an old girl!
Thank you very much for sharing Bessie with us, she is very lovely. I'm incredibly impressed by the amount of travelling you've done in her, our campers all get a bit homesick if they leave Blighty but you never know, one day!
You can follow Rowena on twitter, @rowenaselwood
If you'd like to appear with your dub just shout Custard Campers, vw campervan hire Essex. We'd love to hear from you.
Kerry x
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