Explore europe in a campervan

Plugging our work!

simon — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 21:46:35 +0000

We have helped our good friend Sophie to create a website for her catering business in Morzine where we currently reside.

Just thought I would post it here on our blog to give her site a bit of a push.

Anyone on the lookout for someone to cater in their morzine chalet should check out her site: Morzine chalet catering (or anyone that’s interested in our work - WPsites)

Avoriaz Snow Report

lucy — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 21:38:16 +0000

We’ve been up the mountain a grand total of three times now since arriving nearly three weeks ago! There has been no more than a sprinkle of snow and conditions are generally not great. I’m sure if we were here for a week’s holiday we would be making the most of it, but there’s no need to ride the ice every day when we have months ahead of us.

Our first run was (as you can see in the photo) rather late in the day to say the least. We had to take the gondola up from Les Prodains after buying our lift passes, because the two chair lifts were both closed. The short trip to the only chair lift open, which takes you half way up the Arare run was rock solid ice with barely any snow at all - nice little scrape for the first time of board-on-feet this year! The Arare piste was not actually as bad as expected, with only patches of scratchy ice, and Simon even managed to get lots of side-of-piste jumps in. Crot (the ‘home run’ down to Les Prodains car park) is also passable, as long as you watch out for rocks on the piste - usually a late-season feature.

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880 Miles To Seytroux, Haute Savoie from Kimmeridge, Dorset

lucy — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 12:22:36 +0000

We left Dorset on Sunday afternoon and hopped on the Eurotunnel in the evening, after a small delay while the train broke down - better at the station than half way across! We’ve found the tunnel to be the best way to cross the channel to France in our van - the price is reasonable whenever you book, without having to give exact dimensions of the campervan and, best of all, it’s flexible. If we turn up early or late (more likely) we can still travel on the next train with space - no need to pay more or change booking, unlike the ferries. (more…)

Ten Months in Three Paragraphs!

lucy — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:05:33 +0000

There’s a lot to catch up on, but I’m going to be brief! (This doesn’t count as a paragraph).

Well my Mum arrived as planned in March and had a fantastic holiday with - sunshine, snow, wine, cheese, bread, saucisson, shopping, picnic by the lake, market, kir royal, trips in two gondolas, three course dinner, pizza, bbq (yes, really!) and she even kind of did a run with us on our snowboards - taking the Ardent bubble lift down as we boarded down the piste. The time flew by and it was a holiday that will be remembered for years to come!

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March in Avoriaz and Seytroux - Pictures and Videos

lucy — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:16:30 +0000

Here’s what we’ve been up to and some pictures…

Simon went to Chamonix to meet his friends Jamie and Becky for snowboarding - Jamie got stuck off piste on an icy/rocky hill and had to be rescued!

I went on some great walks around Seytroux - now I’ve seen - Bambou (the golden retriever I borrowed for a walk), three big deer-type things in the garden, two littler deer with white fluffy tails, a black squirrel, a goat, three frogs, two huge atns nests, a couple of foxes, a badger and a cat with no tail (we climbed a big hill to see what that was!)

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My Broken Wrist - Phase Two

lucy — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:17:11 +0000

Last week the doctor finally took off my plaster after 9 weeks in a cast! This for an injury that is supposed to take 6-8 weeks to heal. He didn’t really look at the latest xray - lucky really because I couldn’t discern any progress whatsoever from the last xray alongside. No broken skin to report this time from that evil little circular saw they use (last time I had 3 cuts around my thumb).So what did I do next? I went snowboarding! The doctor didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no - he just made noises like ‘ppfffff’ which I took to mean, ‘It’s possibly not a great idea - if you fall on it your bone might just snap again.’ But I had been sent to the pharmacy to buy a (very expensive) wrist support and we were due to go on a day trip to Chamonix two days later to board with some friends of Simon’s.

(Random pictures to make this look more interesting)

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Tracks in the Snow

lucy — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:20:47 +0000

I’ve just got back from a walk along the stream and up the hill. It was fantastic! I think I’m falling in love with the mountains now. I just realised that when we were in the van we were mainly surviving in the Alps, but now we’re really living in the Alps and it’s great.

Simon and I took this route on a walk a few weeks ago, but it’s quite a steep incline and it was just too hard going in deep snow so we turned back quite early. Today the snow is less and harder so I just kept going and going. No one else (human) had walked that way since the last snow a few days ago so it was fascinating to see all of the animal tracks. I just wish I knew what they all were!

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Where are Pumbaa and the Marmottes?

lucy — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:16:46 +0000

We’ve had some beautiful weather…and some horrible wind and rain. It changes so quickly in the mountains - although the forecasts are generally pretty accurate. Since my sunny walk in Seytroux last week (some new photos in the gallery) it’s been mostly rain and watching the snow disappear. Actually, yesterday was the first time this year that I’ve been really excited to see snow - there was enough to cover the grass and tarmac and just about turn the trees white.

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BBQ in the snow

lucy — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:04:02 +0000

During the last two weeks we’ve been fairly busy with work - honest! But we did make time to get out once or twice -

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Party On The Mountain

lucy — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:24:40 +0000

Last week we were invited to a party with a difference - halfway up a mountain. The evening almost didn’t happen when we all nearly missed the last chairlift. We didn’t realise we were driving all the way round to the other side of the mountain - not just to the nearest piste, but we were very lucky that the lifty’s took pity on us and even helped to load and unload all the bedding and other general ’stuff’ that was going up the mountain with us.

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