Our journey started on Thursday 27th November 2014 with the collection of a 3 year old American Eurocruiser 5th wheel from a dealer in Lincolnshire. Following almost a year of looking at large caravans, motorhomes, American caravans and finally 5th wheels, we settled on a baby sized “flat on wheels” that needed to be pulled by our newly purchased Isuzu truck.

The truck was fitted with a hitch and the pin on the trailer had to be adjusted to fit the truck and after a few weeks, we finally collected him (I say “him” because such a large item cannot be female!). We said a very sad goodbye (but a goodbye that was full of happy memories of several years of caravanning) to our Bailey Pageant and Mazda truck and were immediately overwhelmed by the difference in size!

Above photographs shows the slight difference in size between the new trailer and our old Bailey. The pictures below shows how large and wide it is……just wide enough to fit on the B1040 outside our home in Crowland, Peterborough. The “rig” measures 3.8m high, 2.5m wide and a whopping 13m long when hitched together, the trailer when unhitched is 8.4m long. It\’s so long we have to park in the \”coach area\” at service stations!

Samson was duly christened by our nephew Jack Spencer, who felt “the beast” needed a suitable name. He felt that Samson seemed to fit very nicely with Suzi (the Isuzu). Samson and Suzi was therefore created!

Samson spent his first Christmas at Nene Park, Peterborough, fairy lights inside and out.

The beast spent nearly a year parked on the driveway with occasional outings to local touring parks that would accommodate us, giving us many a hilarious moment watching wide mouthed people on the pavement gawping as we passed, probably wondering what on earth this beast was!

We spent a few days in a lovely park in Broadway, Gloucester, home of the first ever documented “touring caravan” called the Wanderer in 1885. It is on display behind glass and was donated by the Caravan Club together with details of the owner’s around the UK trip.

Whilst sitting on the driveway David & I would often sit on the comfortable lounge seats and look out the window, watching the grey, damp and cold Crowland farmland morph into a sunny, warm beach vista and we would comment on the locals out walking their dogs or the number of tourists in the sea that day or it would become a hilltop view of the sun setting on the Sierra Navada mountains and we would marvel at the changes in colour as day turned to night.

During these moments, away from the mobile phones and internet, office jobs and long hours of work, demanding children and general chaos of modern life, we would wonder what it would be like to have none of those worries, to be carefree, and footloose…….many a glass of wine evaporating whilst we were wondering….travelling through sunny Europe with our shell on our back, money in the bank and no-one but ourselves to worry about. The lure of the sun, different cultures, so many varying landscapes, tasty fresh food and the need for the feel of sand, sea and dust between our feet led us to plan a route of travel around the coast of Europe, in Samson. Just the two of us.

Then, suddenly, within a year, our dreams were becoming closer to a reality. David and I had both “taken early retirement”, we had an amazing stroke of luck with selling the big house in a quiet market and promptly found a smaller, comfortable house in a local area, (I believe the term is “we downsized”) and to top it all both children fledged to their own nests. Even Nelson the cat settled into his new abode with Robin and Charlotte, happy with occasional visits from us for cuddles and titbits.

Samson went for an annual service in April 2017, we had sprung a water leak in the toilet over the winter so the 2-3 day visit took a little longer as the dealer needed to import parts from America. In the meantime, we jetted off to sunny Jamaica for 2 weeks!

As time progressed we agreed a date of roughly September 2017 to set off on our travels. This date has approached so quickly, it is frightening.

I personally needed to dot the “i’s” and cross the “t’s” before I felt totally happy to commit to this long term venture. These included understanding that I would be with the same person for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and it took me a long time to accept this fact. I often wondered how long it would be before I strangled him……but now I am happy to try it and see.

I also needed to make sure in my own mind that the fledglings were happy and settled and coping with life away from (a) the Bank of Mum and Dad and (b) the readily available fridge contents/ washing machine and dryer/ taxi service and my endlessly disappearing supply of facewipes and toilet rolls.

They seem to be happily thriving and so towards the end of July 2017 we ceremoniously booked a one way ferry crossing for Wednesday 27th September, a mini cruise from Portsmouth to Bilbao with Brittany Ferries and on a friend’s recommendation secured a month’s pitch at Gran Camping Zarautz, about an hour from Bilbao. So our journey begins.