Mud! Mud! Everywhere!

This past weekend we took Friday off work and headed cross-country to Great Malvern in Worcestershire, for Vanfest 2008. You might recall our previous trip and that was a fairly different experience. The main difference this time was the mud! It took the shine off the trip for us. After Mark spent an hour polishing the van he wasn't happy to see the heavens open up on us as we were en route. The showground was a mess when we arrived and got worse over the weekend. You can read about the full horror over on our trip report.

Beautiful Dartmoor

A few weeks ago at the August Bank Holiday drove down to Weymouth for our first trip since getting the Fun Bus back on the road. We were due at our friend Natalie's wedding near Exeter and decided it would be a great first chance to get back to traveling with the van. The van was running perfectly and we made it up some very steep hills with no problem. It all went to plan and we especially enjoyed our over-night stop on Dartmoor. Read the story and look at the pictures here.

Looking fresh!

It's been a long and uncertain road to recovery, but on Saturday the Funbus was back in action for the first time since we put him in to storage. That was May 2005 and we were off to travel Australia in a Toyota Hiace. Over three years later and with a lot of hard work and money, the rust is gone and he's ready for many more adventures.

Ready to go!

We'll be writing up the full story of the renovation soon but for now we're going to enjoy the pleasure of being back on the road.

The Summer is well under way and we have a few trips planned over the next couple months and some unplanned ones are bound to happen too. First will be four days in Devon, at the coast near Exeter for a friend's wedding. We'll take the opportunity to pitch camp in the dunes at Dawlish.

Two more new wheel arches to go!

We went down to see the progress with the Funbus a couple of weeks ago and as you can see from the pictures he now has two new wheel arches amongst other things. We reckon the body work is about 40% towards completion which means we may just have him done in time for the camping season next year. There is a long winter of work still ahead before we can re-spray, and head out for a summer on the road.

Will he be ready for Summer 2008?

Our minds have already turned to a trip next Summer. And we think it's about time we made the crossing to the Continent. We're not quite sure whether that will be Northern France, or the Netherlands and Belgium. Either way it would be the Funbus' biggest adventure yet!

It's been a long, long, time since the last update here so let's have a recap of the last two years. We put the Fun Bus in to storage prior to moving to Australia in June 2005. And then a year later in June 2006 we returned to London but weren't in a position to put the Fun Bus through the MOT he needed.

Has the Fun Bus Reached his end?

But now, two years after the van went in to storage we've faced a serious choice. The body work has never been perfect and since the attempted break-in and kick from a passing vandal it has deteriorated further. In places the panels have become so corroded that they are structurally compromising.

Wheeless and woeful!

So the choice has been to either replace the body-work at a significant cost, or send the Fun Bus to the great scrap heap in the sky. We were shocked at this realisation, but to spend so much money that we really need to buy a flat on an optional belonging like a campervan, can not really be justified. The reconditioned engine is in good condition after an overhaul by Jack's Garage and the interior is a limited edition and almost entirely complete. So we could make some money from selling those parts rather than pouring yet more money in...

Rotten wheel arch

But you'll be pleased to hear we couldn't face sending him to the scrap heap. I'm happy to report that as we speak the Fun Bus is undergoing major body work replacement. As luck would have it, there is a mechanic and body shop who specialises in VWs close to Mark's parents. The work will take some months so we'll miss having any trips out this summer, but there should hopefully be many more to come in future years. Check back for progress updates on the renovations.

Earlier in the day we walked along the cliff path between Bondi and Tamarama to look at the Scultpture by the Sea open air exhibition. There were lots of interesting sculptures on the route. Some were abstract but others like the one to the right here represented this we know quite well.

Click on the thumbnail for a large picture of the first two pages of the spread. Also in honour of the occassion we've added new page about the Fun Bus with links to buying, restoring and renting VW campers.

Unfortunately that means the poor Fun Bus has to go into storage whilst we are away. You can follow our Australian travels on our new Website Dave and Mark Down Under.

The other news is that we've switched to paid-for website hosting so we no longer have pop-up adverts!

Unfortunately the year has ended on a sad note. A couple of weeks ago someone attempted to break into the van on our drive-way and in the process has shredded the side-door around the lock.

To say we were angry is an understatement. Year by year it feels like the van is being destroyed. We really need to do bodywork and a full re-spray, but we can't afford that. This year will take alot of saving and in the meantime we'll have to patch him up as best we can.

We will of course post a report of how it went for us. In the meantime you can now read our September feature article, a handy tongue-in-cheek guide to 'Camper Spotting'.

Vans! Vans! Everywhere...but is that a hippy van or an empi?

The first is a trip happening as I write. Michel and Elles are driving 35000 km from Amsterdam to Beijing in their '76 Devon and updating their website DriveThePlanet.com as they go. They are curently in Turkey and will be heading for Iran, Pakistan, India and then accross the width of China to Beijing. It's quite an epic journey.

" I can see Beijing from here! "

The second site is The VW Camper Van Experience where you can sponser the renovation of Brad's '74 Westy and get your name somewhere on the finished van! It's an innovative way of covering rennovation costs. $2 gets you on his pop-top and $15 on the rear. Brad's a student of Aerospace Engineering, so I'm sure an air cooled VW engine is a piece of cake to him.

Also we've added a new Features section to the site. Where Dave is going to put some short articles about VW camper culture. His first one is titled 'Camper Chic' and looks at how the VW camper van has become trendy.

Also we've swapped things around on this page to make better use of the screen space. There's now a left hand column which contains links and a box for you to add yourself to our new mail list. We'll be sending out notifications of significant updates to the site, for example when we add a new advenure.

There's some good content about the cultural history of the surf bus and particulary VWs here, MagicSurfBus.Com

Steve's Hawaiian Island Bus