Independent overland travel through Africa in a Unimog called Moglet

Finally finally, it seems we really are ready to leave Jasons dads. Its been really useful being there, having a workshop and tools on hand for Jason to be able to do things, plus theres the essential inspection cover on the driveway, so emptying Moglets tanks has been a piece of cake. But after five weeks (rather than the originally planned couple of days!), we're both getting itchy feet and I in particular like the idea of being a bit further north for Christmas.

So in a flurry of last minute sorting out (and a fair amount of 'stick it anywhere there's space' approach), we eventually rolled off the driveway late afternoon on the 23rd. Our destination was my sisters house, about 2hours drive away as my parents were there visiting from France, and it'd probably be the last time mum and dad see my sister and me together at Christmas for a fair few years. It was only ever going to be a flying visit, but just popping in was lovely :-)

Mid-morning on Christmas Eve, we were off again, heading by the fastest route to Robin Hoods Bay on the coast in Yorkshire, a few miles south of Whitby. The plan when we left Jennys was to drive for as long as Jason was comfortable with, then stop for the night and carry on in the morning. This could easily have meant stopping in the services on a motorway somewhere and not arriving at the campsite until Christmas Day itself. But Jason was his usual lovely self and pretty much drove non-stop until close to 9pm, so we made it to our campsite on Christmas Eve :-) The drive up was amazingly uneventful, hardly any traffic anywhere. We averaged around 38mph for the trip, which isnt bad when you consider we dropped to 9mph going up a couple of the steep hills in the Dales! By the time we arrived at the site, the place was closed up for the night so we helped ourselves to a hook-up pitch and left a message on their answerphone to let them know we'd arrived and would settle up when we saw them.

Christmas Day finally arrived (I'm a big fan, best day of the year as far as I'm concerned!) and we were on the coast, waking up to blue skies and sunshine, and the sound of the sea just practically the other side of the hedges. The inside of Moglet had already been smothered in tinsel and sparkly disco balls, as well as the non-negotiable tree, all of which survived the journey up. All that was left to do was stick on a bit of Bing Crosby and get back into bed! Christmas Days for me are usually a flurry of organising, feeding people, clearing up, sorting out, present unwrapping and general hustle and bustle. Its all good stuff and I really enjoy it, but it was also vey nice to be able to wake up around 10am, make a cup of tea, put the Christmas tunes on then get back into bed for another hour or so :-) We eventually got up close to lunchtime, had very festive cereals and went for a walk to the beach. We'd kind of planned a bit of a wintry paddle, but when we go there the tide was so high you couldn't get off the causeway onto the beach, so we just sat for a bit in the wind and contemplated life. Jason naturally also contemplated some random womans thighs as she was bonkers enough to be wearing leggings in the freezing cold, but there you go!

We strolled back to Moglet after an hour or so, and had a go at lighting the oven for the first time. Perhaps it might have been a good idea to check it worked before I went ahead and bought the makings for a 'proper' Christmas Day dinner, but there you go! The bit thats supposed to spark didnt spark, so the pilot light wouldnt light, but we'd already bought one of those clicky things you use to light your gas burners, so that wasnt too much of a problem, and soon enough we were cooking on gas! Jason wisely took himself out of my way and had a bit of a snooze while I did my best to prepare a full roast diner with all the trimmings, using a preparation space the size of a chopping board, three burners and a reduced size oven with two dinky little shelves. But it was all a huge success, I even managed to 'make' some mince pie type things, using ready to roll pastry and a jar of mincemeat - made a kind of swiss roll, chopped it into slices and cooked all the slices together in a tin. I dont think it'd win any prizes for presentation, but by crikey it was tasty, much lighter than usual mince pies - and the massive dollop of double cream probably helped too! So all in all, it was a good first trip north for Moglet, no mechanical issues, and a very relaxing Christmas Day for the pair of us :-)