Independent overland travel through Africa in a Unimog called Moglet

After that, we headed further north, heading for a campsite just outside of a little village called Melkridge, about 20miles west of Newcastle. We stopped on the way to take a picture of a house surrounded by toilets being used as plantpots - possibly the isolation does strange things to some people??! We stopped again a bit later to fill up the tanks and grab a few supplies, mindful of the approaching Bank Holiday and also the ease of which we may/may not be able to get cheap diesel the further north we went, and a local commented Moglet was 'a canny wee van' - possibly the first time anyone has suggested she's any kind of small! Now at the campsite, we're literally 1/4 mile from a big chunk of Hadrians Wall, so this is a great location to be parked up for a while. We arrived here on 29th December, after the usual later departure and slower journey than expected. It didnt help that we passed an outdoor shop on the way, so naturally had to turn around and have a look inside, just in case...

The first morning here, the frost was so thick it looked like snow, and the temperature hovered around -4degrees until the sun came out. The next morning the fog was so heavy we couldnt see anything beyond the boundaries of the campsite, about 20yards away. We decided to take Moglet for a drive into Hexham, partly to have a look around and partly to give Moglet a bit of a run - we were parked on a bit of a diagonal slope so a different pitch would be a good plan, and both the black and grey tanks were full so we needed to get close to the inspection cover to empty them. As a town its pretty small with just a scattering of the basic shops, although there is a huge Tesco as well as a Waitrose so you can get stocked up. Also, the main town centre car park has 10 or so bays specifically for lorries and camper vans, so parking wasnt a problem (just follow the signs for lorry parking). The fun really started when we got back to the campsite and needed to empty the tanks - frozen solid as they both appeared to be! The external shower came in very handy, eventually pumping enough hot water onto the outside of the tanks so they'd release their 'cargo' - although not without exploding out of the end of the 4" diameter pipe in a fountain of all things partially frozen, stinky and natsy! After almost two hours of hosing, tank thumping and partially hysterical giggling at the idea of frozen poo, we eventually got it all emptied though, cleaned up the mess we'd made, and Jason even managed to get the frozen external tap on the shower block to work so we could fill up the clean water tank. I knew that Leatherman would come in handy for something eventually!

So not really your typical New Years Eve - cold, dirty and tired we eventually started making tea around 10pm. Or rather, Jason did - I got the bubbly out of the fridge and had a little sit down :-) When midnight came, Jason didnt notice as he was busy texting people a happy new year, so he got a good 'pinch, punch' and we pretty much went straight to sleep!

The plan for the next few days is to sit tight here and have a bit of a chill out. I know it may sound odd to people reading this who're going to work every day, it probably seems like we should be spending every day doing what we please, and therefore relaxing, but we're pretty much always on the go, sorting something with Moglet, tidying up, cooking...things take longer than you expect when you're working in a different environment. There's loads of roman things to have a look at, all within a few miles of here, so we're going to pay for an extra couple of nights (£12.50 a night for hookup is pretty reasonable and its a well-kept site), drag the bikes off the back of Moglet and have a bit of an explore. There's the Vindolanda fort a mile or so to our east, roman camps and temples all over the place, plenty of food in the cupboards so no reason to move on just yet. We bought a couple of books and maps on the Cairngorms and southern Scotland yesterday, so there's a bit of research to be done too. Holy Island is on the cards one we move from here, we've got a list of the times its safe to cross the causeway to get there, so fingers crossed we'll be ok :-)