Therefore I’d be interested in VW owners opinions about living with a LHD vehicle in the UK. I didn’t find it an issue during the week we had it but Mrs KoB didn’t feel confident driving it.

As others have said, its fine, really and quite easy to adapt to. Only minor issue is toll booths and car park ticket machines when driving solo! Oh and the startled looks from other drivers when they see us coming in the opposite direction while my wife is reading the paper!

http://jtekengineering.com/barendshifter.php

Trouble is as there is 3 of us, the prices for vans with pop up roofs are massive.

Pop up is great but does add to the cost. You could also look at a fixed roof van conversion with cab hammocks. Pop up roof can be retrofitted later if required.

http://vw-beds.com/products/cab_bunk.html

NZCol – Member
OOh will you lot stop it, i’ve been having a few ‘mares getting a California (long story) and had decided to give up. Then this thread starts and i read it, then a Cali appears and I am now going to look at it. This could be an expensive thread, i’d have to make the Cali my everyday car (to work 3x a week circa 20kms). How bad would it be ?

T4 or T5?

As above, my T4 is my daily driver and used as a second family vehicle as well as holiday home. It’s fine for both despite being 17 years old, and to be honest I think it’s generally been more reliable for being in daily use than it would have been if it had been parked up in the drive for half the year. It’s a SWB pop top so I can take it anywhere I could take a normal car. Fuel economy is fine and it’s a 1.9TD so mechanically pretty simple (albeit a tad underpowered sometimes). 2.5TDI is more powerful, but more complicated etc.

If I want to get somewhere fast or we’re going a long distance to visit family etc we’ll still take the car though – it’s more economical and I try to avoid putting too many unnecessary miles on the van given it’s age.

T5 Cali is a cut above the T4 in terms of comfort, drive and gadgets etc. If I was lucky enough to be able to afford one, I wouldn’t hesitate to have one as my only vehicle – ideally the 4Motion version.

Some great tips there. Thanks a million guys. I live in Moreton so know the Dartmoor bits pretty well but wasn’t sure how best to string them together. That’s given me some food for thought. Cheers.

That sounds like a bit of an epic? How long did it take?

Really don’t mind a bit of quiet road if it’s linking up some decent offroad sections

Great pics pictonroad 🙂

I’ve got a great pic of our little lad laughing his head off having a bath in the sink in our Westy when he was a similar age.

Sure you’ll have loads of fun with your bus. Ours is treated like a member of the family now.

Great – thanks for that. Will check it out.

bearGrease – Member
@SprocketJocky – is that a waveski on your roof? Not many about….

No, it’s a 7’3″ Magic Carpet sharing a bag with my little boy’s bodyboard – hence the lumpy shape! Paddles are for the inflatable double kayak that’s in the boot 🙂

I surf rather than use a sit on top kayak but would expect the kit requirements to be roughly similar. Proper kayaking is another matter entirely with specialist stuff like spray decks etc.

I’d go for a wetsuit as a minimum. If you’re intending to keep it up over the winter then go for a 5/3 (5mm body, 3mm arms) with boots and gloves, but you could probably get away with a 3/2 between say May and late October, if necessary layering up with a thermal rash vest on colder days.

I really rate C-Skins stuff – pretty good quality, comfy and not too dear.

http://www.c-skins.com/region

Fit is everything with wetsuits though so make sure you go to a shop where they know what they’re doing and try everything on.

For guidance, water temps are generally at their warmest around now, but as the colder nights draw in they will then get progressively colder until bottoming out in April time.

Been seriously thinking about one after camping a lot this year but as per The Daily Mash “Vintage camper owner Nikki Hollis said: “Apparently ‘freedom’ means ‘travelling slowly in considerable discomfort while using shitloads of petrol’.” this is what puts me off as I would have to use it most of the time as my daily transport too.

I use mine as daily transport without any bother. It’s only a 1.9TD so not the fastest but will happily cruise all day at 75 and I get around 40mpg.

Went on for a bit this morning. Had a slight overnight frost here on the Northern slopes of Dartmoor.

VWs have been linked to surf culture for years so there is the trendy lifestyle element, but I think the main reason is that most of the first mass-produced small campervans were on a VW platform so there is a much longer history of conversions…so more knowledge about how to convert them, and more of the relevant bits available.

I think I’m right in saying that VW are also the only mainstream vehicle manufacturer who do a factory conversion (the current California). All the others are after-market.

Having driven a number of vans I’d say they were also the most “car-like” to drive.

Another one??? Oooh go on then.

’95 Westfalia T4 California Coach

I live on the Severn Estuary (nearly) access isn’t too hot though in many places and a walk down the mud isn’t as appealing as a play on the beach

Tell me about it….after one memorable wipeout on the bore I clambered up the bank through a bramble bush to find myself in someone’s vegetable patch. The householder wasn’t particularly impressed to find a muddy, rubber clad bloke standing in her broad beans.

Regarding tides, this is a really good resource to plan your trip:

http://easytide.ukho.gov.uk/EASYTIDE/EasyTide/SelectPort.aspx

Llangennith on Gower is pretty good. Or Freshwater west. Three Cliffs bay can get some interesting stuff washed up the river too on big tides.

I’d look for a gently shelving beach backed by dunes and try to hit it after a combination of a big storm and spring tide.

EDIT: Severn estuary will probably also be worth checking out after a big tide. Have surfed the bore a few times and there is loads of stuff churned up in the river then. Spent one ride trying my best not to surf into a floating fridge!

We considered one but bought an Octavia Scout instead which is equally capable but has about 50% more luggage space with the seats up than the Yeti (boot on the Yeti is actually a bit poky with the seats up, but has a much higher roofline).

Luggage capacity is roughly similar with rear seats down though if I recall correctly and I think with the Yeti you have the option to remove them completely to turn it into a posh van.

Getting back to the OP… I was in a similar predicament and was looking at Sonos etc, but came up with a ghetto alternative.

I bought one of these off ebay for about £50 and hooked it up to aux input on my existing hifi amp.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/PURE-Flow-Portable-Internet-Radio/dp/B004E9SLOK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347971910&sr=8-1

As well as being great to access obscure radio stations from all around the world, it comes with flow server software which allows you you to stream from your computer over your WiFi network.

Sound quality is pretty good all things considered and you can browse albums, artists or playlists from the unit itself. With the battery pack, I can also take it out in the garden, kitchen or garage and listen to music from the computer there.

was that you I met the other evening coming the ‘wrong’ way up the hobbit run behind Manaton..

Not me, but funnily enough I think i have gone up that the wrong way on another occasion (so to speak). 😀

Would second the Warren House, provided you’ve not got kids. if you have, you get banished to the back room!

Get the ferry across to Shaldon and have a pint on the Ferry Boat terrace. A few decent olde worlde pub options along the Back Beach in Teignmouth itself too.

Take the steam train from Paignton to Kingswear and then boat across to Dartmouth, you can do a river cruise too up to Dittisham too.

I live on the moor, only about a half hour from Teignmouth. I’d definitely recommend a ride or drive up this way if you get the chance.

A drive from Bovey Tracey to Moretonhampstead, then onto Two Bridges and back via Dartmeet, Widecombe, Hound Tor, Haytor etc would take in a lot of the Eastern part of the moor with some great views.

More great riding than you can shake a stick at around all here if you’ve got bikes. Lustleigh Cleave and the Princetown / Burrator loop are two which are pretty well known.

Walk downriver froM Dartmeet and back over the moor is lovely – some great spots for river swimming along there too if that’s your thing.

Pub recommendations:

The Cleave in Lustleigh does nice food and beer. Lovely garden too.
White Horse in Moretonhampstead is a bit pricy but does fab wood fired pizzas. Barman Alberto is grumpy, but that’s just his way.
Ring of Bells in North Bovey is a pleasant spot for a beer in the garden
Ditto Rugglestone Inn near Widecombe
Sandy Park Inn just outside Chagford is also nice and good after a walk along the Teign Gorge or a visit to Castle Drogo.

Orange F8s? I stuck some on my old Gary Fisher frame for road riding. – really good and pretty cheap too:

http://www.allterraincycles.co.uk/product/125995.html

I bought a pair of these…cracking offer from Rock and Run if they’ve got your size:

http://www.rockrun.com/products/Five-Ten-Insight-%2809%29.html

These are still 5:10s admittedly, but designed as an approach shoe rather than a bike specific one. I’ve found them plenty grippy enough for hike a bike, even in mud and wet – I also use them for walking (coast paths, Dartmoor etc) – but great on the bike too. For a weekend away doing a mix of different outdoor stuff, I really only need these.

Despite being a fan, I’d avoid Merrells for the bike personally – I had a pair of Chameleons. They’re good shoes but the soles have a weird grippy outer layer which get torn to shreds on pedal pins.

They’re great bikes, provided you’re not carrying anything too heavy on them (frame is a bit on the flexy side when heavily loaded). I loved mine and really regret selling it on, but after a move to Dartmoor it was one singlespeed too many, and I needed something more rugged so I replaced it with a geared Karate Monkey.

From memory I emailed Cotic and got them to confirm that they’d supply to Halfords and then just got the bloke in Halfords to ring them with the order when the vouchers came in. This was about 4 years back mind so things could have changed.

This was mine….sadly missed 🙁

I’ve bought a couple of bikes through the scheme with Halfords and found in both cases they could get hold of most stuff.

The last one was a drop bar Cotic RoadRat which I think would take a Rohloff.

George Osborne
Michael Gove
George Osborne again, just in case he missed the first one

Another happy LogMeIn user here – have a number of home-based users for whom it’s a complete godsend.

When you install it on the target machine make sure you select the option to prevent the computer going into sleep mode when power is available.

If you search on youtube there are a few clips of MTBing on Mount Kenya too.

I was out there a few year back without a bike, but really wished I’d had access to one. The Rift Valley looks like it must have loads of potential. We did some hiking out at Naivasha and there looked to be loads of trails around that area.

I would reckon it’s an area where local knowledge would be absolutely key though.

http://www.kenyacycling.org/

Most recycling centres will probably have a section for small appliances and electronic goods. Recommend taking the hard drive out first mind.

Quite often, but usually in a good way.

I’m more amazed by the frequency in which tracks come up in sequences which are so perfect as to be damn near spooky.

Any specific errors showing?

My first move would be to dsable windows updates temporarily (under Control Panel) and then having a peek in the logs to see if you can spot which specific update is causing the problem. You should be able to see the failures in the Update History and the event log may also give some clues.

You’ve probably got your updates set to load autoamtically – you can change this so that you can select which updates to apply.

Which OS are you running?

What is the best method to carry a sandwich so it doesn’t get all squashed?

Sorry if it’s a bit radical, but have you considered a sandwich box?

Am I that predictable?? 🙂

I’d agree with the advice above really, if you want to do big rides from the door then take the road bike, but you’re really not that far from some great offroad routes on Dartmoor, which it would be a shame to miss out on. Personally I’d take the MTB.

Oatcakes are good for an afternoon snack – oats = slow release etc. Have them with some fruit. As above bananas are good.

Metro 6R4…. How mental was that??

Peugot 205 T16….Mmm

What nealglover said.

Having been on the other end of this on an ebay purchase, I’d say it’s down to you to refund him and then make the claim. The onus was on you to get proof of postage and adequate insurance. The fact you didn’t was your risk, not his.

Also a fan of Cae Du in Beddgelert, but the forestry commission site down the road is also great provided you can get a pitch next to the river.

+1 for Surfers Path. Yes, it does get a bit hippy dippy sometimes but some genuinely interesting articles – not just about surfing, ads aren’t in your face, and the photography is great.

Regarding Brittany, some classic spots, and as mentioned above, quite similar conditions to Cornwall. Off the top of my head, I’ve had some good sessions at the following:

Baie Des Trepasses
La Torche
Quiberon peninsula (just W of Carnac)

S of Bordeaux, the area around Cap Ferret is pretty good, and a little more mellow than Lacanu further North.