Sometimes life gives you lemons. Sometimes it lends you a luxury motorhome. It can either sit on the driveway whilst you’re inside zesting lemons or you can take it for an Alliance Adventure around Wales and the South West.
Guess what I chose 😉
The Brilliant and very Basic idea of the Alliance Adventure (AA) was to hit the road with Wanda Dog (aka. Chops) and Go And Do Fun Stuff with Fun Friends in Incredible Places, all enabled by the fabulous David/Dafydd the Bailey. So up we packed and off we set.
For the first five days we were joined by Libby and Pip in the playground that is Wales – starting with the Sugar Loaf in the Brecons. We warmed up and got used to Daafydd pretty quickly, he’s easy to drive – even around the skinny lanes of Wales. Although having said that, it may have been that cars coming from the opposite direction saw the look of sheer horror when they appeared and so promptly backed up for me! We also used the first day/night to stock up on supplies and get used to #moholife and so kept it nice and simple with a couple of soggy doggy walks, towels at the ready obvs 🙄.
Over the next couple of days the weather alternated between Soggy McSogface and incredible shorts-and-Tshirt weather. But obvs we’re used to that so visited and swam in Llyn y Fan Fach and ooooh-ed, ahhh-ed and got drenched by the waterfalls of the beautiful Vale of Neath.
I LOVE driving, almost as much as cycling in fact, honestly! And so was excited to get a few moho miles under my belt – I’d been worried about cashola, what with diesel being pretty extortionate, but actually in 3 weeks of driving (and approx 670 miles) I think I spent £130 on fuel. What I also love about #moholife is the camaraderie with fellow mohos on the road – BIG old waves and thumbs up – much more excitable than the too-cool-for-school VW wave! Anyway… after a stopover in Bristol to drop off Libby and Pip and catch ‘Wild Swimming’ (on brand as ever… 😉) at the Old Vic, headed to the fabulous Clevedon Marine Lake for a Saturday (late) breakfast swim with Ade in tow.
After the dip and obligatory all-day-breakfast I got another few miles under my belt and headed to Dorset for a long-overdue catch up with friends at Happy River Retreat and to ‘prepare’ for the following day’s 16 mile trail race. ‘Never Knowingly Prepared’ – that’s my motto and usually it’s fine, this time it was absolutely not fine. Previously I’ve been able to run trail marathons on the back of very little ‘training’ – not quickly admittedly – but realise now that 3.5 months of just cycling, eating and travelling was far from ideal. I struggled from 4 miles in! Luckily (for me, not so for him…) I had my wonderful friend Charlie (link for the ladies!) with me. I wasn’t expecting to need support – I’m usually the supporter! – but support me he did and I owe him one, big time!
Can a place be your Ride or Die? Purbeck’s mine. And with places like Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door to swim (this time accompanied by delightful Nina) who couldn’t fall in love with the whole county of Dorset?
Yep, at this stage I was still sporting the wetsuit – hey, I’ve got a sizeable bathroom in the moho, perfect for drying (oh and showering) and a handy (massive) wing mirror! But I soon got tired of that and LEPT into skins at Studland and beyond…
After having ‘mild camped’ at/near friends for a few nights Nina and I used a Pub Stopover – a great app that shows pubs open to having vans/mohos on their land/carparks etc. It’s a great idea, I just wish there were a few more of them!
The next few days we headed west skirting the coast (meeting up with Nat , Katex and Ed , Jen and Kim along the way) before heading onto the comparable tourist wilderness of Dartmoor, enjoying the rivers and hills along the way – the blisters from the race having been helped by lots of salty sea water!
Having just got back from Canada I had a couple of new clients lined up with work raring to go so although every day had it’s adventures, I also had to keep working on the road, keeping the pennies coming in and funding this slightly nomadic life!
A couple of days on Dartmoor later I headed to Ilfracombe with the idea of joining in with the Woolacombe parkrun – free weekly 5k timed runs – on the Saturday. And it was a good one! Blustery and sandy and hilly – definitely a parkrun PW but SO beautiful – thanks for the recommendation Katex 😗!
And so back to Bristol. All in all we (Chops, our fabulous friends that joined us along the way, and I) had the best time. It was a great, gentle, reintroduction for me to get back to the UK yet still live basically – in terms of what I had with me, I think I was living in moho luxury! – and deciding things day-by-day. Fingers crossed I’ll get to do more moho adventures with David/Dayfdd or one of his MoBros (😂) again asap.
Here’s the final route that we took, our incredible Alliance Adventure.
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I was loaned the Motorhome by Bailey of Bristol for this trip, but everything is just me, my thoughts and photos. They didn’t tie me to a chair and make me say anything nice, they just want the truth out there. They’re good like that.
Let's go and do fun stuff... 