The first thing we did in June was to attend the Vanlife Festival in Shrewsbury. This was really interesting, and had one great benefit, meeting other overlanders and making new, like-minded friends. We are looking forward to watching their travels; who knows if our paths will cross in the future, but we hope so. As we were on the Motorcraft stand, we were expected to show people our truck. Generally, this was a great experience, people being genuinely interested in our trip, and curious about Shaun. Some people were a little bit rude, not realising they were looking around our home, but overall, it was a good experience.

The festival itself was good, with live music every evening, and a good party atmosphere. Lots of trade stands to explore and get ideas from too!

After the festival we headed down through Shropshire to a nice little campsite in Little Stretton, a delightful part of Shropshire we had driven through on many occasions but never stopped in.

We called into Bluefix to get them to check our electrical systems. They made a few changes which will hopefully mean we can get the most out of our solar panels (7 of)!

We then drove North, to spend a couple of days in North Berwick. We wanted to meet up with another friend before we go off travelling for 5 years plus, and show Shaun to him. We also wanted to see the gannets on Bass Rock. When we arrived at North Berwick, Mark noticed water leaking out near the steps when he filled our water tank to the brim. Never mind, probably just a glitch, we thought. We successfully saw our friend, and even survived Edinburgh when all the ‘Swifties” were in town to watch Taylor! Unfortunately, the boat trip to Bass Rock did not happen. On filling the water tank again, it leaked even more and the kitchen floor got a free wash. We decided we better head back to Motorcraft again to get it looked at straight away, really conscious of our departure date to Canada getting closer and wanting everything to be as right with Shaun as it could be.

Once at Motorcraft, they looked at the water tank and said they could see the problem, the filler tube had not been welded on. Easy fix they said and by the afternoon they said we could be on our way. Mark once again filled up the water tank, and lo and behold it still leaked! Another night spent at Motorcraft. The team had to expose the top of the tank, and when they did, they found a crack and this needed to be welded. This involved our floor being taken up, so we had to wait another night while this was put back and fixed back in. So, 3 days and nights at Motorcraft, water tank fixed, plus a number of small little snagging jobs, fingers crossed we don’t need to go back!

Once again, we found we had to re make our plans, so decided to go back to Bempton Cliffs, a chance to see the gannets we didn’t really get to see in North Berwick. Went to a nice little site close to the cliffs. We had a couple of days here, walking around the cliffs, watching gannets, puffins, guillemots and razorbills, with Mark continuing to do jobs on Shaun, for example fitting a new steering wheel as the old one was filthy and sticky!

Then back to our base in North Wales, for final preparations to ship to Halifax, Canada! Mark wanted to add a mudguard to protect our airhorn and our friend Richard was great for helping with this, getting some of his contacts to help make the box. We then took more time to rationalise what we would take. We had wanted to take lots of dried foodstuffs with us but were told that the shipping company don’t allow this. If they searched us and found foodstuffs we may not be allowed to travel. After all the waiting we didn’t want to risk this, so took all our food stuffs out, and used one of our luggage bags for the plane to take some things (lots of teabags!)

So, the day came, 21/6/2024, to drop Shaun off at Liverpool docks. We have been waiting a long time for this, and it all went without a hitch. Obviously, we had an element of nervousness, will the journey go well, will everything in it still be there on the other side of the pond? We have a lot of things stored in our cab, but Mark had made a plywood partition so our storage could not be seen. Hopefully no one would enter the habitation unit, as the keys for it were in a key safe so only customs could enter if needed! We left Shaun at Liverpool in the company of some other travel vans people were having transported and about 50 new Mclarens, nice company. 

Did we all survive the journey? See our next blog, July 2024. Thanks for reading!