Thursday 3 October 2013

Adventure Overland show 2013; the M25 as a car park, Bacon Rolls and local (strong!) Cider!

Apologies for the lack of updates, strangely enough, it's hard to write about adventures in distant lands when there's not much going on and your stuck at home. When i'm not working to try and improve my rather alarming bank balance, im spending most of my time researching cold weather gear, studying weather reports and looking at the likeliness of roads in the North being closed in January...

Anyway, more excitingly, me and Tim were at the Adventure Overland show last weekend, held at Stratford Racecourse, Tom McGuigan (hoping i've spelt that right!) the organizer and chief of the event has a ten year plan for the event. With it staying at Stratford racecourse, and to be held at the end of September for the next ten years! No arguments from me!

I left Friday evening, it was roughly 120 miles, nice and easy cruise round the M25, dodging the HGVs, average speed cameras and seemingly permanent roadworks, before travelling the remaining 70 odd miles up the M40 to Stratford. I thought it'd take me about 3 hours, 5 hours later i arrived at Stratford race course. All thanks to the car park that is the M25 on a Friday afternoon! Unfortunately this meant that i had to put up my tent in near darkness, luckily i've done it a few times before! Plus i saw this pretty sunset...


Saturday Morning came, and i set about sorting out some breakfast, what do you eat when your at these events? Bacon rolls of course! 


Camped next to this 110, great couple from further North whose names escape me, if they offered me a mug of tea once they must of offered 100 times... Unfortunately though i had to keep denying as i'm one of them weirdos that doesn't drink Tea... Or Coffee...

Just as i was about to wander off down to the main event area, Tom who i vaguely knew from the Overland Travel forum, turned up doing his rounds and recognised wee Timmy. He offered me and the car a place on display right next to there event office, of course i didn't refuse!

I parked him up, and hastily wrote out a description of who we are, where we've been and where we're going next! The amount of attention that he got and the interest that we received, both during the event and after in the form of e-mails and blog hits i really couldn't of anticipated! So thanks again Tom!


I haven't that many photos of the event, as although i took my camera all the way to Stratford with me, when i took it out the bag, i realised that i'd left my memory card at home! Grrrrr. Plus my trusty old iPhone was failing me rapidly, having to be charged 3-4 times each day... Good news is i now have new memory cards, and have a new phone, so i sha'll have no excuses in the future!

Sunday morning sunrise!

 Spotted this rather fashionable (or not?) Black and Pink Defender 90 pick-up. I love Land Rovers, but i think i'll give this one a miss. Either that or wear a paper bag over my head whilst driving it....

Shout out to Dorothy, Nathan Millwards australian 110cc postie bike, who's travelled all the way from Australia to the UK, and then from New York to San Francisco and then finally up to Alaska. I say 'finally', Nathan insists that currently the bugs outta his system, i'm not so convinced....!


Shout out to Joe and Jenette, (hoping i've spelt that right!) great couple who have spent the last year or so driving the British Isles in there ex-ambulance Land Rover, in preparation for a round the world trip! They very kindly offered me accomodation for when i make it to Norway in January as well. Plus me and Joe (the Joejoes!) made an awesome quiz team at 2 o'clock on Monday morning. Check there blog out at:

Last shout out goes to Simon, living out of his VW T4 Camper full time for the last 4 years and visiting some fantastic places such as New Zealand, Australia, Morocco as well as most of Europe, he had some great stories to tell and advice to give me, much appreciated Simon, sure we'll meet again soon.

So overall the weekend was one of the best i've had in a long time. Thanks again to everyone that came up and had a chat, and listened to me rambling on for god knows how long, send me an e-mail or comment on here if you've anything to ask or advise! Oh, and cheers to Chris for refilling my cider cup on Saturday night, James Cargo for letting us drink all your beer once we'd drank all the cider! Tom for the curry on the Sunday night, the quiz prizes handed out at 3 on Monday morning, and for the allowing me to park up right in the middle of the show!

Roll on the next one, we'll be there with a few more miles on the clock, a few more oil leaks from Tim, and some more stories to ramble on about from me!

Peace, Joe.

No comments:

Post a Comment