The new year west country style

We are delighted to be on the road again. Grinning from ear to ear we got into Daphne in late November and headed west along with our new gorgeous pup Otto. Currently in Cornwall we are exploring cliff tops, beaches, tiny lanes and enjoying friendly hospitality.

January 2019 we packed up our house and headed abroad in our motorhome Daphne to “live the dream”. We can honestly say it’s been one big adventure and we have no regrets. Even the thought of living in a house fills us with dread and we love the freedom of the road. Daphne has been good to us, she has worked hard providing us with an engine for travel and a warm comfortable place to call home. We spent 5 months abroad, 4 of these in Portugal and loved our time exploring new worlds, to us anyway. The rest of 2019 has been a mixture of smaller adventures and precious time with family. Always grateful to have this opportunity to take the time to explore and enjoy this one and only life we have. 6 weeks into this leg of our adventures and the dawn of 2020 still sees us grinning from ear to ear.

Exploring the beaches with Otto

Celebrating Christmas and new year with friends west country style 

More beaches, out of season is the best 🙂

Otto at Christmas 

Hidden coves are great to explore

A day out at the Cornish seal sanctuary 

Christmas and Boxing day (Ivan's birthday) spent exploring Poldark country and walking to Cape Cornwall

Wild camping at a Reservoir 

The iconic Lands End sign

The Minnack theatre was a must see awesome experience 

Sunrise and beach at St Michael's mount

Cornish pubs 😍

Ivan has the world to explore (taken at the Eden Project)

Cornish pasties and culture

Daphne keeps us all cosy and warm in the UK winter

And more beaches.....

Slow travel has become our way for of life and it’s been great to spend as long as we want exploring new and old places in the West Country. For years we have traveled to Somerset, Devon and Cornwall and enjoyed the beautiful places just a half a days drive from where we lived. We used to come for a long weekend and sometimes a week if we were lucky. We always left wanting more and wishing we had more time. The time has come and we are now making the most of it.

All the best for 2020. Lets make it a year to remember.

The new pup

We have a new addition to the Daphne Diaries family! Otto, a miniature silver dapple Dachshund.

Otto lounging in Daphne

Photo by Stevie Ward

Otto is 12 weeks old and his mother is Una, Jane's sister Angie's dog. Una had 3 pups and Otto is the eldest. Ivan and Jane have had Otto for 2 weeks and he has settled into van life really well.

Jane with Otto and Angie with Otto's mum Una

As some of you know we planned this adventure with our other dog Storm in mind. He passed away before we left and so could not be part of our new journey. After 10 months without a dog we were ready to open our hearts again. We just could not resist Otto. He is probably the perfect dog for our new lifestyle, small, chilled, cuddly, tiny and can adapt easily.

Various photos of Otto. 

Until Otto has had his vaccinations we are careful and have been carrying him around in the red bag above! So far he has travelled in Daphne the motorhome, cars, on Jane's motorcycle around a field (although he was sick afterwards!) and on a push bike. He seems to love all vehicles so is fitting in well for a travelling dog. We are looking forward to lots of adventures with Otto and sharing them with you. We know we can give Otto the best life and it's a huge privilege being there every day to watch our new pup grow into a dog. 

Lots of adventures to come with the Daphne Diaries, Ivan, Jane and now Otto so watch this space #tinyhome#tinydog 🐾🐾🐕

The brief adventures

Since the last post of The Daphne Diaries Ivan and Jane have been actively enjoying life in their tiny home on wheels.

Although mainly in Sussex over the last few months to spend time with family we have spent some time travelling and seeing new sights. A brief overview of some of our adventures are the in pictures are below:

Daphne towed our vintage Matchless's to Wales. We had a great time at the South west Wales vintage motorcycle rally in Carmarthenshire. Lovely runs out on tiny lanes, beautiful weather and catching up with family and friends. Jane had her nephew Stevie riding pillion for over 100 miles on the Saturday run ☀️. 

After the rally we enjoyed a few days exploring the Pembrokeshire coast with our friend Phil. We stayed on an exceptional site where the owners had amazing vision and completely renovated and landscaped an old farmhouse, some boggy land, field and woods into what is now Hilton court and gardens. 

Hilton gardens in Roch is well worth a visit.

As we travelled back to Sussex we decided to continue to walk the Sussex border path. This is a long distance footpath which follows the border of Sussex from Emsworth near Hampshire, up towards Gatwick and East Grinstead on the Surrey border and down to Rye on the Kent border. Last year we managed to walk 50 miles out of the 150 and did not have time to complete the rest. We love walking and are using this opportunity to continue our way. The pictures above are from last week where we completed another two sections walking west to east and have reached just south of Ockley, Surrey. We intend to walk further to East Grinstead this week to complete the West Sussex sections and another 45 miles of the route.

Just a few more pictures from our brief adventures, sometimes a brief respite if only for a few hours: 

 

Watching the sunrise on the longest day.

Jane on the bridge at Kew gardens.

Enjoying the company of young wild foxes at one of our wild camping spots.

Making the most of being by the sea and kayaking with our friends John and Karen. 

Thank you to everyone who has sent their love and best wishes to Ivan's dad. He is on the mend and although still in hospital he is doing really well. 

We have enjoyed spending time with family and friends and going in brief adventures. We are sure there will be many more, in the meantime one of our favourite things to do is watch the sunset so....

Just some of the amazing sunsets we have seen in the last few weeks.

Thank you for reading. Wishing you lots of happy adventures 🙂.