Starting to feel like home

After just over two weeks, sleepy sunny little Chulilla is starting to feel like home. 

From the 1st of April, which must mark the start of a season, the countryside has jumped to life. All the old farmers are out on their tractors ploughing the terraced fields around their olive trees. This is a picture of my favourite olive tree, so large and old it's limbs are supported by poles. 

Most of the population in the town are senior citizens, as old as their olive trees, and they are starting exchange pleasantries with us in the street (well I assume that’s what’s happening when the grunt incomprehensibly and wave their walking sticks at me). We’ve also found the bakery, which is quite possibly a big mistake… they sell Nutella filled croissants for 70 cents. Hopefully this is compensated for by the wild asparagus that grows at the crag and is now an exciting addition to our diet of pasta red sauce.   

We’re also feeling a bit more at home on the rock here. Some of the limestone tufas, which have been seeping ever since the week of rain, are starting to dry out, making some of the more exceptional routes climbable. I have no photos to show of it yet though as I keep forgetting to take the camera when we go climbing! 

The van is also becoming more homely too, with the addition of a herb garden and some chickens (chickens sadly only in printed form, on the lino we got to cover the bench).

Amongst other home improvements (such as the removal of the floral curtain) the van is also now equipped with a clamshell sand pit as a bath tub, which fits perfectly in the floor space, and makes for a great steamy bath time.    

And lastly, a couple of other shots...

Morning view.

Dinner time.

We made it to paradise...

...and now it's raining!

After 2 days of driving through France (which should have taken much less but for our efforts to avoid all toll roads, resulting in having to go through a round-a-bout every 800m or so), we popped out of the tunnel through the Pyrenees into Spain!

First stop: Chulilla, a beautiful little Spanish village perched on a ridge between canons of endless limestone. 

Before the rain... 

Now it's quite cold and wet, even the olive oil is solidifying.

And here's a little photo of the Van interior after the makeover. 

The van certainly has a sense of humour

I walked into the spare room where we are staying last night to find Mick trying to crimp the lip of the draw on the filing cabinet next to his mattress….it’s time to leave England. We haven’t climbed in over a month, not a great average for a year dedicated to climbing. Any hint of a tan that I managed to accumulate in my brief Aus summer stint has gone…and my strength to body weight ratio is severely degraded by an indoor inactive English winter lifestyle…and my Nutella binge the other day to commemorate the death of the almighty inventor of the blissful substance (RIP Ferrero).

The interior decorating of the Van is complete…with Royal Blue carpet for the floor, baby poo coloured insulation on the walls, and a hideous floral curtain, we’re all set!

Apart from one thing. The van is now apparently un-roadworthy! In the UK they have this stupid mandatory road worthiness test, called an MOT, and can fail you for any number of ridiculous things, such as a tiny bit of body rust, or the hand break not pulling tight after three clicks. We were a tad concerned about our van passing it’s test, especially when the indicators mysteriously stopped working on they way to the MOT place, and then when the mechanic couldn’t get any of the doors to unlock (there’s a knack to it), and then when the mechanic couldn’t start it (there’s a knack to that too). But failing us for a rusted seal which would cost 750 pounds to fix it (that’s about a 1 million AUD at the moment with the way the dollar is), well that was just hurtful England. Anyway luckily we’ve found some dodgy bloke in Chatham (aka dodgy-ville), who’ll do a cash job on the weekend for a lot less. Let’s hope we still have a van by Sunday!

American motor home...almost

We bought a van yesterday. It's huge! Of course I’m getting the blame for the extravagance…after my outburst in TESCO the other day over the UK’s extreme obsession with pre-packaged food (even fruit is packaged), which lead to my announcement that while we are travelling through Europe we would have source our food predominantly from the likes of bulk food suppliers, if I were to avoid a psychological meltdown over society’s complete disconnect with the origin of our food. Mick then concluded we would need a van large enough to accommodate a year’s supply of sacks of rice and lentils, and therefore agreed to the long wheel base high top semi trailer we purchased yesterday. But I actually think the real reason we ended up with such an enormous vehicle is that Mick quite fancies the idea of inviting new friends (aka unsuspecting victims) over to play (or more accurately… get thrashed at) his favourite card game, Monopoly Deal. Anyway, whatever the excuse, we now have a bloody big van, and are commencing refurbishments today, after having spent the afternoon yesterday scrubbing out the English countryside mud that was caked on the floor.

That is a massive broom...by the way...in case if affects you're appreciation for how large the van is.

This might sound strange but....England is enormous!

In Australia we like to think of England as being tiny, and laugh at the Poms because their entire country could fit into our second smallest state. Well the last few days they have been definitely been getting the last laugh….England is huge, at least when you’re driving around looking for vans. Someone must have done their calculations wrong when they worked out England could fit into Victoria…because every time we go to look at a van that, on Google maps, appears to be just down the road in the same county, or "just up the hill", its a four hour round trip, and thats travelling at the standard motorway speed of about 130km/hour. How is it that in a country so small, everything is so far away, even when everyone travels so fast? And its not even financially viable to go and look at any vans within the “circle” of London, as it would cost about a tenth of our entire van budget just for the two of us to commute in for the day! Who would have thought I’d be saying this only a few days after leaving…but Adelaide is not actually so bad!