The Big Adventure Blog: Breaking the "home habit"

People in all sorts of fields will talk about the 21 day rule - 21 days to break a habit, or 21 days to form a new habit. We've been on the road for a week now, and our "living a normal life in a normal home" habit is slowly but surely starting to break. Jean mentions that yesterday was the first day that she started to feel or realise that we're not on a short-term holiday break. We'll report again in another 2 weeks as to whether we've fully broken our "habit"!

The start of our new life - lived out of the back of our Land Rover - has been remarkably smooth, interesting and mostly fun. We're learning the tricks of "wild camping", which doesn't necessarily mean out in the wild, and could be equally in an urban carpark, as was the case in our first night of Wild Camping in Langholm, in the Scottish Borders. We befriended an ice-cream van man, who told us despite the fading "no overnight camping" sign in the carpark, that lots of people stayed there overnight. It turned out to be a good spot, with an undercover pavilion where we cooked our first "wild dinner".

You wouldn't get on well in our particularly compact campervan-type setup if you weren't the organised and efficient type. It requires German-level efficiency to live successfully (and happily), which thankfully is already part of our psyche. Everything has it's place, which is fine - the catch is that to get to one place (storage compartment, crate etc), you have to move a number of things to get there, in a certain order - and back again, of course in the reverse order. When the bed is down for sleeping, 2 compartments are completely inaccessible, and when the table is put down for cooking, a different 2 crates are out of reach. We are getting quicker though at getting in and out of the different compartments, and planning ahead for what we need for the activities ahead. Patience goes a long way to having a happy experience - thankfully we're not in any hurry.

We're currently in Aberdeen, having been in Scotland now for 5 days. We've enjoyed our Scottish experience so far, and it's nice change from the busy-ness of England. Straight away you notice and feel the effects of a significantly "lighter" population. The roads are wider and smoother, the towns are more spacious and better laid out, and there is more than 5 miles between each village! Coupled with the dramatic scenery that everyone talks about, it's been a very enjoyable drive so far, with much more yet to see.

Here's some of the highlights from our first few days:

First wild camping spot in Langholm carpark

First couch-surf in Cupar - they had built a climbing wall on their staircase walls for their kids to use, especially in winter. Absolute genius use of otherwise wasted space.

Visiting the University at St Andrews

Wild camping - in the wilds near Falkirk!

The giant Kelpies of Falkirk

Visiting the battlefield of Bannockburn

THE Stirling bridge - site of William Wallace's famous victory over the English army

Abandoned farmhouse in the Angus area - with distinct pink stone of the area

Glamis castle - the best castle or palace we've visited so far! Really loved walking in the footsteps and rooms that the Queen Mother lived in, and Queen Elizabeth II visited