25th March to 5th April 2012

7^th April 2012

This is the first report from us on our “trip”. It would have appeared much earlier if we hadn’t had a few minor hiccups to sort out. The point of it is to record a few notes for friends and family  and to let them know where we are and what we have been up to. It isn’t meant to be a guide to world travel but learning from our many mistakes may help others preparing to do similar trips.

 Our intention is to tour USA, including Alaska, then Central and South America. We will then either ship the truck on to Asia and then make our way back home or ship it back to Europe and then head East. It depends how things turn out; we may get fed up with the whole thing after a month and come home (I doubt it).

 About a fortnight before we were due to deliver our truck to Southampton for shipping I felt  I had better get the pickup checked out by Nissan as I was a little concerned by the angle the camper was sitting on the truck bed. Not a problem – I thought.  Actually a big problem; the chassis was badly cracked, almost into two! Heritage body repairs in Dorchester did a great job and welded it back together. “As good as new”, “bomb proof”, “that’ll never go again” – most reassuring. We shall see. As it happens, I contacted the makers of the camper in Sweden, S Karosser, to check if this sort of thing had happened before. (They do, after all, advertise their campers mounted on a Nissan Navara 2005 model, the same as ours.) Yes, they have had several with exactly the same problem and they no longer recommend Nissan. In fact, they helpfully suggested that I get rid of mine and buy one of the new VW pick-up trucks, or maybe a Ford Ranger. Both of these would be about £2 million above my budget and as I would have had to get the Nissan welded anyhow to sell it, I may as well stick with it.

That done, we delivered the truck to K-Lines in Southampton to be stuck on one of their Ro-ro ships to Brunswick in Georgia (USA, not Former Soviet Union). The whole thing was arranged by  Will Pocock of Trans Global Logistics and his gorgeous opo in Texas – Lauren. (I’m not sure if she is really gorgeous or not but she sounds it on the phone). They were both most professional and helpful – recommended.

Bent Camper - oh **%%*!

We flew out on an uneventful and comfy BA flight to Atlanta on which I was fairly convinced that I would be stuck next to a 250lb sweating creature as the navigator had bagged the aisle seat. Instead I got a slinky (if conservatively dressed) chick – result! As I think they say in the world of oikeball. Sadly I spotted the book she was reading: “Mere Christianity”  by CS Lewis. My cheery Hi got a curt hello back and they were the only words we shared for the 9 hour flight. She didn’t even say grace when given her BA meal! Huh! At least the short, fat, gay and middle-aged steward fancied me and offered me a second bottle of merlot. This got a warning from the navigator that I would get a headache – rubbish, they were only half bottles. After a short nap I awoke to a crashing headache. We spent the night in a cheap hotel at the world’s busiest airport and at breakfast, whilst wrestling and losing with an automatic waffle  goo dispenser and cooker, we had, wait for it, Boxheads for neighbours! Not what I had travelled 9hrs for.

 The wonderful gents from Homeland Security would only allow us 6 months entry which could be a bit of a problem. They said that we can get it extended easily we just need to apply for an interview at any big city with CIS and Bob should be our uncle. They said the London embassy should have sorted it out when they gave us our B1 B2 visas. The Embassy girl had said that it was up to the Homeboys upon entry. Ah well, the joys of dealing with foreigners.

We had rented a Avis car to go down to pick up the truck from the docks in Brunswick which had been cleared through customs and temporarily imported for up to a year without any problems. In fact, they hadn’t even opened the back up to look inside. We then drove up to Savannah which seemed to be a nice place to base ourselves for a couple of days while we filled up with gas etc. It was an intimidating drive up a busy interstate where the stats for an hour and a half drive include: us overtaking – 0, being overtaken – 56,000, red lights jumped – 2. We decided we needed a Brit flag on the back.

Once in Savannah we encountered problems 2, 3 and 4 (1 being the chassis). We stayed in a great campsite close to the city centre, which had been a Jersey dairy farm (in fact the oldest in Sav) but now has space for about 15 monstrous, 45 foot, 3 axel coach conversion motor homes. They all towed something – either a trailer with “toys” (i.e. 2 huge Harley Davidson bikes or a sports car) or they towed an RV, often bigger than our truck. These things can cost around $750,000 without the add-ons. Despite them, it was a good place to start getting sorted out and the manager ‘JD’ Smith of Red Gate Farm couldn’t have been more helpful. Anyhow, it was here that we found out that our propane fitment or the adaptor wouldn’t work with their system. We eventually had to have one machined in a dark and noisome backstreet machine shop owned by an 84 year old retired US Air Force colonel and staffed by a disparate bunch of guys – they were all charming and very helpful. The colonel had a loaded .38 Derringer pistol with dum-dum bullets in his pocket – just in case. In case of what I wasn’t sure – me not paying? An uppity local?

Red Gate Farm Savannah

Live Oak with Spanish Moss

Tree Frog in the sink (Lost? Stuck?)

 The equally friendly and helpful chaps at Camping World installed a 110v charger

-converter so that we could plug in. They said that everything was fully guaranteed and, as they had a nationwide network, if it didn’t work then we could get our money back wherever we were. It didn’t work. So the navigator and I identified what we needed on the web, ordered it and had it delivered to Camping World so they could take out what they had done and refund us the fortune they had charged. No deal, would they hell. The odious and aggressive little git who ran the service department said they wouldn’t help so tough luck. Everyone else there had been great but he had The Power. We took out their kit and fitted the new stuff ourselves and it works a treat.

Bridge over the Savannah River

South Carolina on the far bank

In fact apart from him, everyone we have met have been fantastic; really friendly, welcoming and polite. It’s not just an automated “have a nice day”, it seems they actually are like that. The whole place is clean and tidy and even the run-down areas look neat. It’s helped by fines of $1200 and, in some places even jail for throwing litter out of the car. They should have a sign saying that for those going up Bristol Road in Sherborne! Also, everyone seems happy and they smile. Let’s see if they can keep it up for the next 15,000 miles. There is a strong national pride and they respect and honour their armed forces calling their highways such things as “Fallen Troopers Memorial Highway”, “Purple Heart Highway” and even naming their latest Interstate “3^rd Infantry Division Highway” in acknowledgment of their role in the struggle against terrorism. Maybe they will name one after me, having played a small part myself.

The last problem we had to sort out was the computer – we need it for everything. It received a very slight knock and decided to give up. Luckily some aptly named shop “Tweeks By Geeks” sorted it out for only $40.

A quick word about Savannah. If you haven’t been and are planning to be in the SE States – you must go there. It’s an unspoilt, low-rise city which has been thoughtfully looked after without becoming too much of a theme park. The historic area is particularly pretty with green, cool squares and tree-lined streets. It is famous for wonderful old Live Oaks dripping with Spanish moss. It’s a great effect although, according to Capucine, the moss houses chiggers (nasty little biting things). Several of the squares have monuments to local heroes, some of whom were shot of executed by the Brits during the sepos’ revolution. There was a particular polish general called Pulaski who has several things named after him. He seemed to get a load of French to help him (serial collaborators) fight us. Didn’t do him much good; he died of gunshot wounds inflicted by a brave Tommy. Another was Sergeant (only?) Robert Emmet – an Irish Nationalist! He was caught and executed for his troubles in 1803. Still, he got a nice statue out of it.

  Big statue for a mere Sergeant?

We couldn’t afford to spend too long in the campsite so the last three nights were in a corner of Wal-Mart’s car park; free, quiet and patrolled by a fierce looking fat black lady in a security car.

After 11 days we escaped Savannah and crossed the border into South Carolina.

I promise to get a grip of this blog and make it a bit more interesting and put in some better photos. I Don't really know what I'm doing with it yet. More to follow soon.