Portsmouth: Could the lovely Spring day in London yesterday last? Not a chance… It rained all night and we woke to heavy fog. The drive down to Portsmouth through Hampshire gave us a pretty, if misty, view of the western part of the rolling South Downs, past Chawton, Jane Austen's village. Later on we passed the little village of Wickham and I couldn't help but wonder if Ms Austen had used the name for a character in Pride and Prejudice - is there a ...

Leeds and London After leaving the ferry at around 9pm, we headed north intending to get as far as we could that night. We did not have any campsite booked and since most places would now be closed we knew we would be (illegally) wild camping for the night. After rejecting many places as unsuitable we finally pulled into a layby off the motorway. We joined 3 or 4 huge trucks also bedding down for the night. What a ghastly night! The road was noisy and we...

In the UK again After six weeks back in Oz for David's graduation as an officer in the Army Reserve, it's back again to the northern hemisphere for some more travels in the van. We left an Australian winter for early autumn in the UK - there wasn't any discernible difference in the weather... In Leeds we collected the van and did some reprovisioning. In all the rush to pack at the very end, we discovered we had left quite a few things behind in Sydney .....