The coming of the Beastie.

Shuttling kayaks between the put-in and take-out requires 2 vehicles, therefore one which could carry the other. Cutting down on accomodation costs was the bonus of a camper and a shower to carry wet, stinky gear led to an ebay search still on my favorites: campers & caravans (shower -caravan). Cost was a balancing act since it would determine the length of the trip but would, hopefully, be recovered at the end. Unfortunately, the dollar chose this moment to plummet ($1.98 to the pound!!!) so my choices were getting more limited every day.

A road-legal dirt bike from the local paper and a train ride down south got my first view of my newly acquired beddy. An X registered CF2 with a busted shower tray, ragged upholstry, blown exhaust and low mileage used mainly as a semi-mobile abode during it's owner's college course. The ride back got off to an auspicious start when 7 years of driving automatics and the barely perceptable resistance of the reverse-next-to-first arrangement nearly demolished the barn it was parked in front of. My first experience of driving on the left in a very long time was in a vehicle wide enough to sleep across, in the dark and rain while my instincts were screaming that the vehicle stuck out on the opposite side to where it really was. Finally reaching the motorway was a great relief and I drove a steady 65 all the way home.

This was where I learned my first lesson - don't drive above 60 unless you own your own oil well!

Sarah, a fellow kayaker, joined me from the US and the following weeks were spent getting the exhaust replaced (I'm sure the one on there was the original), getting the engine thoroughly serviced and the timing belt replaced just in case, getting the water heater working, regrowing my eyebrows, buying, cutting down, redrilling the drain and fitting a new shower tray, getting my Aunt to reupholster the interior, replacing the headlight bulbs with hallogens and padding the new smaller power hookup with a light-switch cover so that there was no longer a gaping hole in the side. The brake lines were showing severe signs of rust so I replaced those since Alps+brakes = good!

It came as a shock to Sarah to discover that "I pay in cash and I don't want a receipt" does not have the American meaning of "Rip me off and do shoddy work because I won't be able to sue you". It was good to be back!

On the first day of work, I locked the keys inside. It took a minute to figure out how to break in without causing any damage (pulling the split door down below the catch) and another 30 seconds to actually do it. A duck-taped length of wood between the two fixed both that security flaw and the howling draughts.

A trip to Armitage's for the bike rack to be fitted and we were on our way to a test-run to visit my policeman brother in Edinburgh. His first words on seeing it was "what a beastie!" and the name stuck - from then on, she was always "The beastie". He was also the one who discovered the "wee legs" at the back which, after half an hour with WD40 and grease made rest stops much more stable. The 300 mile journey at 50 mph was flawless. Smooth running, no problems whatsoever... until we stopped. The tires were so old that they were splitting between the treads!

A trip to the local discount tyre merchant's replaced all 5 (the spare was also buggered) and I threatened to let a few skeletons out of the closet if he dared give me a ticket! A few days of hanging around Edinburgh starting each morning with "Morning hippies", "Morning Fascist" and we headed back down to Derbyshire.

Just about ready to go! We loaded up the bike...and noticed the squished rear tyres and the sit-up-and-beg angle she took on.

A visit to the local weigh-bridge revealed that the rear axel was 50Kg overloaded. More research revealed that "French police are always on the lookout for overloaded vehicles" and the term "auxhiliary shocks" in the Haynes camper van manual. Placing an order with Adrian Bailey, we went for another dry run down to Avebury so that Sarah could see a genuine stone circle.

Unknown to me at the time, this was the place they filmed that creepy kids show "Children of the stones" with the "happy day" people turning to stone. Sarah couldn't understand why I got the screaming heebie-jeebies as we rounded the corner and saw the very distinctive stone at the side of the road! Returning muddied for a nice coffee and a warm was absolute bliss and another leisurely drive back still came up with no problems and we got the shocks fitted as soon as they arrived.

After all this travelling around, I realized I couldn't stay in the UK and decided to keep my green card going a while longer. Going over my paperwork suddenly revealed a flaw in my plan - I had only two months to return to the US to get it renewed as opposed to the previous deadline of "when the money runs out". Corners had to be cut. No lock-box under the wardrobe, no roof-rack (the kayaks would have to travel inside with us) and several other small jobs were dropped. We threw all of our clothes into trash bags to sort out later, jammed the kayaks inside rapidly threw in a CD/MP3 player to give an alternative entertainment to "sheep with tails, sheep without tails" and took the plunge.

South!

Across France.

Arrived at Dover in the early evening, discovered that we had forgotten the bottle of lead replacement and the funnel at the last petrol station. For all it's benefits as a lead replacement, Morris's has a lousy bottle for side-filling tanks! We managed to replace it before boarding the ferry and arrived in Calais at 10pm. This introduced whole new problems. I have driven in the UK a couple of times since moving to the States and had finally learned to take the cue as to which side of the road to drive from the position of the steering wheel. Now even that didn't work as I was driving right hand drive on the right side of the road. Definately a tense half hour as I tried to mentally readjust! This was going to be a long drive. Adrianne Flux would not insure Sarah as she did not have an EU licence which meant I had to do all of the driving while Sarah kept me awake.

We pulled into the first petrol station we got to and Sarah handed the assistant our thermos and used her phrase book to ask "can you fill the tank with coffee". The guy smiled and produced the desired result - in fact, it was some of the best damned coffee we ever had! Due to certain tensions between France and the US at the time, we had already rehearsed the phrase "Je suis Canadienne" but almost everyone we met over there realized that if Sarah were as narrow-minded as the US politicians (some of who used the fact that they didn't even own a passport as an election "plus") they she would hardly be over there.

On a roll, we continued on towards Paris and, according to the guide book, a very pleasant campground. Warning! The AA guide book is 95% book and only 5% guide and campgrounds around Paris are out in the sticks and badly signposted. As fatigue passed the ability of coffee and cigarettes to counter (around 3am) we were driving around in circles trying to find the damned place, fuel was running low, the skys opened in a deluge that even the new wiper blades couldn't cope with and the engine began to sputter with all the moisture. After I took a right and ended up on the wrong side of the road, Sarah insisted we stop so we pulled into a deserted supermarket parking lot with a closed petrol station nearby and settled down for the night.

We then discovered that the air vents couldn't take this kind of deluge any more than the engine could and pools of water were forming underneath them. Checking the seals was another of the jobs I had forgotten to do! Breaking out the pans (one of the few times they were used on the trip) and wedging them under the leaks left very few places to sleep among the junk in the back but somehow we managed it.

We awoke around 11am the next morning and looked blearily through the window to find the carpark absolutely full of cars and shoppers. Our low-visibility parking job had taken up two parking spaces and left the back end (extended with the motorbike rack) almost half way across the aisle! We shuffled the beastie forward and went into a nearby cafe for coffee and croiscants, sheepishly confirming that yes, it was our "campingcar" then split, rapidly.

We planned our route to arrive at the next site in daylight so as not to get caught out again. Manouvering through narrow streets until we reached the spot, parked next to the hookup and discovered that in our rush to leave we had forgotten the power cable! Calling on my somewhat rusty French, I tried to buy a "cord d'electricite" and was corrected from my "electric rope" to "la cable", which they didn't have. It was two more stops before we managed to find one, so don't forget it and remember to pack a French adapter for those sites that don't have round plugs.

Departing the next day, we had to manouver past a car towing a damned house behind it through streets barely 10' wide before getting back onto the motorway. These have frequent "airs" (rest-stops) some of which have services and others offering well-lit stopping points. They are also mainly toll roads. You take a ticket when you get on and hand it over with the money when you get off. There are several problems with this arrangement. Firstly, to minimize staff costs, exits are kept to a minimum and you may have to back-track to get to what looked like an exit on the map. Secondly, the tickets are dispensed on the passenger side of a right hand drive vehicle. Thirdly, the beddy sometimes registers on the sensors as a truck so the ticket is dispensed either 3 feet above a seated passenger or 2 feet below; either way some limbering up exercises are in order.

Finally on day 3 after 800 miles, we arrived at our first kayak stop on the Ardeche and the Pont D'arc.

The death rattle.

The French love their food so don't assume that because it's in a can you can heat and eat. One evening of trying to translate the instructions on a can we had picked up ended up with our usual solution of eating out. Frog's legs (with butt still attached) taste nothing at all like chicken and, while tasty, meant we spent the rest of the meal trying not to think about what we'd just eaten. French restaurants were a blast. Whatever you order, it will be good. One proprieter was playing with his child between courses and the two outrageous waiters in Le Puy were a laugh a minute. They insisted we try Madelaine, an oily apple brandy in a plain bottle "Made by local artisans, not mass produced". Translation - the local hooch. Like most people we met, they didn't speak english but appreciated our French, such as it was. Only occasionally did we meet someone who resented that our French wasn't fluent.

The one thing that began to wear on our nerves was the increasingly crunchy carpet. After a week I was thinking that a dustbuster would be nice. After two I was wishing for one. After three I finally broke down and visited the local hardware store. It's a good thing that my US adapters also work for french plugs since nobody there had any adapters for foreign travel. At least we managed to find one of the filter funnels for making real coffee (nobody stocks them in the UK). I pounced as soon as I saw one in the supermarket with a cry of "I gots the precious!".

Having a motorbike was fantastic, almost to the point of necessity even if we weren't shuttling. The beastie went from site to site and the bike took us into town, scouting rivers, scouting petrol stations (100mpg vs 20mpg) and, particularly in anarchic France, parking was a breeze. Plus, later on, it was to become a lifeline.

Kayaking in the beastie was the ultimate in luxury. No more stripping in the snow! At the end of a run, straight in, light the fire, put the coffee on, throw the wet gear into the shower and dry naked. Ahhhhhhh. We used the gas sparingly since the only replacement common to the UK and France was camping gaz, we did manage to get hold of an adapter just in case but the bottle lasted the whole trip. The heater was only used after a run, we didn't use the water heater and brewing the morning coffee heated up the beastie to a comfortable temperature.

We even made it as far as the mediteranean although we quickly fled the tourist-refugee camp of Skegness-sur-la-mer.

Things were going well, I had 2 weeks before my flight and we began to head North again when the engine developed "The Rattle". It sounded like a bolt being thrown around the gearbox mangling everything in it's path and occurred in all gears, including neutral, except third. We drove in third at a sedate pace to Le Puy, the nearest large town where we might find a mechanic. On route, I noticed that the hitherto unworking temperature gauge had started registering normal. It was only when we pulled into the car park and the radiator "relieved itself" into a big puddle that I realized that it had been working all along but reading low by around 50%! When it hits normal - beware! Fortunately, the radiator was undamaged and refilling it and keeping an eye on the coolant level revealed no leaks.

The fat, unhelpful manager of the garage listened to the engine, got annoyed that I didn't know the french for "clutch", took one of those intakes of breath (can you believe that???) and said that he "might" be able to look at it in 10 days. It was a little desperate to hope that a french mechanic might work on a 20 year old english vehicle but our garage-to-garage hop across town was greeted with downright rudeness! The whistling intakes, I got used to but some of them actually laughed. One old guy wanted to give it a go but his manager, who looked like he'd never got his hands dirty in his life and was more used to selling new cars, listened before replying "non" and walking away.

Dejected, we limped the beastie to the nearby campground. The owner's cringing as we rattled in (it really did sound like it would fall to pieces at any moment) was a picture, as we were trying to look as if nothing was wrong! Chatting to a couple of local guys in the bar, they complimented me on my French. I said sure, I know how to ask a mechanic why my gearbox is rattling (pourqua est-ce que mon boite de vitesse fait cliquee? Write that one down - it may come in useful!) but why bother? I know damned well I won't understand his reply.

Safe for the time being, we took stock. We were 600 miles from AA coverage (the beastie was too old, had too many owners and not enough service history for them to touch it) with 2.5 tons of gear including a beastie that didn't sound like she would last 10 miles. My flight left in 14 days and if I missed it, I would be thrown out of the US. No local mechanic would touch it and even if they did, a replacement gearbox might take weeks to get here. So we could either patch it up ourselves (I used a local cybercafe/cafe internet to send out an SOS to the bulletin board) or scrap the beastie, try to rent a van for a one way trip to Calais and meet someone from the UK there to salvage what we could.

Things were looking pretty grim.

A wing and a prayer.

The gearbox was the vauxhall type which can be opened without dropping it out of the engine, thank goodness. Sarah finally got the bottom of the gearbox off and were rewarded with the smallest trickle of oil, barely covering the bottom of the sump! The mechanic who did the servicing hadn't topped off the gearbox! Cursing, we started up the engine while I was under there and I located the source of the noise. One of the larger cogs looked like the bearings had gone and was being repeatedly struck from the other side. Close examination of the CF Haynes manual indicated that this was the third gear syncromesh, not vital but I really didn't like to think about what this was doing to the cog that was hitting it! In the absence of anything better to do, we decided to close it up with liquid gasket, refill it with oil and make a run for it. This was about the limit of our mechanical abilities anyway.

Refilling proved to be a problem. The screw was recessed and on the side. Pressing in some modelling clay revealed a hex bolt somewhere around 8-10mm. A trip to Monsieu Bricolage, a large hardware store, got us an allen key set with an 8mm and 10mm key and a 9mm to counter Murphey's law. Sure enough, it was the 9mm we needed. A trickier problem was finding some plastic tubing to fill the thing with. The big store had kits for just about everything but a distinct lack of what could be called "generic useful stuff". I had to corner an assistant, show him some copper central heating pipe and ask for "meme ca, mais en plastique". I got the now familiar "non".

Some radical thinking and a visit to the vetinary supplies section (ignoring the puzzled look from the assistant) provided the solution and we artificially inseminated the gearbox, 55ml at a time!

The next morning in the rain we set out on the 600 mile journey north with the gearbox sounding as bad as ever. The sites owner looked at us like we were mad to even attempt it and I made a mental promise that there was a new gearbox in it if she got us home, or at least into AA coverage. The plan was to do the whole run in one swoop, working on the semi-logical principal that vehicles tend to not start more often than they suddenly stop or maybe it was just to get back quickly before she broke down. Either way, it seemed a good idea at the time as we rattled through town and onto the nearest motorway.

By the time we stopped for petrol, the rattle had stopped and 3rd gear syncromesh had gone completely. This was actually a relief as we could both stop wincing at the terrible mechanical torture going on beneath our feet, as was the fact that she started up afterwards. Not wanting to tempt fate, it was two hours before either of us dared comment on this.

Following the motorway North, the plan was to bypass Paris by following signs for Versailles or one of several major roads. Wrong! None of these were forthcoming, all of the major exits were from the fast lane and our motorway suddenly ended dumping us and the behemoth into the narrow streets of Paris.

For the first time, sitting on the wrong side of the vehicle was a real problem. Once or twice we were forced into the bus lane, something I noticed not even the most anarchic parisian did and it was a real struggle to get back into the narrow legal lane. We tried to follow main roads north watching the temperature gauge, changing to 3rd slowly, trying to avoid crazy lane changers, and look for any kind of signposts. Unfortunately, once in Paris only the landmarks are posted. They take "all roads lead to Paris" a little too literally since this means that there is no need to signpost anything leading from Paris.

Following the main road worked until we crossed the Seine and it ended in a T junction with one of the narrowest streets encountered yet. Our course became a zig-zag until we hit a massive junction with 7 roads meeting and great difficulty figuring out which traffic light was for ours. On the other side was a slip road to a motorway. At this point, any motorway was good so we cut across traffic onto the slip road and followed it South while trying to figure out how to get North again.

Night was falling by the time we passed Charles De Gaul airport and it was 2am by the time we reached the ferry terminal. English immigration officials climbed over the kayaks, searched the toilet for illegal immigrants and examined our passports under a microscope. Then we grabbed an hour's sleep over the cab while we waited for the ferry. Sarah woke me up as the line next to us started moving and we had to drive on barefoot and barely able to keep our eyes open.

One more or less straight forwards crossing, a few minutes with an angry customs official (I had joined the wrong line for non-EU citizens like Sarah) and dumb questions about the purpose of our visit. Keeping things simple, I gestured to the kayaks filling the rear and replied "Kayaking". A break for a couple of hours more sleep and then we made our way back to Derbyshire.

Not knowing if or when I would be back, I had to sell the beastie. I didn't have the "2000 trouble-free miles" tag-line I was hoping for but she did get her recon gearbox and the new owners are very happy with her. Now I'm staying in Maui for a while, tropical paradise, sun, beaches, surf but I do miss the beastie. I still have my ebay search on my favorites and the equivelent for the US. I even asked a friend if I could work on theirs which had been standing for a few years and every time I drive past one with a "For sale" sign in the window I get the same tugging of temptation. I know I don't need one any more, but wouldn't it be nice if...?