Wheels to Water | Van life | Boat Life

Wheels to Water | Van life | Boat Life

It’s good to be back. So for the last week we’ve been driving every single day, nonstop through horrendous and rain wind to get to this place now. We’ve gone through Spain and France stopped at some amazing park ups We’ve made it here now to Mont Saint Michel

Mont Saint-Miche and this is an amazing place. It’s like a big island in the middle of the sea and we’ll show you it now. So this magical island has an abbey right at the top and it was famous for centuries for pilgrims that were travel all over Europe to come here to this

Holy island. And it’s now a UNESCO heritage site. And although this place has never featured in the Harry Potter movies, lots of people do say that it reminds them of Hogwarts and that’s all the little cobbled streets, all the shop signs and all the quirky features just

Make it very magical, which it actually is. So the idea for this place came in a dream. The Bishop one day was lying in bed and St Michel Came to him and said, “Build me an Abbey on top of a rocky inlet.” So he did. So after his dream,

It actually only took him 13 hundred years to complete Mont Saint-Michel But it’s just absolutely epic, wonderful. So here is home to some of the biggest tides in Europe. In the olden days at the low tide, the pilgrims could walk across and that made Mont Saint Michel the Abbey Very accessible.

It also meant it very strong for defending Because when the tide came in. It would wash away would be assaliants Now today there is a road that’s kind of built to come in. And you can’t come in by car, you actually park in the car park here and then shuttle buses, bring

You in along the road that you can see behind me So this here, I don’t know if you can see it passed my wine. This is a traditional dish of the area, it’s called, a galette, a galette. It’s like a pancake thing and I’ve got goat cheese.

Potatoes, let’s give it a try. Cheers everyone. So I went for the traditional dish and Sandra, gone for sausage in chips. She likes a big one! So this is the last leg of the journey now. We’ve got to catch a ferry, back to the UK.

And before we do that though, if you’ve got a pet, you’re pet needs to have a wormer that needs to go to a vet and get a wormer. So I booked a little bonny in. So we’re going to go the vet today to get that done

and then I can get the ferry tomorrow and get back home. Yeah, The Rum Wench, bless her. She’ll be bloody freezing because I’ve not had the fire lit for 2 months Oh, so good to get back. See all my friends, my family. Yeah, get cruising again. So far everything’s gone well.

I’m just waiting now at Border Control, but both our passports have already been stamped. So that’s it. Bonny’s free to travel the world now. Got her first stamp. Hey, this is all going well, So I’ve got to find now lane 1202. Get my seatbelt on before I get done

So I have to keep jumping out because our steering wheels are on the wrong side and I can’t talk across Because I haven’t got remote windows. I’ve got winding windows. So I can’t do them Come on. I’m in a panic. Let’s get on this ferry.

So as you can see, I’ve just made it back to Narrowboats limited at Wincham Wharf where I left The Rum Wench, my home, and it’s fantastic. I’ve just lit the fire because it’s absolutely freezing in here I’ve brought a few bags from my camper van, but all my clothes and everything like that.

I’ve got loads of stuff still in the van, but where I’m moored here, I’m alongside another boat. There’s a little walkway, so it’s quite difficult to load the boat back up So what I’m going to do now is move the boat, where is it’s warming up, while this fires on,

And I’m going to cruise the boat. And try and find somewhere that I can moor, that’s going to be near a road so I can load the rest of my stuff on. Bonny’s here. So let’s hope the Old Rum Wench starts. Yeah, my first cruise of 2024.

But first let’s check the old girls lubricated. Cmon old girl lets see what you got? So I’m here, I’m back aboard The Rum Wench, I am home! Oh, and it’s so good to be back. I absolutely adored my European adventure, but it’s nice to be back home.

And I’ve missed this, I really have. I’ve not missed the weather though, because it’s pretty freezing. Yeah, I’ve got nipples like bullets but it is nice to be back. And they were fantastic at Wincham wharf, Narrowboats limited, they looked after the old girl really well.

They were emailing me asking if they wanted them to start the engine and give her a run things like So yeah, they’ve just been fantastic, but she started first time and that’s a good thing about this engine, because she’s not water cooled. She’s air cooled, so there’s no chance of water freezing

Or anything like that. Yeah, it’s good to be back. So I’m going to cruise now, hopefully I’ll get to the next pub, which is the broken cross, and moor there And then I can unload my van on board the boat Yeah, because it was a bit too difficult to cross

Against all the boats and stuff. So that’s the plan. What wow, it’s good to be back. So luckily I found a space here right outside the pub However, it’s so windy today, that’s why I’m using lots of music because the wind noise is horrendous.

And I’m trying to pull my boat in and the wind has just got the side of my boat here. I don’t know if you can see and it’s just pushing it and I just have not got the strength to pull it in. Remember my boat is deep drafted and she’s heavy, she’s

A heavy old girl. Yeah, struggling, she’s virtually now gone all the way to the side of the canal. And this is the point where I think I’m not going to be able to get this in. So I decided to then get back on and cruise

In hopefully, trying to sort of bring the front in. But then I lost it completely as the wind just took me completely to the other side. Now I’m on my own, so normally you’d have someone that could push you off the front. But I haven’t got that and I haven’t got bow thrusters

So with quite a bit of faffing about a managed to get myself off. And then the next thing to happen was I got grounded on something in the middle of the canal. And I’m revving the old girl so hard, but she just wouldn’t move.

And all this whilst the wind’s hitting me, you know, just embarrassed really. Yeah, so let’s go for another go and try and reverse back into this slot. So besides the horrendous wind, the fact that canal’s shallow and I’m really out of practice. I’m single-handed and by being on your own, you have

To step off the back of your boat. And the back of your boat is the deepest part as well. And after reverse in, and if it’s shallow, it’s just a nightmare, but luckily, this lovely gentleman came out and gave me a hand. Oh, bless him, I don’t know what would have done

Without him. And then with the two of us giving her a right good tug, she eventually comes. Don’t be rude. So I’ve just moored up here now at the broken cross and it was an absolute cock-up that mooring up. One, the wind was really strong and I was losing

My front because the wind was blowing it. Two, twice, I got my back end grounded. One was on the off side there when I just got blown over there. And then, secondly, it was actually in the middle of the canal when I was reversing him, my back end just got stuck on something

So then my fronts going everywhere. Oh, so the lovely gentleman, his name’s Ian, off this boat behind, he helped me pull in. Because she’s a heavy girl, especially in the wind. So, yeah, so we helped we pull her in. And the good thing is the pub there is just there.

It’s just behind that building, the broken cross. And it means I can get me van here and unload all my stuff. I have took all my washing to my mums, I spend yesterday all at mums. She was doing all my washing for me, bless her.

And although I’ve got a washing machine on board I just had so much work to get everything washed in the camper van. All my bedding, my throws, everything. So, that’s all at mums. So, yeah, I’ve got nothing on board, my fridge is off, because I’m not turning that on yet.

I’ve got no food, I’ve got pasta, so that’s probably what I’ve made to take. But I’m back, I’m back everyone, it’s bloody freezing. Hey baby, hello. Oh, she’s a good girl. So I definitely need a drink after that bloody cruise. So this is a coconut dead man’s fingers, and this

Is from Captain Glen. It’s sent this for when I got home. So whilst I am pouring it just a massive thank you as well to this week’s pirate crew, and we’re going to have this with a little bit of paradise punch. Woo, look at that. Cheers, everyone, just wet the lips. Woo, woo.

That is nice, it’s tastes like pop. I love it, it reminds me of holidays, it’s lovely. Anyway, talking of holidays, lots of people have said, what did it cost, what did the trip cost, what we spent on fuel, on tolls, on campsites, all that sort

Of stuff, so I’m going to go into that now, just very quickly. So we did, we went from Belgium down through France through Spain. We even popped over to Gibraltar, then we went through Portugal, back up through France, but basically let’s go first with fuel.

Now, diesel out there was bloody expensive in France. We were paying £2 a litre Two Euros a litre. Sometimes a bit more paid 2.20 a one point. Yeah, but then in Spain, the cheapest we got was 1.36 I think a litre But an average it’s about 1, 64 a litre.

Yes, it was expensive. Diesel was very expensive, and we did around, it was around 4,500 miles doing that whole trip and going off and doing little things. So in total, spent 1,381.28 on diesel. Then tolls, now tolls, a lot of places, especially in France, they have these tolls.

Now, we did spend quite a bit on tolls getting home, and the main reason for that was we wanted to stay where it was warm, we wanted to stay south to the last minute, and then crank it back, because we knew the weather was crap.

And you’ve seen, you know, there was hailstones, strong winds, rain, it rained constantly on our journey back. So we actually spent £248.03 on tolls. But sometimes you’ve got to think the tolls are a bit quicker, so it saved you a lot of bit in diesel.

So you’ve got to, you know, but for us, it was we wanted to stay with the warm weather for as long as we could. And then finally, really, it’s the campsites. Now, we only used campsites when we needed to. The main reason for getting to them sometimes for one

Night, just so we could empty our toilets, fill up with water, or empty our waste. We also, for example, when we went to Belgium, we wanted to go into Bruges, so we stayed in a campsite there so that when we knew the vans were

Going to be safe, where we went off an adventure. So it was mostly in cities we did it again when we went to Granada, so we went to a Alhambra palace, so we paid for campsite there, we paid for campsite in Barcelona for a few nights.

In Portugal, Sandra needed to go back home for a few days, and I had to look after all the dogs, we my mate Linny, so we stayed in the campsite there, for a few nights. And that was lovely. It was good. We did enjoy our campsites.

And also, obviously, when we went to Gibraltar, we stayed in the Marina there, and that’s where Sandra’s van broke down We’ve had some joys I tell you, but it’s been epic. But on campsites all together in two months, we spent 385 euro, which isn’t that much really

Considering because we wild camped the majority of the time. We both love, you know, Sandra lives on a boat, I live on a boat, we love mooring in the middle of nowhere, and we loved it with the vans just finding these lovely epic little park ups.

And Sandra did so much of that finding as these wonderful places to park. It was just beautiful. And then obviously on top of all that, you’ve got any trips you did, so like we went see the dolphins, we went up to the cable car, in Gibraltar, To see the monkeys.

You know, we went and did lots of activities, so you’ve got all those costs on top. Plus food. So we used lots of supermarkets, we went we went to lidl quite a bit, we did lots of cooking in the vans, so we didn’t eat out that much because it’s so expensive.

However, we did often, in fact, nearly every day, we went for a coffee and a croissant somewhere, but we didn’t eat out many dinner meals, because we like to be in the vans, like to be home with the dogs, and chilling out. So obviously you’ve got that on top as well.

But all of this money, it was worth every penny for the adventures and the fun that we’ve had, and it’s one of those trips that I’ll remember for a lifetime, so it was absolutely wonderful. So thank you for everyone that has watched all these

Trips, but from now on now, because I’m back on the boat, we’re going to be boating again, so it’s going to be a much slower pace, very different vlogging again So yes, all the new subscribers I do hope you stick with us a bit of boating, and I will

Be going away in the van again, obviously. You know, a love having a boat and a van, I think it’s the best of everything, but for now I need to work for a bit again and save up, you know, got a lot of badge business, going

To work and save for the next trip, the next adventure, but I’ve got a few weekends planned coming up, you know, a few little adventures. Yeah, just for now, to keep us going, and Bonny loves it, she loves it in the van. So I’m going to leave the video there, so if

You haven’t enjoyed it, please do give it a thumbs up, subscribe down below, if you haven’t already. But before I go, just a massive cheers and thank you to my lovely gorgeous patrons. That’s it guys, so please take care, stay safe, and I’ll see you next week. Cheers!

Before we head home from our big Europe Camper van adventure there was one place we needed to visit and that was the amazing Mont Saint Michel. The weather unfortunately was terrible with strong winds and icy rain but we took sanctuary in a cafe to try the local dish of Normandy a Gallette.
After taking the ferry from Calais to Dover and a very long drive back up North, I made it home to The Rum Wench – My Narrowboat home. I cruised for the first time in 2 month, in strong winds and made an absolute balls up of mooring up. Once I had calmed down with a lovely Rum it was time to look at how much this van adventure cost – Diesel prices, Campsite fees and Tolls
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Winters in the UK can be miserable especially when living on a boat and with all the canal lock closures for maintenance, I began to feel a little trapped. So for the next 2 months I decided to join up with another fellow solo female traveller and set off across Europe in our two very old camper vans in search of sunshine and to experience Van life at it’s best.
I hope you enjoy something a little different as I swap boat life for van life.
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Thank you so much for watching. If you are new here, I’m Heidi and I live aboard my Narrowboat The Rum Wench and travel the UK’s Canals in search of Adventure. After selling my house to experience an alternative lifestyle I bought a canal boat and a camper van which as a solo female who loves to travel, gives me the best of both worlds. I have recently got myself a new addition to the crew, a fabulous companion – my little rescue dog Bonny who is an absolute joy and the perfect First Mate. I also work full time off grid from my tiny home and trade at canal festivals as The Narrowboat Pirate aboard The Pirate Boat.
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If you want to know more about LIVING ON A BOAT, CANAL RULES or WHAT I DID BEFORE BOAT LIFE then please watch these two videos:


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Music
Stiff Ripples by Heidi Manning
Thrusting Cutlass by Heidi Manning
Plus Music from Epidemic Sound
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Music used in this video

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