Think of a friend who has been beside you for some of the greatest moments in your life, but also in the struggles. Thought of one? Good. Now imagine selling that friend (bear with me; I know it’s an odd concept). Bet you can’t. But for us, it’s sadly necessary (please read the next sentence before calling the police!). The friend in question is obviously Bertha. She’s carried us safely through many countries and been there as we’ve laughed, cried, shouted, sung and danced. As our big adventure is over though, we’re looking towards our next big adventure… starting a family hopefully… which we’ve heard can cost a little bit of money. Therefore, it’s time to bid farewell to Bertha.

Having passed her MOT with flying colours, we promised her a bit of a pampering session to remove 20 countries worth of mainland European dirt, grime and squashed flies. Inside wasn’t too bad… after all we’ve been living in her full time, so we’ve kept her in good shape. The outside? Well, our thinking when travelling was that she’d be less of a target for thieves if we let her be a bit grubby. Now was her chance to shine again.

We think she scrubs up quite well! And so to eBay, where we’ve listed our beloved Bertha under the impersonal title of 1990 Talbot Express Autotrail Chinook with 11 months tax and MOT. This factual, sterile and clinical listing hides the many months of time, money and love that we’ve invested in making her our home… in fact, the first marital home we have owned. How do you put a price on that?

Well, ideally we would have liked to have listed Bertha for over £7000, but we are well aware that whilst in the care of one of her previous owners (or maybe several of them), there was damage to her rear. Whilst we haven’t been aware of any ongoing adverse effects or any deterioration since we replaced the floor in one of the rear corners, the fact remains that she does have this imperfection. Therefore, we’ve priced her to sell at £6500… although we are open to discussing sensible offers.

We can’t really believe that it’s time to say goodbye to Bertha – it seems like no time at all that we were picking her up from her previous home near Portsmouth. However, good times must come to an end and although she’s served us really well, we think she’s ready to be cared for by someone else. It will probably only sink in when there’s an empty space on the drive where she used to stand…

So, it’s over to you. Can you offer Bertha the love, support and companionship that she yearns? She won’t let you down, and you can’t use the excuse that you don’t know where she’s been…!

Hindsight is a funny thing. We thought that we had a pretty good idea about what we were letting ourselves into when we set out in Bertha. So, let’s look back on some of the questions that people asked us prior to the trip, including the answers we gave then and our answers now we’ve actually done the trip.

Which countries in Europe are you going to visit?

• All of them! Well, as many of them as possible
• Having decided that Ukraine may be a little unsafe and that we probably wouldn’t get up to the top of Scandinavia within the time (and budget!), our final list came to 20 countries; Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland. But not in that order.
  

Where are you going first?

• France – it’s quite difficult to avoid (not that we want to avoid it!)
• France was indeed the first stop of both loops. We took 4 days to get to the Swiss border on the first loop, then only 1 day to get to the Belgium border on the second loop. We spent a few days in the south of France on our way to Spain in January and a few days in the north of France at the end of the second loop, but aside from that, we’ve left France for exploring properly at a later point in our lives.

How long are you going for?

• A year…but with a gap in the middle, as our breakdown cover requires us to return to the UK after 180 days. We’ll use this as an opportunity to visit friends and family that we’ll no doubt be missing by then.
• In reality, this turned out to be 8 months on the road, with a month back in the UK between the 2 loops. We were right about missing family and friends though; they were the biggest draw back to the UK for us.

What will you do if you get pregnant?

• After extensive research we have concluded that it won’t be possible for Steve to get pregnant, so we’re not worried.
• No medical miracles here.

What languages do you speak?

• We both have GCSE French…and Steve can say “with cheese” in many languages, but otherwise we’re a little stuck. We’ll make sure that we can say a few basic phrases in the language of each country that we visit so that we can at least start conversations without using English
• We were quite successful with learning a few stock words and phrases for each country we visited, although Greece proved to be the trickiest (due to the different alphabet). Often I’d start a conversation with a practised phrase, then have a moment of panic when I realised I didn’t understand the response and therefore would have to revert to English. As we spent such a short time in each country, I don’t think the languages had time to make it into our long term memories!

Do you know a lot about engines?

• It depends on your definition of “a lot”. If by that you mean “very little”, then yes. We do have breakdown cover that covers us across the whole of Europe and we will have duct tape, cable ties and a hammer to hand.
• Our knowledge of engines has certainly grown in the last year as various things have needed to be tweaked. Our two breakdowns turned out to be very minor problems; the first a blocked air filter (caused by a leaky exhaust manifold which we fixed between the two loops) and the second a disconnected idle cut off solenoid. Not bad at all for a 24 year old motorhome. The duct tape, cable ties and hammer were all used at various points, but not on the engine!
  

What will you do if you meet a bear?

• Kick it where it hurts. Maybe not. We’ll probably have to get some bear pepper spray as apparently motorhomes can be a little vulnerable. Either that or we’ll rig up an electric fence to the solar panel which should suffice in the daytime…! We don’t underestimate the danger of a bear attack
• We didn’t meet any bears. In fact, we didn’t have any run-ins with wildlife, apart from mosquitoes! Actually, that’s a lie. A duck flew into Bertha in the early hours of one morning as part of what we can only assume to have been a mating ritual.

Are you taking an umbrella?

• Probably not…although we will no doubt find some rain as we travel. We’ll make sure that we’re well kitted out for all weathers, but in as lightweight and quick drying a way as possible
• Although it didn’t always feel like it, we actually had a lot of dry days as we were travelling. We did actually take an umbrella, which came out probably once or twice as we preferred to wear waterproof coats.
  

How are you funding a year of travelling?

• We’re mainly paying for this as a result of living frugally and saving over the last few years, but we have also been thankful for money that people gave as wedding presents. It may be that the money doesn’t last a year… in which case the trip will be cut short
• Well, the money did last a year. Our frugal living had to continue on the road as well to make sure that the money lasted, so we had very few meals out and always thought hard about paying for visiting attractions. But there was so much that we could do, see and appreciate for free in each country, that we didn’t feel like we were missing out just because we were keeping an eye on our budget.

There were some areas of our travels where we realised how naive we’d been in our expectations (thinking that we’d be able to cover the WHOLE of Europe in a year), but other areas where we were spot on. One of the biggest lessons that we’ve learned from all of this is to not hold on too tightly to plans and expectations. It’s when we’ve ventured into the unknown and just gone with the flow that some of the most exciting things have happened. Let’s hope we can carry that forward into our lives post-trip.