Thursday 28th April

This morning we took a walk along the canal into the centre of Lokeren.

It's a nice little town with a fine central market square.

There are many boats moored in the town centre.

We moved on east past Antwerpen and crossed from Belgium into Netherland. We stopped in the town of Bakel just east of Eindhoven. We are parked at the sports centre which has these carefully trained trees growing up its side.

Not long after we had arrived a Netherland van non dissimilar to ours turned up and parked in the other camper designated spot in the car park.

We got chatting with the couple from the NL van. Exchanged lots of vanning lore. Ann seems to want out of this photo!

We journeyed 96 miles (155 kilometres) today.

Wednesday 27th April

Before leaving Hondschoote we visited Carrefour to buy diesel and some groceries. We then traveled east, soon leaving France and entering Belgium. We moved on past Brugge and Gent and stopped for the day (and night) at the small town of Lokeren. Here's a picture of our parking place.

This interesting sign was next to where we parked. As I can't understand Flemish I have no idea at all what it says. Maybe I should find a website which can translate things like this?

Adjacent to our parking place is a large wetland, mainly wooded but with various enclosures containing animals and birds, such as this one with some deer of unknown (to me) species.

There is also a lake with ducks, coots etc. This whole area is called the Bospark (wooded park?). It has rained, hailed and snowed at various times today. It's very cold for the time of year.

Today we traveled 85 miles (137 kilometres).

Tuesday 26th April

It was a beautiful sunny morning at Kerry and Gareth's house. We had a nice journey down to Dover and arrived in plenty of time to catch our ferry.

We arrived in Dunkerque on time and made the short journey east to the small town of Hondschoote, still in France but close to the Belgian border. Just as we arrived in town there was a vicious wintry shower - a mixture of snow, hail and rain! After the storm abated we had a walk around town. Here's the town hall with the church tower just poking out over the top.

We traveled (excluding the ferry crossing) 67 miles (108 kilometres) today.

Monday 25th April

This morning we had a good look around Figsbury ring.

The earthworks are truly enormous - it is very difficult to imagine how the iron age people with only picks and shovels managed to build something so vast.

We moved on the short distance to Old Sarum - another hill fort but this time principally constructed on the orders of William 1 (The Conqueror) in the 11th to 12th Century.

The banks and ditches here are even more impressive than at Figsbury Ring.

Outside the fortress there are the remains of a cathedral. This was demolished in the 13th Century during a period of tension between the church and state and rebuilt in the City of Salisbury nearby.

You can see the "new" cathedral from the castle ramparts.

The stone facing from the castle was removed during the reign of Henry V111 and today only the flint core of the walls remains.

The site was excavated by these Edwardian gents.

From Old Sarum we traveled to Ann's daughter Kerry and her husband Gareth's house in Kent where we are staying the night. Henry, Kerry and Gareth's son, seems to be trying to balance a Rugby ball on Ann's head!

Kerry and Gareth's, parking place used to be very rough and muddy but now they have a superior surface as you can see.

Today we traveled 137 miles (221 kilometres).

Sunday 24th April

We left Widecombe about mid day. We stopped off at Wellington to buy some new leveling ramps for the van.  Traveled on east to Salisbury Plain where we stopped at this picnic area for our tea. Here's the nice view from the parking place with river and rooks nesting in the tree.

There were a lot of comings and goings at the picnic area mainly due to the public toilets. We decided it was a bit noisy for an overnight stay so after tea we decided to move on.

Not far away we found a really nice and quiet parking place for the night at Figsbury Ring.

While Ann was watching TV I went to investigate Figsbury Ring - only a few metres away from our parking place. It is an enormous circular earthwork with an outer and inner ditch and bank. Probably an iron age hill fort.

The Ring is in a commanding position high above Salisbury Plain. There was a marvelous sunset.

We were right next to Ministry of Defence property. I was a bit concerned about this red flag they were flying! As it happened all was quiet overnight.

We travelled 131 miles (211 kilometres) today.

Saturday 23rd April 2016

Spring is almost here! It's time to set off travelling.

This morning we started preparing the van - filled up the fresh water tank - turned on the fridge and hot water - started loading in supplies for a long trip.

There's something very exciting about preparing to go travelling - it doesn't matter how often you've done it before - it's still exciting every time!