Ben Nevis Knees

OMG my knees, my terrible knees!

When we got back to base camp, they both ached fairly evenly. It was quite surprising seeing as one of them had been through 2 major surgeries in the last 3 years and the other was completely unmolested.

Our route up Ben Nevis could never have been the “normal” one, we are proud graduates of the SUMC! We had brought all our climbing gear along and scoped out a good looking climb. Well within our climbing ability technically, but stamina-ly, far beyond us it turned out. Not because we attempted and failed it, we did not even attempt. The weather looked soggy in the morning and from our experience on welsh rock, we could reasonably expect the climb to be “seepy”. Not an enduring quality on a 450m long climb and by the end of the day, knew we had made the right choice.

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Escape to the Highlands

“Chuck it all in the van”

“What… the kitchen sink too?”

“Yes”

…. is how the conversation should have gone.

No sooner had we left Banbury than I remembered my shiney stainless steel fruit bowl that I had planned to use as a washing up bowl was still wrapped neatly in my garage. Maybe it was the quantity of stuff in the van already, or my eagerness to set off, or just the inevitability of travel, that you always forget something essential… like washing up sponges. Maybe my forgetfulness is limited to washing up apparatus?

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Orgy Of Snakes

I’ve been focussed on finishing off as much of the van as possible recently. At the end of this week, I am off to Scotland for a tour with a mate, so it has to be at least useable.

The cabinet has a long space that will be perfect for a big drawer. There will be nothing that I can buy that will fit it efficiently so looks like I’m making it from scratch. Where possible, in the Van, i’m trying to keep the face of the wood fixing-less. I want as clean a finish as possible. Sometimes this is not possible which is fine but a nice flush fitting, uncluttered look is what I’m going for. To this end, the front face of the drawer is a good bit of plywood – probably thicker than it needs to be, so I can screw into it from behind. I am also using wood glue so the connections are secure. This has turned into a very strong drawer. It slides on some batons and when loaded is heavy enough that it won’t slide out by itself when going around corners – hopefully.

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Cupboard Creation

The whole extendy bed construction relies on having a cabinet on the other side of the van to hook onto. I wouldn’t normally have used such chunky wood for a bit of studwork cabinetry but as this bed may have two full size male humans sleeping on it, I thought I had better not skimp. It would truly suck if in the middle of the night there is a cracking sounds followed by to heavy bangs as we hit the floor.

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Bed Building Begins

So where are we up to now?

  • Roof holes welded (not yet painted… bit lazy)
  • Walls insulated, clad and carpeted
  • Base bed box built and clad

Next is the most important part of a good camper van, and possibly the hardest to integrate to the rest of the vehicle. The bed. It’s a really awkward problem when you think about it, especially if you are as tall as me!

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Field Testing

Each year a bunch of friends and I all make the effort to meet up on mass and go climbing. We always stay in the cheapest and closest campsite to wherever we need to be. Sometimes this is as close as across the road, making the walk-in so short we can watch climbers from our circle of tents. When we were students, it was always tents because that’s what we had so that’s what we used, but now we want a bit extra comfort so vans are starting to enter the group.

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Headroom Highlights

Another chance to get some vannery work done presented itself this week. A lot of prep work has gone into getting to where I am now. Plenty of time spent sitting in the van looking at its curvy shape and my wood stock (giggle) Working out the best way to get the most features I want into the space has meant that progress has been slow, up until today, when some of my plans started to become a reality.

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Plug Weld My Pig Holes

Hoorah!! Major milestone completed!! All holes have been plug welded in my holey police van!!

I have been searching for about 5 months now to plug the holes in my roof. I’ve searched the local businesses, fabricators shops, car body shops, DIY stores and friends of friends sheds for someone (or thing) to fill them.

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