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A wee quickie from NW Scotland in the "outdoor capital of the UK"q

Started by retiredwanderer, April 01, 2015, 12:01:28 AM

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retiredwanderer

Hi one and all!!!!!
Just a wee quickie message from moi better known as Dougie, Aka the founder and webmaster of the UK's second largest VW 4/5 (6) Transporter community website and forum group, recently retired due to ill health and family commitments but having truly enjoyed me 5 or so years building this from Zero to the second largest on my own with no budget, no finance and fierce competition from the no 1 spots crew, often leading to many days at a time 24/7 arranging camp weekends, outings and such like, sadly as I say life threatening illness obviously had to be attended too first and rightly has in part been done now, with marked improvements now showing through thankfully, having given us all many scares along the way, that now being over I seek something less stressfull and time consuming really is my aim when all is said and done, not willing to put myself through the often mind bending childish behaviour from so called adults who really should know better,, I would expect that type of hurtfull, childish and wanton lying, exaggerating and deliberate mistruth spreading is mind boggling, whilst saying to your face the opposite meaning only one thing that they are indeed lying through their teeth with only one agenda to destroy what in this case I had worked so hard on for so long, was truly disgusting to say the least.

My main interest in this is Volkswagens to the point I am currently involved in setting up a one of its type all all years, all models and alla types of VW Transporter from 59 >> to a whopping 65 years later and still going strong this month coming releasing its 6th generation upon a still very interested crowd, who can't seem to get enough of the Transporter marque, myself included although sadly I can't afford a lovely gleaming new 6th generation model, but as was expected many can and its set to forge unprecedented sales figures once again, having wet my appetite on VW Caddies to beging with way back in the late eighties with a very stylish dismountable camper pod on its rear deck, that you dropped four legs out on all four corners jacked it up a little and drove out from underneath it all, you then replaced the tailgate, popped back on the Truckman top and away you go, thus it was a clear 3-in-1 true multi purpose vehicle, had it of been a 4-motion version (which was sadly never built, mores the pity :) ) it would of made a very very worthwhile vehicle to hold onto the fact it wasn't, that it was in reality by then an eight year old pickup truck, and to all intents and purposes a hard run in its first few years as a company vehicle, being a petrol version on top of all that it was, wrong time, costs of running, costs of getting it to my own exacting standards was rapidly becoming a lost cause, as far as I was concerned and it was duly sold on through a well known auction site at great personal loss to my family. I had prior to this point selfbuilt a few campers and campervans using a base model of a Ducato in one instance and a LDv in another both serving their purposes the LDV was specifically designed to include 2 x dog cages so my dogs were always safe during transporting and both had to include a FULL flushing toilet for my OH who would go knowhere without one ?? Both giving me major headaches, but having managed all this, we decided to not partake in my passtime any longer after the kids by now had left home, to take up their respective lives leaving us with two very elderly dogs who even more sadly were put to sleep six months apart leaving my OH and myself with NO need for a massive campervan or suchlike, as we no longer required the space and ability to get a holiday, sad as it all was it was allowing us to make use of likes of The Suns £9.50 holidays or as great but a little more expensive being the Daily Fails £10.00 holidays for once we could have a little more comfort in a motel? Or a mobile home something we simply were not able to do prior to this due to mainly the dogs. Life ambled on like that for around five years, till a innocent comment had me away searching for information on campervans all over again!! What was it, and why was I once again interested!!
It was quite simply due to the by them massively falling prices of T3s/25's meaning we would with a decent wind behind us, a little hope, faith and charity be able to purchase our very first "Transporter" which had until then wholly eluded us due only to costs up until them, I spent the following two months or so dragging through Motor Mart, AutoTrader and many commercial publications and finally websites until I finally found of all things a T4? Described as a surf-bus built by CMC in Cheshire and up for sale by its original owner who had been the client who had commissioned its build to start with, it was a 2000 series W plated 2.5tdi version with a full camper conversion in its rear with the usual figments, it has A4 copy alloys and twin sunroofs and a pair of roof bars but alas no bike rack, 240/12v power source so independantly allowed me to put our Mark onto it also, in the form of curtains my OH designed and sewed together which in turn matchec the cusions and duvet covers, I installed an extra battery and a full 240/12v power source, charging unit and docking station for our iPods and iPhone bringing it bang up to date, I then fitted a pair of cross bars to the already fitted roof bars and a roof box was duly installed on top of that to receive all our bedding and bulky items, so as to retain some space internally, and lastly I fitted a Thule bike rack not for bikes but rather to receive a rear box again for storage purposes as these vans have precious little storage onboard and is an item overlooked by a great main when designing or building (this time I managed to get away with no toilet, more to come on this a bit later I promise :) ) and so I drove the Transporter happily as my car for about two years whilst having many, many both T4 Club UK outings in her and of course our personal holidays in also...............
More later ........
I am Dougie I'm 53 and my OH is Von and she is 38, we have two older kids who live away from home to suit their respective jobs in and around Glasgow, where both my parents and elder brother and his family live. I have a younger brother who has lived in Mallorca for a couple of decades plus a few years and my slightly elder bro who lives close to the border of Scotland/England, we have two adorable King Charles Spaniel bitches Georgie who has just turned four and our baby Mollie who is almost two now, both seriously adorable and pretty well trained by all accounts as lapdogs they are not, Georgie regularity walks her whole walk totally offlead, semi busy roads as well as pure country fields and walkways with no traffic and Mollie is slowly following suit with what her older cousin does, they both walk a good 4 miles a day in total, sleep well, eat well and are very happy, bouncy little dogs, as thier breed dictates but also very obidi

retiredwanderer

# obedient by and large all the time, brought up as "country pups" they wouldn't know what to do in a crowded street for instance :)

I am just becoming a VW obsessed nutter once again by now, and sadly I must go.

Anyway all will be thankful to know that's it for now, one of my disablements is sadly I am afflicted with M.E which makes me very tired a lot of the time, as I am now, starting to see double so it's telling me it's time to give in, I promise however if there is enough response to this post I shall carry on, where I have left off tonight at a later date

For now cheers one and all
Dougie & Von :)

Camper Van Travels

Blimey lad. What an intro lol.

Use some bloomin' white space for heaven's sake. Split up your text only it'll make for easier digestion (reading). Spoken like a true Celt. A fantastic waffle if ever I saw one. A chuckling Cornishman.

On a more serious note... where is this website? Can I have a gander at it please?

Good to see you here.

Tally ho,

Mark

Tai-chi wanderer

Welcome aboard matey, need to go to Specsavers, all that typing has tired me ole peeps.

Keep it up we need more bloggers aboard.