Winter has Come

(My second Game of Thrones reference on the blog!)

I’m writing this from the comfort of a sofa placed not far from a raging open fire. Large gnarly chunks of olive tree branches crackle and blaze; giving off not only heat but also that flickering light you can only get from a real fire. It is fabulous!

I have been meaning to write this blog post for the past month or two (of course it would then have been titled Winter is Coming) but I never got round to it. I suppose now, in a way, I feel I need to justify why I’m sat here in front of this fire and not out in the depths of Armenia.

The reason really stems from the fact that we are doing this trip in a car. We always knew, and actually eagerly embraced, that we both would be spending a lot of time outside of the car. We both didn’t want to be in a caravan or a large camper-van, with everything including the kitchen sink, precisely because we wanted to be outdoors as much as possible. We also wanted to be small and light and be able to drive places where larger vehicles wouldn’t be able to go.

In the summer and autumn months this worked fantastically. We sat out under the stars in Mongolia until late into the night; we bathed in rivers; we drank beer in the dying evening light; we prepared meals and barbecued our suppers; we sheltered in the back of the car watching electrical storms; we sprawled on the grass reading books; we perched on hillsides watching the sun set. Our whole life, bar driving and sleeping, happened outside and it was perfect.

Our problem, as with the entire cast of GofT, was that “Winter was Coming.” At first one just put on more clothes and drank more wine. However, eventually it was just too chilly to sit outside for hours on end so we would retreat into the front seats of the car. This was fine when darkness didn’t fall until 8 or 9pm; seeing the rest of the evening out in the car before retiring to bed. It was when, as we moved further and further west and the darkness and cold began to fall earlier and earlier, that the sitting in the front of the car from 6pm onwards became more tiresome.

Of course the problem when you’re wild camping is that you absolutely need to find a suitable camping spot in the daylight. As this window got shorter and shorter the evenings sat in the car became longer and longer. Yes, there were milder evenings; yes it was cozy and cute at times; yes I got to play (and lose) lots of Scrabble games. But after weeks and weeks on end cramped up in the confines of, basically, the front two seats of a family car the appeal of camping, for me at least, well and truly died.

There is no perfect vehicle for a trip like this – each come with a list of compromises. Two wheel drive and you can’t access everywhere. Too big and you stick out like a sore thumb. Too heavy and you’re rattling around like a cutlery drawer. Totty’s compromise is that she is relatively small with very little indoor space. So yes Winter came and we got cold.

Would we now be driving through Armenia if it was still summer? Yes. Would we now be exploring the coastline of Turkey, despite the cold, if we were in a fully decked out Unimog? Yes. Do we regret buying Totty? No way!

And with that I’d better chuck another log on that fire.