The awning

Months and months ago we set our hearts on the idea of fitting an awning to the car – for relatively little weight we will always have near-instant access to our very own shelter from either the sun or rain.

After a bit research we also set our hearts on the 2m long ARB model – it looked good and every review was glowing. And that was were we hit the problem – we could not find anywhere to buy this thing locally! To cut a very long and arduous story short, we eventually imported our awning from America incurring a huge postage cost! Luckily it arrived safely in the last week. And today I had some time spare to have a go at attaching it to the car!

Once again my friend Ollie was able to help out – there’s no way I could’ve got this thing fitted on my own, both in the brawn and brain department – so a big thank you to him!

As usual we were stuck doing the job on the side of the street.

IMG_2897

Continue reading “The awning”

Vehicle Electrics: Design

As is always the way with me, I ended up spending an inordinate amount of time procrastinating over whether or not we needed to add additional electrics to the car. Our needs are pretty basic:

  • 12V to power our fridge
  • 240V to power our laptop and AA battery charger (probably via a 300W pure sine inverter)
  • 2 or 3 5V USB outlets for phones, GPS, etc

I tried pretty hard to convince myself that we could get by using the main car battery to power all of this lot, but in the end I couldn’t shake the vision of settling down with the laptop for the evening and accidentally leaving it on only to find us with a flat battery the next morning; unable to start the car; on a deserted steppe in Mongolia. We would be literally f*#k*d.

So we needed a second battery, and all the paraphernalia that comes with it…..

Continue reading “Vehicle Electrics: Design”

A big day!

It’s been a milestone day here at fromewardbound HQ as we’ve now booked ourselves and the car places on this beast…. the ‘Eastern Dream’!

IMG_7190

We set off from mainland Japan on Saturday 16th July 2016 and arrive in Vladivostok, Russia the following Monday. The ferry company are a South Korean outfit, so we’ll make a brief stop-off there on the way.

The second exciting thing to happen today was that I got to tell my employer the exact date of my last day in the office! They’ve already known for some time about our fromewardbound plans, but until today there wasn’t an exact date for my final day.

So, just under 3 months to go!!

Road Trip (nearly) to Hiroshima

So, as usual, that early morning set-off didn’t happen until 1.30pm! A combination of coffee and croissants and finding out the roof rack had arrived delayed ‘kick off.’ Nevertheless, good to get the roof rack on – though we both think it slightly distracts from her drop-dead good looks. We also replaced the two dampers that hold the tailgate up as the old ones had lost their oomph.

IMG_2252

Continue reading “Road Trip (nearly) to Hiroshima”

Sleeping Platform Part 4

Having bored people rigid with Parts 1, 2 and 3, I’m feeling slightly loathed to write a part 4. However, the job is now largely complete so, in the interests of closure, here’s the last instalment. I’m going to keep it short, though….

Having bought more wood, I spent my bank holiday Thursday making the second drawer, this time adding 2 dividers in to the mix.

IMG_0898

Continue reading “Sleeping Platform Part 4”

The maiden voyage

Amazingly, about four and half months have passed now since Clare and I decided that we’d take the long way home. In that time, we’ve spent 3 months waiting for our car to be ready, 2 weeks on holiday in the UK and most recently a month finally getting down to the job of getting Totty ready for action. Whilst Totty’s still far from being finished, she’s reached a stage now where we can sleep inside her, and on that basis we set off from Tokyo last weekend and hit the road for the weekend….

To be fair, “hitting the road” kind of overstates things. Actually we had a bit of lie-in, pottered around for an hour, got some food ready and sorted out a couple of jobs to make the camping more comfortable. And at that point… we hit the road.

Having talked about a few destinations, we’d settled on the Boso Peninsular the night before setting off. Whilst neither of us really knew quite what to expect there were a few points that drove our decision – we’d get to stop at Umihotaru service station; we’d see the sea; and it would likely be not busy, making our first attempt at “urban camping” a little less stressful.

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting from the ‘Tokyo Aqua Line,’ but it turns out that what I got was a 7km-long tunnel that emerges in the middle of Tokyo Bay and continues to the other side of the bay as a bridge. What was slightly surreal was that a rest stop has been constructed at the point where the road turns from a tunnel into a bridge in the middle of nowhere. The developers have managed to build something that looks something like a cross between a ship and an airport.  Good to finally get to see the sea though!

IMG_2161

Continue reading “The maiden voyage”

Sleeping Platform Part 3

The saga continues! Catch up on pt 1 here and pt 2 here.

After one and a half weekends-worth of prepping, measuring and cutting, it was good this weekend to finally start putting the sleeping platform together. First task of the day, though, was to cut a couple of access holes for storage spaces that will only be accessible from the top. In several people’s designs on the ‘net, they add fancy hinged doors or removable panels but I’ve just left the holes open assuming our mattress won’t sink into them. I also cut a couple of slots into the top platform that we’ll use for the drawers to lock into.

IMG_0842

Continue reading “Sleeping Platform Part 3”

Sleeping Platform Part 2

And as another working week drew to a close, I found myself spending another two (almost) uninterrupted days of construction time on our sleeping platform.

At the end of the last update I was giving myself a hard time over my inability to decide on the best way to continue with the construction of the platform. In the end I plumped for making the front section of the platform using a “stud work” frame cut from 35mm x 45 mm timber, as opposed to continuing with the technique I’d been using to build the drawer carcass.

IMG_5072

Continue reading “Sleeping Platform Part 2”