Author: NetNomads
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EUROPE CAMPING ROAD TRIP Interactive Roadmap
Permanent Roadtrip EU on Google Maps, for family and friends to follow. We hope you guys enjoy, or are perhaps inspired too! See you on the road!
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Provence sabbatical day 25 – Christmas madness and fabulous friends
It was after 5pm when Rob, Diana and Naomi trundled into town. Bienvenue chers amis!
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Sailing between Lelystad & Batavia Harbours
A big adventure doesn’t necessarily mean miles and miles away … it can also be right on your doorstep! After inheriting his father’s boat, Rob and Diana, our good friends and neighbours, have decided to moor it locally. Across the road from us in fact. Fabulous for a quick getaway … We first sailed over […]
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Land Rover repair: Swivel housing replacement
Since returning from Portugal last year, Muddy Boots developed a rather nasty disposition of break-dancing across the road whilst travelling around 80 km/hour. Also known as the “death wobble” or “death shake”. Sometimes it got so bad, we thought the steering wheel would rip our arms straight off. Land Rover guru Rob Stewart, who worked […]
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LRCH Ladies Day 2012
What a blast! We’ve been to a couple of Ladies Days with the Land Rover Club, but this one (in 2012) was really funky.
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Dutch Championship 4×4 Challenge
We popped over to the 4×4 terrain in Almere to find out more about the (in)famous Dutch Offroading Challenge.
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Big 5, diesel and dust Bikkel Weekend at Beekse Bergen
Bikkel Weekend – i.e. THE coldest night we have ever spent in a summer tent with no heating!
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LRCH Offroad Den Haag
It was pretty cold and very misty. You could see only 50 meters on the roads and it remained that way, pretty much, all day. Our destination was some coördinates in the shade of the Prins Claus fly-over near The Hague, Netherlands. Because of the fog, it became a mysterious adventure. Mentally, we were heading […]
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Spice trail to Beverwijk
The Dutch kitchen is quite simple: hearty “stamppots” [mash and stew] in Winter and raw herring in Summer. Cheese, on the other hand, is available all year round. It’s not for nothing that we’re fondly referred to as “kaaskops” [cheese heads]! But even our personal favourite, the magnificent mature gouda, can do with a bit […]
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4×4 Night drive in Axel
How crazy do you have to be, to drive 250 kilometers for a few hours of off-roading? Well, if you own a Land Rover (especially in Holland), you’ll certainly understand. The town of Axel (Netherlands) is our destination and this time there’s a big difference. Light. Or lack thereof… It’s a night drive. So we […]
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Cheesy grins and smoked eels in Volendam
You’ve seen the photos right? Of people dressed up in long black dresses and funny white bonnets that curve up at the ears? Or holding baskets of tulips or big round cheeses? Well, so have we. And … it’s gotta be done!! For years, we’ve waited for the right moment. And now, with Karen and […]
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Last summer day in Amsterdam
Could it be true? One more day of warm, golden sunshine? Walking to the bus stop, we’re hopeful, in our summer-to-autumn layers. It’s an early start to get to Rembrandtplein in time for Marcel to see the kick-off (France vs New Zealand, RWC 2011). With Karen and Taryn visiting from Newcastle, we grab our chance […]
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Sailing on Lauwersmeer
With Marcel’s heavy workload our weekend camping plans went astray, so we were planning a quiet weekend at home. “Nothing of the sort!” thought Rob and Diana who phoned us on Friday afternoon. “How about joining us on Lauwersmeer for a night? And if Taryn is happy to, she can spend the night with Naomi […]
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surviving Croatia Trophy 2011
Just how far would you be able to drag a (fairly) basic Land Rover into the Croatian bush?
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2011 stage 8
The final day of the Croatia Trophy! And an excellent roadbook that has it all – riverbeds, steep winchpoints and very fast logging tracks
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2011 Stage 7 -Finito!
OUR FIRST FINISH!! A very long 75 km roadbook today, but everyone is getting their groove now. Good navigation and some challenging winch points
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2011 stage 2 team trophy
Team Trophy day is great fun for the spectators – the action is very close, especially the spattering mud, winching and hard revving engines…
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2011 stage 1
Our baptism of fire as the competition gets off to a challenging start! A long and confusing roadbook and the scene of the infamous ‘Carwash’!
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2011 prologue
The adrenaline level is high. The start signal goes off. I gas it… Some kamikaze runs at the hill… but eventually the winch is deployed
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2011 Prep Day in Staro Selo
Staro Selo – setting up camp, checking the car (again) and the most difficult of all – calibrating the Terratrip!
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Orawa 4×4 Competition in Poland
Orawa 4×4 Challenge is a very technical offroading competition, consisting mostly of steep gulleys that the contestants need to winch themselves through.
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Cycling Garda Lake – FORM VS FUNCTION
Italy rules the world when it comes to exquisite styling and taste. Even in 30-plus degrees of summer sun, Italians are perfectly coiffured.
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Fantasticable – world’s longest zipline?
Remembering how we’d slide down homemade “foofy” slides (ziplines) in South Africa as kids, I reckon this one should be a blast. Sitting at 1500 metres, however, it is just a tad longer than our 30-metre concoctions. Nor does it have a knot in the middle that would inevitably result in tears as we’d crash […]
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LRCH camping weekend in Axel
Each year hundreds of 4×4’s descend onto an open field during the “Pinksteren” [Pentecost] holiday weekend. The reason?
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Orawa 4×4 Challenge in Lipnica Wielka, Poland
2 am sees us pulling into the driveway of our rental home somewhere deep in the Polish countryside. We are absolutely shattered by our 21-hour journey…
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2010 Stage 8 & Finish
A very long roadbook and a dramatic river finish is the setting for the finale of a great week of competiton and cameraderie in the mud!
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2010 stage 7 “Hamburger Hill”
“Hamburger Hill” – one of the most exhausting days of 2010. Extremely tough (fresh-concrete) mud and a huge winch challenge up a steep gulley
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2010 Stage 6
Snapped ropes and broken winch motors. Very rough going at the steep creek and river bed. A lot of mud and extremely difficult.
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2010 Stage 5 -The Swamp
A waist-high muddy bog stood in the way of everyone on stage 5 of the Croatia Trophy 2010. Creative winching required – and don’t mind the snake
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2010 circuit race (Stage 4)
During the Night Stage the front diff has come off and the bolts holding on the crown wheel have all sheared off. The whole thing has to come apart. With enormous help from our Dutch teams, we find the knowledge and some spare parts to refit the spacer that holds the crown wheel. With the […]
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2010 night stage (stage 3)
The start is from eleven pm. Being in the last place due to a non-start in the Team Trophy, we are last to start at about 00h30. It starts to rain as we head into the darkness and try to follow some tracks. Around the next corner, we find a traffic jam of vehicles trying […]
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2010 Stage 2 Trophy Day
Today was double-edged. We couldn’t take part in the Team Trophy because of the technical problems from yesterday, but have managed to sort them all out and can take part in the night stage. The fuel problems were actually caused by a blocked suction pipe in the fuel tank. We also had the tyre fixed […]
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2010 Stage 1
We had a relatively good start and caught some competitors early due to some good driving in some of the testing areas. Navigation is difficult at times but getting better. About halfway at the first check point we had to change a flat tyre. We used the top winch around a tree to lift the […]
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2010 Preparation and Prologue
Following the last-minute prep on the car, we start in the third group and have quite an eventful first porlogue stage…
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4×4 Croatia Trophy 2010 – getting there…
Final checks on the Land Rover Discovery (kindly sponsored by Land Rover Centre Jacob Schaap) and we hit the road by 09:30. Slow going at 90 km/hr, but all went smoothly.
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So I married a truck driver…
So she’s flown a plane (well we can tick that one off), scuba dived (got that one pretty much sorted), she’s jumped out of a perfectly good aeroplane before…
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Underwater residents of Punta Cana
I spent a couple of days in the water off the beach at the Catalonia Royal Bavaro resort. Which is pretty normal. I mean what would you do amongst the palm trees and perfect beaches?
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Catalonia Royal Bavaro Beach, Punta Cana, Caribbean
Since I can remember, I’ve always wanted to go to the Caribbean. Perhaps inspired by the Bacardi ads or James Bond movies from childhood?
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Rhein Waterfall in Schaffhausen
The sound and power of the water drew me in like a magnet. We just HAD to include it in our travel plan.
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Offroading for Dummies
Driving Miss Daisy – watch out here I come. Rob Mieras is a 4×4 driving instructor and has the patience of Job when it comes to teaching new offroading skills to nervous drivers. We had the good fortune of joining them on a camping trip to Freizeitpark Mammut in Germany, which was just fabulous. The […]
