Amsterdam Oasis

We spent the day sweltering under the midday sun, like somnambulists, wandering through the streets of The Hague, wondering where the tourist attractions would end. We crawled from museum steps, to gallery foyer, it does not work being thrifty and a tourist, later we were invited to a canal side bar in Amsterdam. Goodbye intense heat, hello good vibes.

De Ceuvel is the Oasis we have been looking for! Finally we have deviated from the Tourist trail, with the aid of an expat and some exuberant Irishmen. Bertie has found his new home, parked on yellow lines at the ghetto end of an industrial estate. Opposite, sits a ramshackle bar and an eclectic mix of barges, boats and shipping containers, housing the transient community of Amsterdam.

 

Words: Hugo Pullen | Photos: Dora Damian

Wild Cat

We found ourselves seriously deficient of some fundamental needs. We had parked in full glare of the sun, with no water in the tank and nowhere to perform base functions, it was time we moved our home.

Trundling through Rotterdam we chanced upon a leafy park, trees forming an arc over the free parking and greeted by a slightly confused local looking for his ‘wild cat’. This wild cat was supposedly two feet long and prowled the leafy park in search of other animals to pick a fight with. The next day we met this ferocious moggy, a docile grey domestic cat with slightly pointy ears.

Words: Hugo Pullen | Photos: Dora Damian

Goodbye Hello

Day one started at midnight, leaving a friend’s wedding celebration to drive, sleep deprived, cross country to the Harwich ferry terminal. 2 hours of sleep later and Bertie the lumberbus finally leaves English soil.

The Harwich to Hook of Holland Ferry is one giant floating waiting room for a dentist’s appointment that you will never receive. The great pleasure was finding a place atop this monstrous waiting room amongst other couples and families resting travel weary eyes, lolling on the azure blue decks. After sleeping our way to the continent Bertie coughed to life and we drove along raised carriageways, past greenhouses bursting with flowers, cruising with the doors open and a flower sweet breeze felt like the beginning of a new chapter in the lumber bus’s life. No more hauling drunkards cross town to St Marys or Royal free hospital, Bertie was sipping sweet Euro fuel and surprisingly, keeping his cool in the 30 °C heat.

Words: Hugo Pullen | Photos: Dora Damian

Blood, sweat and spanners

The build up to the trip provided skinned knuckles, hair stuck down with old engine oil and the general aroma of panic. How do you make a 1985 London ambulance fit for a 7000km journey!

Before setoff we had some major engine problems, so much so, that we thought it less risky to buy another engine out of a monster truck project than to repair the existing one. With the help of a comprehensive Haynes manual and some willing friends, a jerry rig was erected from scaffold poles, A frame ladders and an old wooden horse, a structure probably not fit for heaving engines out of ambulances, but with friends, family, hope and prayers the engines were swapped and the lumberbus sings to a different tune.

Words: Hugo Pullen | Photos: Dora Damian

Adventures in Bertie the Lumberbus

This trip has been in the pipeline ever since Hugo bought Bertie off Peat the Pipes. It finally materialised when Dora met Hugo and their travelling dreams came to fruition in the form of a 7000km pan european tour in an upcycled 1985 Bedford CF Ambulance (Bertie).

So it is time we say goodbye to the charming small town of Wimborne, Hugo's home for the past 24 years.

The aim is to breakdown in as few countries as possible... 

Expect to see us on the side of the road in Amsterdam; on a recovery truck in Berlin; being towed by horses through Lublin and pushing the home straight from Bucharest through the Alps, France and finally the UK. We will also be able to offer the unique experience of cruising around with us - if you think you are brave enough to travel in Bertie the lumberbus check in on Blablacar.com. Alternatively, contact Hugo or Dora.

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“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” 
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Words: Hugo Pullen | Photos: Dora Damian