fromrusttoroadtrip: We always tell the story of how we got our van as one of regret; we were young,
fromrusttoroadtrip: We always tell the story of how we got our van as one of regret; we were young, foolish, knew nothing about mechanics and were not in any way qualified to examine and purchase a van by ourselves. Did that stop us? Absolutely no way. We bought a couple of train tickets up to London, spent 6 hours on a train which was delayed, getting in almost an hour late. Then we ran, sprinted our way down Oxford Street, pushing our way through commuters and shoppers. Blisters formed and burst on my flip-flopped feet as Ben held onto his bag and we shoved suit-clad businessmen and bankers out of our way, then finally jumped on the last train to Banbury with little time to spare.We were met at Banbury station by the parents of the LDV’s owner, and as we pulled up to their house we could see freedom in the form of the rusty, tiedye-painted, sticker-bombed minibus that sat on their road, horrifying and offending their neighbours.We looked at the engine, kicked the tires like we’d seen people do, then handed over an envelope with £1000 cash inside it. It was ours. I had never driven a van before. Ben hadn’t yet passed his test. But I manoeuvred the colourful beast out of the close and down the road, much to the couple and their neighbour’s relief, getting stuck only briefly down a lane while Ben reversed me out before hitting the M25, my first ever stretch of motorway. It was rusty. It was clunky. It was garishly painted, and sparsely fitted out with 17 minibus seats, a handmade chest of drawers containing nothing but a soiled pair of women’s underwear, and a broom pole holding up the sagging fibreglass roof. It had been a school minibus, later reincarnated as a Lads On Tour bus, passing though Belgium, Holland and the Czech Republic with the word ‘Cumberland’ emblazoned down the side in brown spray paint, before returning back to the UK. And, as we would later learn, the exhaust was falling off, there was an enormous foot-long crack in the roof, which would continue to leak water onto our bed until well after our first trip, and most obviously we’d overpaid without even attempting to haggle. But it was ours. A blank canvas. An adventure machine. We showed it off proudly to our friends and family, who couldn’t see past the damp, mouldy carpet and rust holes in the floor. But we could; in it we could see potential. We could see our home. We could see freedom. #Follow the hashtag #Fromrusttoroadtrip to follow our van conversion project and our travels around Europe! -- source link