Where is Moglander – Jan 12 2012

Well, After a quick trip to Italy to visit Allie and DJ Doc and Lynda and Lanky (My sisters and their better halves), We are on the road again. We went quickly through the south of France, and are now on the outskirts of Barcelona, in a truck stop to be precise.

 

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We plan to slow down a little now, and take the next week to travel to the south of Spain, where we meet our fellow travellers and head to Morocco on the 22nd of January.

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Le mans

The 24 hour race has always been something that every bloke wonders about. And he thinks “how hard could that be?”. I don’t think that, I just think they are crazy guys that push themselves harder than anyone can imagine. And they are heroes because of it.

Some of the cars, in fact most of them, are stunning to look at as you can see the design changes as you walk around. They have many exhibits arranged chronologically so seeing the changes is very easy. If you are in the area, it is a definite stopping off point! Their official website is not bad.

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French or carpentry?

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Back in the 80’s international languages did not really seem too important to me, so when we had a choice to do carpentry or French in school, I figured that being able to converse with our European colleagues once a year on holidays was less important than being able to make a decent dovetail joint or install a bookshelf over a bed in a Unimog camper. In hindsight, it was a poor call as languages are one of the things I wish I had worked on in school, but over the last few months it was pretty handy being able to do a lot of the moglander interior modifications ourselves.

We decided we wanted to change the types of storage in the moglander. Sarah was very keen on drawers, and now that we are on the road, I can see she was right. We put in 4 normal drawers, and put in locks in them so they don’t fly open when driving. 4 drawers does not sound like a big deal until I explain we had to move the battery charger and inverter to make them fit, as well as shift the microwave up to the Luton (bit over the cab for the non truckers). We also relocated all 5 batteries from the right had side to the left hand side of the truck to help balance the weight better. All this translates to a serious rewiring job before even starting the carpentry.

Once we were on a roll we decided to place the chemical toilet onto a sliding drawer to make it easier than lifting it out of and into a cupboard when the call of nature came and we didn’t feel like getting out. That meant getting some heavy duty drawer sliders, rated to carry a load that can be calculated to almost 100kg at times. We located ones in the USA rated to 135kg, so we got a few sets as they work for the engel freezer too!

At this stage the few drawers project was taking on a life of its own, and my brother Adrian stepped in to help out in a big way. He let me work on Moglander in his factory so I could be inside and use the really cool saws, air tools and cnc routers that they have. Ok, so I didn’t use the cnc machine, but Adrian did, and made the coolest set of doors for our drawers and presses. Cheers Adrian!

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Where is Moglander?

Well, the weather looks better, so we may be on our way soon. Josie and Stuart had no idea what they were taking on when we landed in! Still, as long as they keep cooking, we’re staying!   This is where we are now…

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And you would think this was a nice quiet part of the world where everything would pass you by.  Well, you would be mistaken! This gang decided to drop in for a suprise goodbye party to find we were not leaving for 2 days. Luckily the party did’nt expand until the boat left! Still, I ended up sampling drinking chocolate with Whiskey in it. Seemed pretty good last night!

But hope to be sailing to France tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

 

In the Photo – Back row:  Mal, Ed, John, Merv, Damo, Michael,

middle row: Brokeback Brian, Reindeer Ivor, Norm, Trev

front row: Sarah (Financial Controller and chief navigational officer)

 

Photo by Wasted Words Photography.

 

But as these things seem to go, when we wanted the photographer in the shot, it all went a little weird!

 

 

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Not tonight, Moglander

After a hectic few months, the weather has stalled our plans in their tracks. The Celtic Line ferry has been cancelled, probably a bit like the Celtic tiger. We hope to get rolling on Thursday, but it’s a bit of a slow start. We have been rebooked, so that’s not so bad. We might even get our photos and blog updated properly!

 

 We are currently in Wexford, staying with a photographer buddy of mine. I dont think he or his wife planned on us staying a few days, so lets hope I dont bore them too much 🙂

 

Fingers crossed the sailing will be ok on Thursday!

 

Photo credits to Ciaran Whyte.

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Who Is Sarah?

Sarah is a keen traveller, having travelled around Asia, Australia, Africa and that’s just the A’s!  She has a brother in Capetown so that’s a great excuse to go to South Africa to visit.

Sarah worked in the corporate world for a number of years, and more recently for Plan Ireland and hopes to visit some of their projects when in South America.  Sarah’s experience in finance means she will be minding the purse strings on the Moglander trip, no matter how badly Merv wants to buy every gadget and gizmo he can find!

Sarah and Merv have lived just outside of Dubin, Ireland for over 10 years and are ready for life on the road, in search of places where it does’nt rain every day!

Sarah’s a keen tennis player and played with Naas LTC , and will be carrying a few rackets so if anyone wants a game on the road, flag us down near a flat field! Vamos!

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