September flew by.  Great to borrow young Oscar Kaiser Gilpin from time to time, but otherwise it was a very busy month with the ongoing task of equipping the new van and Rosemarie's major project of making Louisa's wedding dress.

It was also great to catch up with our friends from primary school parents' days, Graeme and Jill.  

Also more recent friends we've met on the road, Tony and Jane, before they headed off to Bali and New Zealand to escape the northern winter.

We met up with my young cousin Rob earlier in the year as he was passing through London not long after completing a 14 month trip riding his motorcycle from Melbourne to the UK.  Rob doesn't let the grass grow under his feet, and since then he's walked 800 km along the Way of St James to Santiago de Compostela in Spain (where he met his girlfriend Claudia) and visited other parts of the Continent.  He's also made it to the TT motorcycle road races on the Isle of Man as well as covering much of England, Wales and Scotland.  And he managed with Claudia to visit her home town in Argentina.

So it was great to meet up with them both at Abbey Wood Caravan Club in London for a couple of days before they headed back towards Spain.

So August 2016 was a memorable month in London starring young Oscar Kaiser Gilpin with Teddy the pug as supporting cast.  In our spare time we were busy fitting out the new Carthago van.  Despite what we thought was plenty of planning (after all, we ordered the van in Düsseldorf 11 months earlier) it's fair to say we were unprepared for how much effort is involved in fitting out a new van.  It really is like moving house, but squeezing everything into much smaller spaces so full time living is as smooth as possible.

After three years and over 20,000 miles of European travel it was time to trade in the Chausson.  Well built on the Fiat Ducato chassis, it was reliable and good value for money, and helped us realise that we wanted to continue our European travels for a while longer.  We came to the view that we needed a vehicle with a bigger payload, improved traction and better arrangements for the occasional overnight guests.  The Carthago Highliner, built on an Iveco Daily truck chassis with lockable differential drive through twin rear wheels and a huge two tonne payload fulfilled these requirements.  8½ metres long, it's left hand drive to be more at home on the Continent, 6 speed manual (to keep John's left leg strong and fit) with a 200 bhp 4 cylinder 3 litre diesel engine.

The end of a great week catching up with friends - former work colleagues - passing through London.  First were Glen and Kerrie on the way home from their European cruise.  Close behind was Mick McGann nearing the end of a monumental "Beer and Battlefields" tour.  Read all about it in Mick's Facebook posts - Facebook/michael/mcgann.923.