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Scudamores On Tour
  • Sarah Scudamore
  • Nic Scudamore

Scudamores On Tour

With our eldest starting school in September, we are following our hearts for one more big adventure before term times begin. We hope to explore as much of Europe as we can taking in mountains, lakes, rivers, beaches & islands across 8 countries... Read more
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  • Scudamores On Tour

    St Pol De Leon - Brittany

    August 19, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    We arrive in Saint Pol de Leon and manage to park on a little peninsula with a beautiful sandy beach looking out to the rocky sea, with hundreds of tiny rocky islets sat just past the tide - a totally unique view. There’s a great park and a rocky hill with a great view over the bays, we are just next to the Roscoff ferry so we see one that has just set off...reminds us that we are almost at our ferry now - and we can sense England just the other side of the channel.

    The children love the freedom the big beaches of France have given us, so they run free here, there is also an amazing long tunnel set into the ground, cue the loudest shouts of ‘echo!!!’ you’ve ever heard, and Coen loves seeing the tractor driving up and down the beach (to clear seaweed, Nic thinks its because it’s a blue flag beach so they don’t want the seaweed, but I’m not sure on the environmentally friendliness of this task - he is ploughing up and down burning a ton of fuel and collecting barely any seaweed each time...I felt like just picking it up by hand so that he would stop!).

    We settle in a little aire right on the harbour walls and have a lovely (but very messy and smelly and non-motorhome-friendly) fish supper of fresh calamari and prawns, watch some crabs and plan our last few days!    Read more

  • Scudamores On Tour

    Landrellac - Northern Brittany

    August 20, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    Even as we come to the end of our adventure, we continue to find little gems.

    We are spoilt for choice with campsites in the northern coast of Brittany, but we choose one on the beach with a pool, as the children have been so used to swimming daily. Lots of narrow, windy roads to get here though!

    The site is lovely, we have a big grassy pitch, next to the pool and park, and the campsite is sat right next to a tidal inlet, which empties and fills so quickly, it’s hard to believe the tide moves that far. We decide to take crab lines and walk along the sandy beach which is covered in rocky patches making lots of rock pools. Amelia is keen to get her crab line in so the first tiny puddle we come to, she pops it in...not sure it’s big enough for a crab there! Coen still freezes and screams every time he comes to a piece of seaweed...not sure how we’re going to get rid of this fear! We find a jetty, drop the lines off and Amelia is ecstatic to catch a little crab, which she puts in her bucket, and takes over to see a fisherman who is bringing his little haul in - a big lobster, some shrimps and crabs.

    Coen wanders out into the water to see the boats...luckily the tide is on its way out and it’s pretty shallow, so I manage to get him up close to touch them.

    Nic decides he wants to find some cockles, the children are digging and Coen has incidentally dug one up, he searches for quite a while but only finds four, so we think maybe finding dinner might be a bit of a task and put them back...haven’t mastered that skill yet!

    We walk right along the bay towards the sea which we can barely see anymore as the tide has gone out, until we find a little oyster farm which is amazing to see up close with the tide out, the tractors, much to Coen’s joy, have driven right out to it and they are working on the racks. We decide we’d better head back before the tide washes back in!

    We get a quick swim in the pool, it’s definitely chiller up north, even with the sun shining. Half of the pool has a cover, we’ve noticed most of this coast have this, much more British weather. The children love the pool, Amelia has to try and pass for 8 (again) to ride the little toboggan slide, Coen doesn’t stand a chance with the eagle eyed lifeguard watching on.

    With just a few days before we get home, Amelia pulls out all the stops to get injured - first falling out of her bunk bed (1.5m up) in the middle of the night (managing to undo the safety net herself!) and then falling down some rocks in the morning, giving her cuts and grazes from top to toe...time to leave before we get anymore injuries!    Read more

  • Scudamores On Tour

    Lancieuz - aka shell bay!

    August 21, 2019 in France ⋅ ☁️ 0 °C

    Making our way towards the Cherbourg peninsula now, we find a little beach village with a small campsite which is perfect for our penultimate stopover. We get the last pitch and are warned that’s it small, but it’s directly next to the park - obviously the children are happy!

    We walk down to the beach - another huge bay where the sea rushes in and out on a huge tide, leaving behind all the rocks and rock pools which we have come to realise is so representative of Brittany’s coast. It’s almost as if you can see Cornwall and Brittany have been sliced down the middle here, the beach, the rocks and even the houses that line the bay all look so familiar.

    We collect an array of shells as we walk out to the rocky patches, find some more cockles...and Nic tells a Frenchman ‘J’adore le coque’!!! Time to leave!

    The campsite has a lovely take away pizza van that pulls up at night, so we enjoy a scallop pizza (cheese and ham for the children!), and then put the air con up high to try and disguise the noise of all the French children playing in the park until the late hours while we try and get Amelia to bed!

    Amelia wakes early so Nic takes her to see the beach again before we move on. We stop at Decathlon, the children have grown so much on this trip and so both need coats and shoes...however, as always this turns into a 3hour stop, including lunch on the picnic bench while the children play on the trampolines outside the store!!    Read more

  • Scudamores On Tour

    Sainte-Mere-Eglise - D-Day

    August 22, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    Someone recommended this place as a good stop for the way back to the ferry. We drive through the main square and see the church with the paratrooper model hanging from the top, as well as a big building the shape of a parachute. The small campsite is again perfect, big grassy pitch, a park for the children and nice and quiet (until we arrive!).

    We decide to have a quick walk around to the town as it looks really interesting - so interesting that it turns into an evening and dinner in the town. The town is dedicated to D-Day, with a museum and all of the shops and buildings bearing some sign of the war. And we learn a lot about war from the French perspective. In the museum shop, Amelia chooses a lovely book about D-Day for children, Coen chooses a toy spitfire.

    We learn that on d-day when the paratroopers were dropped in to check the area was safe for the sea and land troops, one actually landed on the church roof, hence the model that still remains there. The landing beaches are all very close to this town and it really is steeped in the history of it. Coen loves seeing the tanks and war vehicles, and also the model soldiers dotted around the town. Nic and I agree we now know more about D-Day than we remember from school! We see the memorial for one of the US war cemeteries, 14000 buried in temporary cemeteries around this tiny town - shocking numbers.

    We see tourists from more nationalities here than we’ve seen for a long time, everyone is visiting to soak up the history.

    The kids have scooted so we have a look to see if we can find somewhere for dinner and eventually find a tiny Galette restaurant - Nic isn’t convinced a pancake will fill him up but luckily these are really good and the filling is big! The children get full sized pancakes as well as two huge scoops of ice cream...so inevitably Coen does a humongous poo on the way home, when we have no nappies left and he wants to be carried....things gets a bit messy!

    Time to hit the road for the final time now as we make it up to the ferry terminal at Cherbourg...    Read more

  • Scudamores On Tour

    YOLO...our big adventure!

    August 23, 2019 in England ⋅ ⛅ 0 °C

    As we arrive back in the UK, we are reminded of the brief conversation with another family one year ago in France, , who had been travelling Europe in a Moho with young family for 6 months. It took us about 3 minutes to decide we wanted to do it - a little longer to work out the logistics, and we are forever grateful that we took the opportunity.

    As grown ups, we have seen so many amazing things that have made our jaws drop, as children they have grown in confidece with each new experience they’ve had, as a family we have grown ‘together’ and had time to learn and ‘see’ each other in a way that we just wouldn’t have had back home. Living in this tiny space has sometimes felt crazy and it took some getting used to. At first everything seemed a bit stressful as we were navigating our own ways in the small and delicate space, but we’ve come through the other side and the time has been very special indeed. Life is for living.

    Learnings from 5 months on the road with children...

    However long you travel for, there will always be more to see; value the time you have.

    You can travel to all the glorious natural wonders in the world, but THE most important thing to a 4 year old is that there’s a park.

    Amelia was given an Enid Blyton short stories book with 30 stories in - amazing to have so many different stories without having to take loads of books. Short stories are a win.

    The only thing to put on sun-sensitive faces in the middle of a heatwave is Zinc sunblock.

    No matter how many times you tell yourself that your children won’t watch the DVD player for the whole journey - after 8000 miles we all know you’re kidding yourself!

    Heated swimming pools are essential but rare if travelling in Europe in April.

    It takes 3-4 weeks for adults to learn dimensions of new, smaller living quarters and avoid head bumps with every move, 2 yr olds never figure this out.

    Don’t plan too much, you’ll miss out on some diamonds.

    Talk to as many at people as possible (very handy to have a husband who literally can’t not talk to people) - it’s good for the soul, but you’ll also get the best travel tips on places to visit.

    After months on the road (through rain, snow, mud, forests, lakes, waterfalls and beaches) no matter how many times you hand wash children’s clothes (and soak in a litre of vanish) they will never be clean again.

    The only clue as to how many creepy crawlies we were travelling with at any time was that every now and then when we put Coen to bed a giant spider or ear wig would crawl up his wall (from the garage below his bed).

    If you need to escape the monotony of politics and current affairs, travelling in a motorhome (without satellite) is a 100% guaranteed way to do it.

    When you’re travelling, you always wish you’d started sooner and could go on longer.

    Children’s bedtimes are late and long, luckily so are their lie ins.

    Wine is ridiculously cheap to buy in every single country we’ve visited (bar England).

    You can buy a bottle of beer for 8cents in Germany (though Nic doesn’t recommend it), and a bottle of Prosecco in Italy for under 2 euros (and Sarah does recommend it!).

    Children can eat an infinite amount of ice cream, and apparently not feel sick.

    Pizza is good for any meal (including brunch) as long as it’s from Italy.

    We love beaches and lakes more than cities and towns. We followed the path of water for almost our whole trip. There were only a handful of nights where we weren’t parked up next to water.

    Amelia melts in anything above 18 degrees if there isn’t a pool or sea to splash in.

    Biscuits solve most child problems, especially if we’ve been driving for too long!

    The children’s favourite sentence is ‘I’m hungry’. They are more hungry than ever before. Except when it’s meal times and then it is impossible to get them to sit down to eat - far too much distraction eating in the wild!

    What adults see and what children see is always completely different when visiting new places - we loved hearing how they described things and what they noticed.

    Germans love a skatepark and they make brilliant parks all over the place.

    Driving through Austria surrounded by mountains and following the longest rivers, ending up at the biggest and most beautiful lakes is breathtaking - guaranteed beautiful scenes at every turn.

    Some people thought we were crazy for travelling with children, and some people wished they’d done it, some people's trips made ours seem tiny- we all have different dreams, we’re glad we took a chance on this one.    Read more

    Trip end
    August 24, 2019
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