More VW Love in Northern Cyprus

Posted on August 12, 2015 by campervantures

When we got married in Northern Cyprus in 2013 we saw a few VWs, and again the following year, mainly Beetles, and the odd bay window. As we left from Ercan airport in June 2014, we caught a glimpse of a splitscreen van in a scrapyard, and, more intriguingly, what appeared to be a garage forecourt full of Karmann Ghias on the road from Nicosia towards Ercan.

Fast forward to April 2015 when we visited again, and everyone in our party was on the look out for VWs!

Pa and Ma Custard mad some good spots, including a bay window sliding door panel van, and a splitscreen panel van (the best kind):

One day, after a visit to St Hilarion Castle and a drive past Buffavento and through the mountains (best bit of road ever, it has to be driven whilst listening to On Days Like These by Matt Monro, as it is a very Italian Job-eqsue experience, without an unfortunate ending in a tunnel) we set off in search of the fabled garage of Ghias that we had spotted on our previous trip.

We drove up and down the road where we had remembered seeing them, and were about to give up looking, when we decided to go a little closer to Nicosia, and we hit the goldmine!

We spied some very familiar-shaped dusty noses, and pulled up to peep through the fence.

As we were looking, a guy pulled up in a large Japanese pick up, and we quickly realised that he was the owner of the garage – he’d been driving back from a car rally, had seen us looking and pulled over – what a great coincidence! He let us in to have a better look:

He mainly imports cars from Japan, and said that all the Ghias could be for sale for the right price, except his own that he was restoring inside one of his garages:

What a bit of luck we had, being able to get up close and see these fabulous cars. I’d love to see them back on the road and being used. Perhaps if we ever go through with our plan of moving to Northern Cyprus we need to buy one. I can’t see that driving an air-cooled car in a really hot country would cause us any issues at all! 😉

What old beauties have you ever seen stashed away? Is your VW a barn find? Let us know in the comments!

First time reader?

Posted on July 26, 2013 by campervantures

Hello to anyone who might have just recently come across the blog, perhaps because they’ve just been given a wedding thank you with the web address on:

So now you can see what we’re up to! Leave us a comment and say hello!

Wedding photos by the amazing and wonderful Susie Forster. Van photos by me, thank you cards from Vistaprint. As always, all opinions are my own, and I haven’t been paid for any of them.

Happy Ever After

Posted on April 24, 2013 by campervantures

Well, that’s it. We’re all married now and set to trundle off into the deep blue yonder to have adventures in our campervan.

People have chosen their parts of the van to name, so at some point we will be attaching labels to them all and taking photographs so that people can see what they’ve bought.

But for now, here are some of our lovely wedding photos, by the talented and lovely Susie Forster, who is not only a great photographer, but a massive VW camper fan, so automatically earns lots of extra cool points!

VW love in Northern Cyprus

Posted on April 15, 2013 by campervantures

Sorry the blog has been a bit quiet of late, Rooobarb and I are now officially Mr and Mrs Crumble (thanks to DubMinx from the SSVC for that excellent moniker!) and wedding stuff has got in the way of important stuff, like VWs.

Except, whilst in Northern Cyprus, getting hitched and having a honeymoon and stuff, we kept our eyes peeled for VWs. We saw quite a few Beetles being driven around (especially bright yellow ones, oddly enough!) and even found one for sale:

We saw a couple of bay windows in need of some TLC (and parts) parked near to the main road to Ercan airport, but I thought I’d hit the jackpot as we were driving near Alsancak, and yelled the familiar refrain “SPLIT!”:

Or maybe, just a bay that’s had a nose job…

Adventures in a Campervan

Posted on January 26, 2013 by campervantures

Greetings and salutations, welcome to our camper! Grab a seat in the back, kettle’s on. My name is Custard (obviously not my real name) and yon blokey behind the wheel there is Rooobarb (again, not what his mother calls him).

Let me tell you a story:

In 2011, Rooobarb and I went to see a show by Laura Mugridge called Running on Air. The show had been brought to the North West by our friends at Spot On Rural Touring, who have never given us a duff show yet, so when they mentioned a one woman show with an audience of five that takes place in the back of a campervan, we were in!

We drove to Mawdsley, and met the stars of the show; Laura, and her lovely orange bay window camper called Joni. The show was wonderful, a life-affirming journey around the UK with laughs and tears, all whilst sitting in the back of Joni outside a farm shop. Laura sparked an idea in our heads; when her and her husband Tom had got married, they had asked people to choose a part of a campervan to buy, and when they got a camper, they would name the parts after the people who bought them. I was sitting on a bench seat who was an uncle. You get the picture.

We thought that this was a marvellous idea, and so, when in October 2012 we decided that a 15 year long engagement was probably long enough, and that we should do something about it, we shamelessly stole the idea for our wedding gift list:

We get married in 9 weeks time, and already have been pledged three rear view mirrors, one wing mirror, a fuel gauge, a fire extinguisher, a gearbox and a radiator (which could be interesting in an air-cooled engine, I blame a tired Custard googling for lists of car parts for gift lists late at night…). The lovely Rob and Sue at Spot On have also promised us an unused camping toilet. Which will make an interesting focal piece on the gift table at the reception!

So that was the start of our campervan adventures, and in the future we’re hoping to go wherever our flat-four engine will take us.