Our first accident!

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Today was the day we would say goodbye to fixed lodgings and become part of the motorhome and vanlife community, it was the start of a long road trip and we couldn't be more excited. We had a few last minute things to do so after checking out of our airbnb we went shopping in Emmen for a mattress protector, LED lights, bike lock and food. We had to drop the car off at the airport and it was my job to do that as Vaughan would be driving Matilda. I hadn't driven a car since leaving Australia May 2017 and its been a very long time since I had driven on the wrong side of the road! it was going to be interesting and there was no time like the present to get behind the wheel and start practicing. I drove us to Emmen and it wasn't as bad as I thought, it didn't take long at all to get back into the swing of things and I was driving like I had never left.

Having done all our shopping it was time to head to Hoogeveen and meet up with Matilda. Before we set off I made up the bed and packed away our clothes and food, I found a place for everything but knew that when we got to England to pick up the rest of our stuff I would need to repack so for now things had a temporary spot. Wietze had given us a large propane gas bottle with a German fitting but the only place we could fill it was closed, hopefully we would get another opportunity somewhere on the way to fill it, it wasn't needed but it would be handy to run the little BBQ we had bought.

After lunch we set off towards the airport then on to Leiden. We both needed to visit the petrol station on the corner so I went first then Vaughan followed and this is where it happened! First he put in the diesel then he had to go back out of the station and come back in again as the LPG was on the other side, as he came back in he misjudged the distance between Matilda and the petrol pump and the next thing I heard was a bang! Ooops we had hit the pump, I wasn't too pleased that we had only been in the motorhome 5 minutes and already we had hit something! We assessed the damage, the pump was a little dented but Matilda's bumper was missing some paint off the corner. The worst was we had an audience so it was quite embarrassing. We quickly filled the LPG and high tailed it out of there, fortunately it was an unmanned station so we didn't get accosted by anyone. Vaughan hadn't driven a vehicle this size before so it would take some getting used to when judging distances, we put it down to experience.

Driving to the car rental place wasn't too bad, its freeway most of the way and I just followed Vaughan. I was relieved to drop off the car and become a passenger again, driving is not one of my favourite activities I find it tedious. While driving to the car rental place Vaughan got a phone call from Wietze to ask if we had hit a petrol pump at the station on the corner. Apparently the owner had called him as a witness had seen a motorhome hit the pump and thought it might be one of Camperfun's given the station is a only about 20 meters from Camperfun. We confessed, he said just send me a photo of the damage as I need to lodge a report and that was the last we heard of it. We hadn't booked any campsite as this time of year you can pretty much get in anywhere so we picked one near Leiden which was about 40 minutes from where we had dropped off the car. The campground had plenty of space so we parked up and I got to work cooking my first meal in our little kitchen which we enjoyed with some wine and beer. The evening was sunny so we sat outside with our table and chairs, it seemed strange to be in a campground rather than a hostel, airbnb or a friends house but we were happy because we had a place to call home that was ours.

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