It’s been a very long and painful 6 weeks since the fire brought an abrupt end to my 2015 european road trip, and with spring now slowly turning to summer, I really do miss being out and about in my vintage VW camper!
Fortunately there has been slow progress in regards to some of the insurance on the camper. Unfortunately I found out to my dismay, that I was underinsured in terms of the contents of the van and all the updates I had carried out to the bus. A big lesson to be learnt right there! Although it’s not all fully resolved yet, at least I now have some funds to begin the search for a replacement bus once again.
With a vintage VW camper you can never really replace like for like, regardless of how much available money you might have. Most buses are all fairly unique and very personal, so it’s a surprisingly difficult thing to do to try to find a ‘new’ camper especially on a bit of a reduced budget – nothing like a bit of a challenge!
One of the many irreplaceable items from the bus was it’s Canterbury Pitt interior, my home away from home when on the road. I had spent ages getting the interior sorted and how I wanted it to be. The recent fitting the Canterbury Pitt table which I had recently refurbished was the icing on the cake, even my wife loved this aspect of the camper!
Unfortunately, the fire was no respecter of all the time and effort that had gone into getting the interior resolved and finished…
The re-trimmed cab area of the camper was a great space to be in as you were driving around…
…but the fire soon spread to the front and destroyed all of that as well, once it had taken hold, there was just no stopping it despite the contents of two or three fire extinguishers! It took the attention of the French fire brigade to finally put out the flames!
However, by the time the French Fire brigade had arrived and managed to put out the flames, my 1965 VW camper was barely recognisable from it’s former condition!
However, despite all the emotional turmoil and distress of having to watch as my camper and all my belongings in my home on the road went up in flames and got destroyed, it’s now time to move forward and focus on sorting out finding a suitable replacement vintage VW Camper – let the search commence…
