Prologue: The Year 2000
“What’s that? Up ahead, in the road?” I said. “Hmm?” Sarah looked up from her book. “Looks like…”
“Is it a ladder?”
“Couldn’t be. Not in the middle of the motorway. It’s…”
…a ladder. An aluminium triple-extension ladder. Even more incredible, it was balanced on its side. Thinking distance was over. We were there. Sixty mph and a ton of caravan in tow. I flicked right. I clipped the ladder. Plink! A gentle kiss. Not enough to even shave any Turtle-Wax off the nearside front wing. The caravan missed it altogether.
The kids, Kevin and Amanda, loved it.
“Oh, cool. Did you see that?”
I saw them twisting and jostling for position to get some kind
of view in the extension mirrors, since the white bulk of the caravan hid most of the rearward action.
“Look at them slide,” said Kevin.
“He’s going to hit… ooh!” said Amanda. But their teenaged hunger for mayhem would not be satisfied this day. There was plenty of stunt-driving and blue tyre smoke, but nothing exciting as far as they could see. No barrel rolls, flapping doors or flying, bouncing wheels. I didn’t look. I stared straight ahead with boggling eyes and a white-fisted death grip on the steering wheel.
Twelve miles. We’d driven just twelve miles from our home. We live on the Wirral, a sleepy peninsula tucked up in the northwest of England. The Wirral is a long way from Dover, let alone our ultimate destination. We had a thousand miles ahead of us. Was this just a taster?
Travelling in a Box Description:
From England to the Alps in a thirty-year-old caravan. What could possibly go wrong? Rain, gales and ice blizzards. Parched, tinder-dry fields. There are alien invasions, military manoeuvres and toxic waste, and all before the Wood family even start their Alpine caravan adventure. Why? Because it is fun. It is holidays.
Travelling in a Box is about a family and their passion for all things camping and caravanning. As they embark upon a pan-European adventure with their thirty-year-old caravan in tow, will their unbreakable tolerance for ‘fun’ be pushed to new limits?
