Blue Lagoon. Part two

Hi

Dave and I were out when Jeanette came so I am writing this alone.

As I mentioned in the last blog, the water was such wonderful colours that Brian decided to take Bessie (the campervan) down to the lake. I also mentioned we were extremely high up, we could see cars at the bottom so knew we could get down. In fact we saw an old rusty broken car laying ¾ way down, it had obviously gone over the edge :O(

Anyway we all started the very bumpy journey down the groovy paths; Jay and I were a little frightened as it tipped the van from side to side rattling all her china etc. Halfway down we could see that the paths got narrower and narrower, the van was never going to get through, there was no way of turning round so Brian said to hold on in the back and he just went for it slowly, the wheels were missing the path and going over rocks and small bushes rocking the van badly from side to side. I was scared and I could see from Jeanette’s face she was too. We made it! Once down we stayed whilst Dave and Brian ran to see the best way back, the best way wasn’t good for Bessie.

We started back up the hill slowly and got well and truly stuck, no way up and no way back, driving backwards down a path that was only wide enough for a car seemed our only option! Dave was out of the van shouting “STOP! BACK BRIAN, OVER A BIT; DON’T COME OVER THIS SIDE ANYMORE! Over a bit, STOP! I know Dave facial expressions well as you can imagine, and I could see he was very worried. Once home and alone Dave told me that he never thought Brian would get us out without turning the van, he said that he just does not know how he did it, a great bit of driving that took a lot of guts!

Anyway, we finally was back where we started and Dave went off running to see the best root out, we eventually veered to the right and up we crawled again, no good, the path was just far to steep with sudden little hills that were almost like a deep step! We were stuck again, only this time we could not go back because of the steep hills we had managed.

After a while with Jeanette and I really scared sitting either side of the van on the long settee seats, with I hasten to add, no belts and Dave and Brian whispering in the front, Brian suddenly turned and told us to hold on as we just had to go forward and would be climbing very steep bits. Understatement of the year, well whole century actually.

The van was really rocking two and throw, it sounded as if all the china was breaking to pieces. One of her pictures shot of the wall and the glass smashed.

One minute I was looking at Jeanette face, she really looked scared and was calling out to Brian “are we going over Brian, Brian are we going over?” the next she was no longer there! She had shot off the seat, legs in the air was sliding all the way to the far end of the van, she scrambled to her feet so fast that I don’t think she was sure what had just happened, her face said it all! She started to make her way back just as Brian attempted to go up a sudden steep hill, once again poor Jeanette went shooting backwards on her feet this time, and she gathered momentum and ended in a pile at the far end again! (I am so sorry, but as I type this I cannot keep from laughing, she reminded me of Leeta and the omelet!) Jeanette is a good sport and did not complain as she crawled back to her seat.

Well not for a few minutes anyway, because we both let out quite a lot of noise over the next fifteen minutes as we very often came close to going all the way down to the bottom ‘sideways’!!!

Several times over the next fifteen twenty minutes Dave had to get out and try to guide Brian through paths that were very steep and far to narrow for the van with a drop (not vertically but almost) a very deep, deep, hill indeed with loads of rocks and bushes on it.

The sight of that wrecked broken car was still in my mind whilst we stumbled our way back to normality, as it must have been in all of our minds.

Wish on hindsight we had taken a photo of the steep hill with the car a tiny speck, but instead we used Jeanette’s fantastic zoom and took a really close up of it which does not show that it lay 3/4 down a drop at all. Well not in our wildest dreams did we ever know we were going down there and may not get up again.

Once Brian managed to get the two front wheels up a very deep ‘well I can only describe it as a sudden steep mound’ but Bessie was far to wide to get the rest of herself up and started to slide down again with Brian revving and making a lot of noise. It was all very scary indeed.

I cannot describe to you the constant noise in the van of plates, cups crockery glasses and all the other bits crashing around, it just added to the fear we all felt. Miraculously on a very quick inspection of the over head cupboards nothing looked broken. The plates are all in deep racks so they must have banged together but stayed where they were as did the cups and glasses. Jeanette will probably find cracks here and there when she takes them out I expect. Everything under the seats we were sitting on was rushing from side to side with a noise like thunder.

Once on the road again we all took a big sigh of relief. No wonder when we got back Brian and Dave had a little to much to drink ;O) lol

Both Dave and I are very impressed with Brian and his managing of Bessie. I do not expect they will be taking us out again in a hurry, why oh why does chaos follow me around!

Dave and Brian coming back from picking up the chips. They look pleased to be alive don't you think?