A day in the life of Penelope...

For those of you wondering, no I haven’t taken to calling myself Penelope, that’s the name of our faithful 20-year-old big blue truck with over 500,000 miles on the clock.

Thought I’d give anyone who’s still reading this an idea of our daily life because it’s now become routine to us but it was interesting whilst getting used to it. First off, there is no normal day – it depends where we are and whether we’re staying somewhere for a few days or moving on, but I’ll try to get the important bits in.
A travelling day starts with the breakfast crew getting up about half an hour before everyone else to get breakfast ready. This is normally cereal, toast done on a grill over the gas burners, bread, tea, coffee etc. Sometimes scrambled eggs and other bits, I’m not 100% sure as I normally stay for a lie in. Food is done on a rota of 5 groups, each one stays on to do breakfast and lunch until they’ve done dinner. If we’re in a city and eating out in the evenings then that can mean the unfortunate group doing breakfast 3 days in a row but it all evens out over time. The food group also does the washing up for that meal, but everyone does their own plate and cutlery. Everything is just left to drip dry (or if we’re in a hurry then it gets a quick flap about) as tea towels spread germs – going to have to remember that one for at home…
Once food is done everything is packed away – there are groups (separate from food groups) which are set for each leg of the journey – the first is the 43 days from London to Baku. I’m on roof loading and unloading with Andrew and Michael, so when all the tents are packed away in the morning we have to hoik them onto the roof and pack them under the tarpaulin, making sure it’s sealed from the rain as otherwise the tents get wet and so does Pete’s bed! Others are on loading and unloading bags from the rear locker, cleaning, general camp setup, security, waste, barperson and general truck wallha/biatch. Most people are happy to help out with other jobs if they’ve finished theirs and we’ve got the camp setup routine down to a fairly quick, smooth operation now.
This gets us to the stage of having the truck packed (depending on where we need to get to, between 7:30 and 9:30 is usually set as leaving time), so everybody piles on and the security team make sure that we’re all present (can’t go leaving people all across the world!). Nobody has a set seat, it’s a free for all each day so nobody gets bored of sitting with the same people. Generally the call for an iPod to plug into the stereo comes next, there’s quite a variety of music on board, some really good, some mine. We’ve got 6 big speakers on the truck so the Vengaboys and Village People can be heard in the fine quality that they deserve! The next challenge is normally the arrangement of various electrical equipment that needs charging – there are 3 12v sockets and a 3 pin mains type, and with all the cameras, iPods, phones, computers (one of which I’m using now as we drive over a 2200m mountain pass in Turkey, with the odd bits of snow outside the window) and bits on board they’re always being swapped round. We’ve got games like Uno which are a good laugh around the tables in the back, along with some more obscure games (Pass The Pigs anyone?) which haven’t been played so much.
Usual practice is 2-3 hours driving before a toilet stop and leg stretch at a service stop. Pete and Tim normally swap driving then before carrying on. If we’re at a scenic part and someone wants photos or a loo stop is requested then we stop earlier. Lunch is normally at a pleasant spot sometime between 12 and 1, setup crew get the tables out and washing up bowls are filled from the onboard water tank. Food group get it ready with the crew’s assistance. Normally local bread (so far really good) with meat/salami, cheese, tomatoes and all that salad-y stuff and Ketchup/HP Sauce! Again it depends where we are as to the local specialities. Drinks are water, soft drinks from the bar/fridge or anything we’ve bought ourselves from a shop. Plates are washed and flapped, food is put away and everything packed up again. Normally we’re stopped for 30-45mins and have enough food for 2nds or 3rds – easily enough to keep us going until tea.
Set off again with the odd stop here and there for loos/food/drink/scenery/wood and if bush camping we aim to find somewhere about 5ish, or whenever it’s raining. This is so we don’t draw too much attention to ourselves from locals and so that it’s still light when we set up camp. The rain just seems to be following us around; thankfully it never lasts long! If we’re camping at a site then we can arrive later.
Tents are set up once we’ve chucked them off the roof, the normal ones are hefty a-frame ones which have enough room for 2 people comfortably and keep the rain off really well. They’re quick to set up when the ground is soft, less than 5 minutes. If it’s rocky then they’re a pain as you can’t get the pegs to hold. We also have lightweight dome tents for if we’re hiking but we’ve only used them once so far and found them harder to set up, smaller and more leaky if they’re not set up right so we’ll avoid them where possible. The a-frame ones are much thicker so I can sleep when the sun comes up too, much better when we’re not in a hurry to go anywhere!
We have an awning which pulls out over the cooking area and if the weather is really bad then a mess tent which fits over there and keeps the rain off from the sides too. We’ve done fires where possible as we can do food on there which makes a change from the gas hobs and keep warm when the sun goes down. The crew always help with the dinner as they’re experienced in cooking up a treat on the side of a truck, when I’ve been on food group it’s been easier to help out here and there and wash up than try to cook anything. Despite our “assistance”, I think most people would agree that the food done on the truck has tasted better than the majority of restaurants we’ve been to!
Depending on the preceding nights we’ll have a few drinks round the fire on the comfy chairs (no collapsible stool nonsense for us!), and sometimes we’ll have lots of drinks from the on board bar/fridge. This is worked out by Jen at the moment, and started with everyone chipping in $10 and then as we take stuff from it it’s marked down. Every week or so we pay off our tab which then is used to buy the next lot. This system works well apart from when we drink so much we forget to mark them down, luckily this has only happened once and us naughty offenders were charged $3 each to cover the missing ones – oops.
People wander off to bed at different times, we’ve got to the point where the people who stay up later set their tents up a distance from the ones who go earlier so generally there aren’t many problems.
That concludes a “typical” day in the life of Penelope the big blue Odyssey truck. Obviously when in cities we have been staying in hostels or campsites for a couple of days and making use of their showers, washing facilities, internet etc. though as we go further East the hostels dry up and I think the plan is to go to the occasional hotel in-between bush camps. There have been a number days where we haven’t driven anywhere and have just gone out exploring the local towns, or sat around nursing hangovers…