Bug Jam 22 - 19/20 July

This weekend, Rick and I went down to Santa Pod in our VW camper for Bug Jam 22. This is a huge VW festival where loads of people turn up for the day or weekend in their VW's of any sort to exhibit, race, buy, sell, get drunk, etc, etc. If you ever get the opportunity to go then you must do it, it's fantastic.

The journey down to Santa Pod was a test in itself for us. Our faithful 1972 Bay runs around all over the place during the week as Rick's main means of transport but it's never done more than about 20 miles in one go, let alone 170 miles! We stook to 60mph and stopped half way down on Saturday morning to let the camper have a breather before continuing on our 4 hour journey. We made it without any problems.

The whole Bug Jam experience was fantastic. It was amazing to see so many VW campers and beetles all in one place. There must have been thousands. The numerous camp sites were crammed full of the old VW's and it was great to be parked up amongst them in our own camper. Ours is no way the smartest camper in the world, Rick's only done a little bit to it to make sure it's road worthy and that we can sleep in it, but it really didn't matter at Bug Jam. There were vehicles of all state of repair and restoration, from pristine £30k jobs to rusty old £300 jobs that we have no idea how they passed their MOT! This was only the 2nd time we'd camped in our camper and it fet much better than the first. I think we've got our heads round what works and what doesn't when trying to live from such a small space all weekend!

On the drag strip there were races of 'run what you brung' as well as specific demonstrations from a VW jet car and 2 other Jet Cars that reached speeds of up to 260mph in just 6 seconds!! The heat from their jet flames could be felt as they passed by at some 100 yards or more away from us.

The live arena provided demonstrations from the likes of Terry Grant (stunt artist), Monstor Trucks, Motorbike display teams, and lots more. Round the rest of the site were stalls selling new and used camper parts, clothing, gifts, etc and also an auto jumble and Auto-Trader sale section.

At night time the 4 music arena's provided music of all types with at least 3 different bands or DJ's playing throughout the night in each. It was a great atmosphere, and very calm considering most people had been drinking since well before lunch time!

Before leaving on Sunday we walked around the Auto Glym show and shine display where the vehicles on display were just amazing. There was pretty much every VW vehicle you could think of in various states of repair, colour schemes, interior fit-outs, and numerous different conversions.

The 60mph journey home took us just under 4 hours again after a short break to rest the engine. And might i just add that we didn't see a single camper broken down at the side of the road all the way there or all the way back!