Chilling On The North York Moors

You could deliberate for ages on how old/big a puppy should be before we dared take her away in the van, but in the end we decided to just go for it.

Her small ‘bedroom’ crate just fitted in between the sofas at the back, so that seemed a reasonable thing for her to travel safely in as well as sleep in, if we kept the sleeping arrangements as two single beds.

Of course we did have to put up with an initial barking accompaniment to the drive over, but it didn’t last too long.

We chose the North York Moors for this trip, as Geoff was researching some ideas for a couple of magazine articles, which would involve us visiting both a selection of seaside towns as well as some historic stuff on the moors. Plans were that we would take it in turns to do both longer walks with Tilly and bike rides, while the other stayed behind to puppy walk and sit.

We would also wild camp with the van as much as possible.

Well, Pebbles surpassed herself. After discovering that she was a bit cold in the crate on the first night, we folded it up, stored it in the back box and she then proceeded to sleep on the king sized bed with us, in the same spot that Dixie used to use. She was a little star. Never any problems and slept right through each night.

And she adjusted to the general routine of van living, as if she’d been born to it.

 

But since she’s still a touch small to safely travel on the sofas like Tilly does, we decided to leave her on the floor for journeys, with a nest of cushions arranged at the back.

For a 3 month old puppy, she was unbelievably good.

A very chilled week was had by all.

We had short dog walks altogether

and I had short puppy walks just with Pebbles.

 

We visited Whitby, Scarborough and Bridlington – none of which allowed dogs on their beaches 😦 unfortunately –

and Pebbles had her first trip out to a café.

Tilly and I had some special time together on a few longer wanders.

And on one occasion I was packaged off on my bike, with instructions to get some photos of some ancient cross in the middle of nowhere….

This task being right on the edge of my off-road cycling skills.

But being a rather chilled sort of week though, there were also times when we just did touristy stuff,

or sat outside the van in the afternoon sunshine.