Northumberland One Man and His Campervan

Today my campervan and I are in the northern-most county in England, Northumberland.

I risk one of Britain's most precarious roads...

We are driving across a road to an island.

'And just how much pain am I willing to risk to get some local ingredients?'

They'll sting you through the back. Wherever material was touching your skin they'd sting.

'And it's an early start as I roll up my sleeves

'and put in some hard graft for my dinner,

'on a quest for the ultimate in gourmet campervan cuisine.'

I'll have a lobster, make it snappy!

My journey has taken me up the eastern coast of England

to the county of Northumberland.

It's one of the least populated counties in England

and it is famous for wide open beaches,

and castles.

I've travelled 1,200 miles since I left Devon

which is quite an achievement, and only a couple of minor hiccups.

The heating, I fixed, and my head, which I've had fixed.

My plan is to go to Holy Island where hopefully I can camp.

The thing about Holy Island is you can drive to it

via a tidal causeway, and it's uncovered at low tide twice a day.

The only thing is, you've got to get your timing right.

And timing is not my strong point.

Before I risked the crossing I stop to get some honey,

a campervan staple.

With the chance to drop in at one of Northumberland's best bee farms,

it was to be a honey-based dish for my campervan meal tonight

and perhaps my first dessert of the trip.

Hello, Willy.

-Hello.

-How are you?

I am so pleased you are able to show me your bees today.

When were you last stung?

Oh, I get stung most days, but not very much.

-OK.

-I'm used to it.

'That didn't sound particularly reassuring.

-'The sooner I got my protective suit on the better.'

-There you go.

Great stuff. Thank you. Will this...

-That's a heavy one.

-Will this give me full protection?

-Well, it will stop them getting in your pockets and that.

-OK.

What's the worst thing that can happen with bees?

They can get you in the nose or the ear.

-Or somewhere worse.

-Oh, right, OK.

There's been a few buzzing round me and in my hair and what have you.

Is it that they like me or they don't?

No it's probably that they don't like you.

But I wouldn't take any personal exception to that.

It's just that they've heard us come, and the vehicles,

and they're cross-investigating, you know.

And you've got a particularly fine head of hair

so they tend to get stuck up in that, you know.

'The bees knew that I was the new boy in town

'so before we could even approach Willy used a smoker to pacify them

'and stop them from attacking.

'The type and taste of honey can change dramatically

'with the bees feeding on the seasonal flowers.

'This was the end of the clover season which Willy assured me

'means a wonderfully sweet honey. If only we could get to it.'

Oh, look at that. Now, that buzzing is getting really intense there.

Is that them knowing we are there?

-Yes.

-If we were to approach these bees in the wrong way,

make a clattering and then come in here and pull apart the hive,

-what would happen?

-Well, we'd just have to leave.

-Right.

We'd all have to leave, everybody.

Wherever material was touching your skin they'd sting.

-So they'd really go for it.

-They would, aye.

With a good helping of smoke pumped into the hive,

I took a cautious step back

as Willy opened it up to retrieve the honey.

This is when it's crucial for a novice like me to be in the hands of an expert bee keeper.

With one wrong move from Willy or I, the bees could feel threatened and turn aggressive.

Wow, goodness me!

You must have this empathy between the bees and the bee keeper.

How many of them would there be in here?

In there, I would think 70 to 80 thousand.

-Wow.

-Yeah. But you notice how calm they are.

-We've gone into them exactly the right way.

-Yes.

Exactly right. Never looked at us.

So when you put that comb back into the hive, do you have to be careful?

Yeah. You must try not to kill any bees because they send out an alarm,

which upsets them.

'I braced myself for the crunch of a crushed bee.

'If the hum of the bees got higher in pitch then we were in trouble,

'but Willy's calm authority saved the day.'

They soon move out of the way don't they?

'Willy agreed to let me take some honeycomb for my campervan dish

'but first he had to shift the bees from a comb ready to harvest.'

I wouldn't normally do this but...

There you go, take that away over to the motor.

Look at that.

It's heavy, it's wonderful, it's local honey produced by these

very clever and very sensitive and quite beautiful creatures.

I'm really thrilled with this, it's wonderful.

Willy has hives scattered across Northumberland.

We drove through the pretty winding country roads heading back to the family farm

where Willy's daughter, Francis, was going to prepare my honeycomb.

We're going to try some honey.

Ah-ha, we've been busy bees.

Oh, yes!

'At the processing plant, the honeycomb is cut straight from the frame and packaged up for sale.'

-Hello.

-Hi.

-You must be Francis.

-I am, yes, I am.

-You dad sent me in here.

-Just lay this down on here.

-OK. Wow.

OK, so we'll cut this comb out. I'll give you a hat and an apron to wear.

Oh, right. OK. This is the bit...

-There you go, how is that?

-Brilliant. You look great.

-Thanks very much.

-Do I?

-Yes!

What we're going to do

is cut the whole comb out of the frame like this.

Just drop it down like that.

And then we sell this just as it is.

So I've got my little template here, and we're going to cut it into pieces.

-It looks pretty easy to cut.

-It is.

You just have to be...

it's really fragile fresh wax so you do need to take good care with it.

-Yeah.

-Just lift it up,

like that and then drop it into your tub.

You can just eat it straight away?

You can eat it from the comb.

It's the best way to eat honey.

And as fresh as this, you just got this an hour ago, you can't get any better than that.

-And it's the most natural way.

-It's one of the most natural foods as well. Would you like a taste?

-I would love a taste.

-OK.

It looks wonderful.

-It is.

-So clear and...it's lighter than I thought but it is...

-like a taste of summer.

-Yes, that's right, you said it.

Beautiful.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the honey

but it was when Francis was cutting up that honeycomb,

I had an idea for a very special

honey and lemon campervan cheesecake.

The only problem, of course, how to chill it.

I haven't used the fridge yet.

I happen to know they are really difficult to light.

So...I'm faced with a new challenge.

'And that wasn't my only challenge.

'I also had the small matter of driving across the sea to negotiate.

'I had arrived at the tidal causeway that leads to Holy Island.

'The causeway floods twice a day, meaning the road is submerged,

'cutting off the island from the mainland,

'so visitors like me need to take a careful look at the local tide times

'or risk ending up losing their cars

'and having to take refuge in one of those towers.

'Luckily I was on time so there was no risk to my fresh paintwork today.

'Although I am told by locals that plenty of people get caught out

'and keep the coastguard busy.'

Well, it looks very impressive.

I have wanted to come up here for a long time.

It's exciting. To be able to drive to an island?

That's ridiculous, it's nonsense!

But here you can.

The monastery here was founded in the Dark Ages

and was the base from which Christianity was spread across northern England.

The Vikings launched a raid here in 793

that heralded the Viking Age in Britain.

But all this history won't get my campervan cheesecake chilled.

To do that I was going to have to conquer an old foe of mine,

the campervan fridge.

One of the things about the van is the fridge

is really difficult to light, and on this one,

I've never had it going because I've never needed to chill anything.

So in my haste in buying the van, I never checked it.

What you have to do to try and get it lit is turn it on,

look through here,

and keep pressing until it lights.

And the thing is, having to replace one of these fridges

is a real pain.

'I feared for the prospects of my campervan cheesecake.'

HE LAUGHS VICTORIOUSLY

And then you keep your finger on it and hope...

that when you turn it down,

it doesn't go out.

'Much to my delight and relief, the burner stayed on.

'I was in business.'

That's the fridge lit and that can only mean one thing, it's time to crack on

and crank up my first pudding of my trip, and that's going to be

a no-bake cheesecake with that beautiful honeycomb as a base.

It's going to be great.

Surrounded by this breathtaking scenery and buoyed at the prospect of dessert

I got the campervan ready for cooking.

First up I mixed a tub of cream cheese

with around a third of a cup of sugar to make my cheesecake filling.

I'm not measuring things out exactly because you know what,

it's going to be fine. Mix it up!

The campervan way is just to do it simply

and if that means it's a bit coarse and a bit rough around the edges, who cares?

Next I added the zest of a lemon

and then squeezed in a good amount of the juice.

Just squeezing a lemon into that cream cheese

to give it a lovely lemony flavour.

Then I lovingly folded whipped double cream into the mix.

If I was going to eat like this

on every trip I'd have to do an awful lot of surfing.

I might even have to take up something like running. Righty ho.

It was time to put my fridge to the test and chill my mixture.

Just clear these things up, that's gone in the fridge.

And we all know you don't deserve pudding

unless you've eaten first course. I'm just going to rustle up a quick campervan pasta and pesto

then I can enjoy the main event.

Pasta with a fresh pesto sauce is my number one campervan fallback dinner

when I haven't picked up any fresh food during the day.

I've always got dried pasta on board in the essentials cupboard

and it only takes ten minutes to whip up fresh pesto.

All you need are a few basil leaves

and a chunk of parmesan which lasts for ages even without a fridge.

I grind up the basil, pine nuts and parmesan

in the pestle and mortar with a dash of olive oil.

Then I drain the pasta al fresco-style

and serve into a bowl for one.

Yum.

Takes about ten minutes, it's absolutely delicious

and it is simple and cheap.

I'd finished every last mouthful and even cleaned my bowl.

My mother would be proud.

So with my cheesecake filling having set in the fridge,

it was time for the main event.

This is the star of the show...

..my Northumbrian honeycomb.

Now, I'm not a greedy man so I'm going to attempt something that has never been attempted before,

and there's probably good reason for that.

OK, so maybe Willy's bees wouldn't be happy with the mess I was making

of their beautiful honeycomb but it's all for a good campervan-cooking cause.

Let's be generous.

My chilled-cheesecake filling was topped off with some fresh strawberries.

Last things, last...

few of the final bits of zest.

Do you know what?

I'm quite proud of that. It may not look like a conventional cheesecake

but that, my friends, is a campervan no-bake cheesecake

with fresh honey from Northumberland bees.

Oh, my word, it is really excellent.

The honeycomb is kind of chewy.

That's the wax, but it gives a nice kind of chewy base, and a little bit of strawberry

and honey and lemon...

..never hurt anyone.

Camping is restricted on Holy Island but I had special permission to park up here for the night.

But there was no time to enjoy the amazing view.

It was an early night for me as I had to be up again in just a few hours.

Coming up,

I hit the high seas in search of dinner.

Oh, wow, he's beautiful. He's a keeper. Fantastic.

And, without electricity in the van, I put in some elbow work to produce my campervan mayonnaise.

My arm is a bit tired.

Well, it's 4am and it's...raining

but I've come down to the quayside of Holy Island for a bit of adventure on the high seas.

I was meeting up with Richard and Shaun, who were going to take me lobster fishing.

Having already cooked crab in the van in Norfolk, I was going to take campervan cooking upmarket.

Tonight I was planning to cook fresh Northumberland lobster with home-made mayonnaise.

Five miles out in the North Sea, Richard and Shaun have ten runs of lobster pots

with 30 pots in each run, and today we were hoping to empty every one of them.

There's something really, really exciting about setting sail, even at four o'clock in the morning,

and in such a place as this, it's just wonderful.

At the end of the day I could have a fresh lobster that's out of the sea

a matter of hours

to cook up.

How wonderful is that?

As Shaun navigated us out to the first run of pots,

Richard got the fresh bait to refill the pots as soon as they were brought on board.

Soon enough, the first run of pots was being hauled up from the seabed.

Here they are.

And so began a period of frantic activity with Shaun sorting out

the crabs from the lobster and throwing any small ones back that didn't make the grade.

While Richard re-baited each pot, I saw a way to make myself useful and earn my dinner -

stacking the empties.

I'm going to have a go at this now, see if I can help out.

Turn it. Turn it there, Mark.

They were a lot heavier than they looked.

It must have been the weight of the sea water.

Thus began one of the hardest physical days of work in my life.

-I had already lost the power of speech.

-HE MOUTHS

As I waited for my next pot, it was beginning to dawn on me how hard this job was,

and, despite the gadgetry on board, I don't think I'll be trading in the van for a boat any time soon.

At least the content of the fifth pot gave me something to smile about.

-Lobster!

-He's having a go. He's having a go.

That's our prize.

No time for lobster because...

Every few seconds there was another pot to stack.

And the sea swell was building.

Bit wobbly.

Although they were landing a lot more crabs than lobster there seemed to be

at least one lobster in each pot, although they weren't all destined for the dinner table just yet.

This one is under size so he's going to live to snap another day.

87mm between the back of the eye socket

and the end of the carapace there

saves him for another swim.

But then a candidate for tonight's dinner arrived.

I sized up the main course.

Oh, wow, what a beautiful...

blue colour. That, of course,

will go pink when he goes in the pot,

but he's a keeper, fantastic.

All the flesh in there.

Wonderful. He goes in the bucket.

The lobster pots had now filled the deck three high.

I'm working up quite an appetite.

Might have to have TWO lobsters.

The rope that hauled them off the seabed was still attached to them

and Richard showed me the precise order to stack them in so the rope didn't get snagged on anything.

There was nowhere to move on deck. Surely there can't be any more on this run!

-Last one?

-Yeah.

With no room to move, Shaun and Richard were clear

that I had to stick to the front of the boat out of harm's way. And I was about to find out why.

With the seagulls watching on expectantly, the reasons for the careful stacking of the pots

became all too apparent.

Richard threw the rope back into the sea with a heavy weight attached

and the pots started to be pulled back off the boat.

Richard carefully unstacked them in reverse order,

placing them on the deck quickly enough for them to be pulled in naturally.

Despite his level of care, Richard was about to have a nasty moment.

Whoa!

All right?

-All right.

-I think Richard had a close call with the ropes.

It's quite a dangerous place to work.

The pots are so heavy that Richard was telling me earlier if you get the rope

wrapped around your foot and go overboard you just go straight to the bottom,

so it's not funny.

All the pots had been dragged back in safely

and now all Richard had to do was throw marker buoys back in and reflect on a near miss.

There was a knot in the ropes and the pots started to go out together.

The worst place possible for it to happen is when you're in the corner

because there is nowhere to get out of the way so you just have to push them away from your body.

There is no warning, absolutely no warning. You just shout "stop"

and that's the end and it cuts dead, and then Shaun's straight out with a sharp knife and cuts if it happens.

It was now 11am. We had emptied nine out of ten of our lobster pot runs

and I felt like I'd done a week's work in six hours.

Still, at least the sun was out and my thoughts turned to

cooking my beautiful fresh lobster back at the van.

I thought I'd ask the experts how they eat theirs.

Do you eat lobster, Shaun?

Yeah, now and again, not very often but...

-I think it's all right, yeah.

-Yeah?

But not when you're working with it every day, you know?

-What's your favourite way of eating it?

-Just the way it is, I think.

You can put sauces on but I think sauce spoils it.

'Shaun also suggested a much shorter cooking time than I would normally use.'

Some people say 20 minutes, but I don't think so.

I think the more you boil it, the more you'll spoil it.

But to ensure there will always be lobster to eat, Shaun and Richard

do their bit to conserve the species by protecting breeding females.

When somebody gets her aboard they'll see the bands on her claw first

and they'll realise somebody else has caught her and then on the tail

we'll cut two "V"s

and this lobster can't be landed and sold in the Northumberland district.

-So that's great news for this lobster because she'll never get taken.

-She must be 15, 20 years old.

So this lobster will live all her days now in the sea,

breeding quite happily, never to be caught and eaten.

Well, good luck to her.

We were nearly done, the last run of lobster pots was reset and we headed back to Holy Island.

It was time to get the catch out of the hold and take stock of a successful day's fishing.

11 box of crabs, a box of lobsters.

We are very, very happy with that.

All I had to do now was pick one for tonight...

How about that one?

..say goodbye to the chaps, and head back to my van.

It's nice to meet you both. Thanks very much for your time.

I felt I'd been away from the van for a whole day and it was still only mid-morning.

I put my lobster in a bucket, covered by a wet tea towel to keep it fresh.

It was time to get back to my campervan and find the perfect spot for my lobster feast.

Northumberland has some of the best and quietest beaches in Britain,

with good road access, so I had an enviable choice of places to pull over and enjoy the views.

The great thing about campervans is that you can park up and cook pretty much anywhere you like,

and I think I've found a very fine spot to eat my lobster.

I was tired and hungry after a gruelling morning on the lobster boat,

so I decided not to complicate things too much.

Well, the water is on for the lobster.

I'm going to keep it simple and just eat it with some mayonnaise.

So I need a couple of yolks. The more free-range they are, the better the golden colour

and so the better colour you'll get from your mayonnaise.

So two of them to start with

because you need to emulsify the eggs.

A little bit of mustard powder.

Lemon juice.

Well, the recipe was simple enough but the main ingredient was something I was really lacking in -

energy.

Two minutes in and I was already having to give myself a pep talk.

Keep going. Persevere.

My arm is a bit tired.

It's all in the wrist action, obviously.

After four minutes I'd started fantasising about white goods.

You see, at this point you wish you'd brought an electric whisk

but, seeing as you're right by the beach, you haven't got one.

So you've just got to keep persevering.

Eight minutes.

My arms were killing me and self-doubt had gained a foothold.

Er, I've this a few times before

but, you know, only a few times have been successful.

But you know what? I don't care, I just want to try something and have something fresh.

I've got these free-range eggs, this beautiful evening, I've got all the time in the world

and, ah,

you know, it's all about trying and sometimes failing.

Maybe starting to add the oil will finally make the mixture thicken.

Just a drip at a time with the oil, it's just a question of...

..getting it to thicken up.

I've got to know the van quite well over...

the journey that I've been on and one of the things

I've discovered is it's actually really nice just to sit here

on the cool box, by the step,

relaxing, enjoying the view,

rather than getting out the table and all that malarkey.

Then on days like this you just want to slide open the door and take in the view - it's just stunning.

If it gets any nicer I might have to go for a swim after this.

After 15 minutes, a glimmer of hope.

It's starting to thicken up.

This gave me impetus to go into full food-processor mode.

It was time to add the final ingredient - some white wine vinegar.

It's quite fruity this, actually, because of the mustard.

There you go.

My arms were about to drop off but the mayonnaise was looking fabulous.

How about that?

Beautiful, peaky mayonnaise.

Oh, that's beautiful.

The water for my lobster was boiling. Time to get cooking.

The guys on the boat said five minutes,

then I'll leave him to cool and that should cook him enough.

Most people would cook a lobster from between 10 and 20 minutes so I'm going to give him 10 minutes,

let him cool for about five and then see where we go from there.

At most fishmongers, you can buy live lobster so, if you can get your hands on one,

then this is what I recommend.

Buy it from the fishmongers, drive to the beach and cook it up with your own mayonnaise.

It's not that difficult.

Ten minutes had gone by and my lobster had turned a beautiful shade of pink.

Well, doesn't that look splendid? Especially the choice of colour plate.

Do you know? I wouldn't actually buy lobster at a restaurant

just because I'd prefer to get it straight from the quayside

or, you know, live from the fishmonger, or even try and catch it myself. I've caught a few.

A good sharp knife, it's not that easy.

A lobster doesn't have the thick, hard shell of a crab

which means, with a bit of force, you can just split it in two.

If you want something good...

you sometimes have to...

be pretty brutal about it.

Wow, look at that. It just looks wonderful.

It was done. Succulent Northumberland lobster,

caught just a few hours ago, and my home-made free-range mayonnaise.

Wow, I don't know what's better - the mayonnaise or the lobster.

Either way, unbelievable.

I love eating this way,

absolutely love it.

Baked beans on toast, take a hike.

Oh! This is campervan living.

It was now 18 hours since I'd got up to go out on the lobster boat

and I'd never worked so hard in my life to get a meal together, but it had DEFINITELY been worth the work.

In the next episode,

I'll be revealing some of the best spots for campervan living on the gorgeous east Scottish coast.

I take a deep breath and head off road...

"The association will not be liable

"for vehicles or their occupants damaged as a result of this roadway."

How exciting.

..and discover a new way of al fresco cooking from the van...

-Look at that colour.

-Brilliant.

..and, on a mission to find the very best in local produce,

get up close and personal with some rare-breed Scottish pigs.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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