Kevin McCloud's Escape To The Wild

I met a German lady on The Boat who put me to shame. She was travelling alone with her three beautiful children, all aged under five, from Inverness to Dresden. The ferry to Rotterdam and a visit to friends in Muenster were her only overnight stops. Her youngest child was strapped on her back by a complicated wrap, and all three were impeccably behaved. At home they apparently ate super healthy food and had no television. They were travelling in a tiny petrol-efficient car so had hardly any luggage. They were going to be away for three whole weeks without the dad, who had stayed home to work. The woman was utterly calm and taking the whole thing in her stride.

Whereas my daughter was racing uncontrollably between the TV area and the soft play, and ignoring my requests not to (1) throw things at people, (2) squeal or (3) trip up anyone carrying bottles of Duty Free.

And we only have one of her.

And I had my husband with me.

And we had a car rammed to the hilt with stuff. Including our tablet because the caravan we were going to be staying in had no television.

And I was already feeling shattered.

Now, it's perfectly possible that at the end of the three-week trip, the woman might have looked a little less fresh and the children might have been pulling each other's hair out. But I doubt it. She just oozed capability in a way that I never shall.

So she was impressive enough, but here was Kevin McCloud off to meet a family who were even more extreme. The von Engelbrechtens (German Boris, English Karyn and their three sons) jettisoned everything from their lives and went to live on an uninhabited island in Tonga, literally the other side of the world from the UK. You can't get further away from there without starting to come home again. So why had they done it? The mother said it was something to do with having been born in Swindon.

Their island had golden sands, turquoise seas and on the surface looked like paradise. The von Engelbrechtens had built their house while living under canvas. Boris wasn't a professional builder but was more than a tad skilled at this sort of thing. Whereas my husband and I can barely hang a picture on the wall. Boris used only materials available on the island - some slabs of coral rock and a whole load of palm trees. Though I suspect the solar panels might have been imported.

For they were "off grid", generating their own electricity by sunshine in the day. Kevin was roped in to help them to erect a wind turbine to keep their fridge running at night. It turns out paradise is rather windy. Windy to the point of them needing a concrete "hurricane bunker" on higher ground at certain times of the year. Which doubles up as a tsunami shelter at others - earthquakes are a regular occurrence. The family aim to be as self-sufficient as possible - they catch fish, and have a garden where they grow bananas, sweet potatoes and pineapples. They did try broccoli but it missed the English rain and wouldn't take in the blistering heat. Though it does rain in paradise - enough to store a couple of tankers of the stuff at a time.

And of course there is definitely no television. Or internet. Does this result in a prolonging of childhood innocence or is it denying the kids a chance to learn to function in the real world?

I am all for a family beach holiday. Especially one in guaranteed sunshine. But for the rest of my life? Having to catch my own sashimi? With only my husband and daughter for company? (Much as I love them.) Admittedly this family had three kids to keep each other entertained, but can that be enough? My daughter really needs her friends, and misses them terribly when we go away. And I am so reliant on my network of local mums to retain my sanity. That friendly smile at the school gates, the music groups and swimming lessons, the odd night out on gin. And hell, that 3-hour break when my daughter is at pre-school - I really struggle without it.

Yet here this family were living away from everybody, but still having to home-school their children according to the national curriculum. Which seemed rather pointless and bizarre. Shackled by British rules when you have intended to escape all convention.

I have no idea what they did for money, apart from running the occasional whale watching trip. Or what they did when they got ill. Maybe they have a ten-year supply of Calpol stashed in their hurricane bunker. I guess not ever seeing anybody else limits their exposure to viruses, but surely some of the island insect nasties must carry a few germs between them. Or one of the kids might fall out of the palm trees they climb all day. It did occur to me as they all sailed off to collect a haul of bat poo to fertilise their garden that they might be a little too blissfully ignorant on the health front. Like about the source of Ebola, for example.

Kevin McCloud on the other hand is my kind of traveller. His journey from the UK to Tonga takes him five days owing to a volcano erupting under the sea near Fiji. All flights are cancelled and Kevin is stuck sleeping on a bench in the airport for two nights. After one night on paradise island, he is covered in mosquito bites, which he can't stop scratching as he pontificates about the meaning of the von Engelbrechtens' life beside the campfire. He likes the view, but needs his home comforts. And he is all too aware of the bacteria that breed in bat shit.

I tried to go to paradise, but it rained.
Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand

But ultimately Escape To The Wild just show us parents that we can never win. The von Engelbrechtens have tried to create the perfect lifestyle at one with nature and the world for their children. But as soon as he can, the eldest boy buggers off to boarding school in New Zealand. "I have a need for friends", he explains. And I can't argue with that.

Auckland calling

Child Friendly Holiday Review: "The Boat"

It's that oft asked question in travel journalism: which do you prefer, to travel or arrive? For me, undoubtedly the latter. The travel is just one big necessary hassle at the end of which I heave a sigh of relief. It is the part of the holiday I prefer to forget. But for our daughter, the distinction is a little blurrier. Or at least it is if The Boat is involved. The Boat, for our girl, is the highlight of a holiday, and cannot be bettered.

"The Boat" is not the dodgy nightclub with a revolving dance floor that used to be moored under the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle, by the way. Nor is it a Caribbean cruiseliner, or a pedalo on a pond in the park. It is the P&O ferry that travels each night between Hull and Europoort in Rotterdam. It is undeniably brilliant, and the easiest way to get abroad with a child I have thus far experienced. In a (possibly worrying) lack of security checks, you drive up to the barrier, show your passport and ticket, get handed a boarding card and cabin key, drive up a steep ramp onto the ship, parallel park into an awkward gap on the deck (just our ruddy luck to be placed in the queue for that spot), take the lift up to your cabin, and from then on out PARTY.

Party when you have a four-year-old means spending hours sitting next to the small soft play area nursing a Starbucks while twenty hugely overexcited children run amok around you, the bossiest and most annoying of which is your daughter.

Party when you have a child of school age means that the kids clubs should be running (as it is school holidays) or a trip to the cinema if they are not. Spongebob, Cinderella and Shaun The Sheep were all available on our most recent crossing.

Party when you are a grown-up involves drinking at piano bars and cheesy cabaret shows. Whoo-hoo! But be warned, you may be breathalysed early the next morning as you drive off the boat, and the blood alcohol limit is lower in Holland than it is in the UK. So leave plenty of time to sleep your boozing off, should you have the opportunity to booze.

No danger of booze for us. But this year on our return leg, instead of taking a cheapskate picnic on board, we splashed out on the all-you-can-eat buffet, which at £18.50 a head doesn't work out too extortionate if you take a sort of "pound spent per pound of food consumed" ratio into consideration. There are soups, salads, curries, traditional roast dinners, sides, cheese, puddings, ice cream, fruit juices and teas and coffees all included in the price. Prosecco is extra. Suffice to say, we will be doing that again.

Always a risk to eat a massive meal before a potentially rough crossing, so it's just as well we spent most of the journey lying down. You can get on board the ship about three hours before sailing at 20:00, which gives you plenty of time to eat and play before you hit the open sea. We go to bed early to give our daughter enough sleep and to stop other children being hassled to the point of mutiny by her control freakery in the soft play.

We on the other hand don't get enough sleep. Our daughter insists on leaving the light on all night in the cabin, which is like a mild form of torture. This before the constant drone of the engines and the groaning lurch of your bunk from side to side. But it's still better than spending hours queuing for X-ray machines in airports with a moaning toddler, or driving for hours across the country with a bored and fractious child in the back of the car.

Because we were heading to a campsite near Leiden, for us a holiday in Holland means an hour's driving from York to Hull, a night of lying down, then another hour's driving at the other end, and we end up at our destination. Two hours total in a car, but we are abroad. Pretty magical.

Atop the Pride of Hull on the River Humber.

Walter White may have been on board

Luxury dining in a Force 7 gale

You will find that Europoort at Rotterdam isn't very scenic

Great Canal Journeys: London

Little Venice

This is not so much a programme about canals as a programme about the sweetness of old age - being retired, with infinite time to go on long trips in a narrowboat, and watch the world go by at a peaceful pace and not having to care. This is not so much a programme about canals as a programme about the curse of old age - not being able to remember where you are going, where you have been or what you had for breakfast, with the world watching you go by at your snail's pace and not seeming to care. For people do not respect age. They tear down boatyards of yore and toss plastic bottles into the waterways, causing pollution that lets luminous algae grow.

Timothy West and Prunella Scales have been taking narrowboat holidays together since their two sons, Sam and Joe, were small boys. Last week they were travelling along the Oxford Canal, accompanied for some of the journey by author Philip Pullman and their now grown son, the actor Samuel West. This week they were in London, which gave a fascinating insight into a watery aspect of the city that far fewer people explore than its lifeblood, the River Thames.

They start on the Grand Union Canal in Brentford, then pass through Paddington Basin. They move on to the cemetery at Kensal Green, where coffins used to arrive by canal and where they pay homage to their dear friend Harold Pinter, who is buried there. Then onwards along the Regent's Canal through Little Venice, the Zoo, Camden and Kings Cross, before heading out to Hackney Wick and the Olympic Park, arriving at the Thames at Limehouse. Like everywhere in London, they witness all walks of life, all forms of architecture, and a simultaneous buzzing clash and cheerful melting pot of cultures. There are modern developments of luxury apartments and office suites, tastes of days gone by in old fishmonger's and riverside pubs, and very rundown areas and derelict warehouses, all jostling together. Each day's journey takes longer than planned, and they end up sailing in the dark, Pru already in bed. The first night they have to sleep under the din of the M40 flyover, but their second berth, next to Three Mills on the River Lea, could not have been quieter.

Aviary at London Zoo from the Regent's Canal

Prunella Scales is suffering from a mild form of dementia, and has a slightly lost-looking and dreamy stare. She seems to function, and is still a dab hand at opening canal locks, but it makes me more than a little sad. Andrew Sachs joins them for the trip from Little Venice to the Zoo, and he reads Pru extracts from his new autobiography, which isn't so much a shameless plug as an attempt to remind her of their time together on Fawlty Towers. Timothy West is endearingly cantankerous, not minding crashing into walls or other boats but not seeing any reason to get out of the way for anyone either. They are the ultimate celebrity couple - modest, unassuming, devoted, happy. I've seen them out and about together at the Proms and the theatre in London numerous times - always charming and well dressed, never showy or attention seeking.

Pru nearly loses her implacability when she gets cross with some Camden litter louts, tutting and shouting "Naughty!", but she is held back from further intervention by the lock keeper, fearing a violent response from the culprit, even in front of a television crew. But soon Pru is smiling again, and her face as she samples weird and wonderful truffles (Marmite, anyone?) in an Islington chocolatier is a delight. Tim is sailing through an 800 metre long tunnel below. Pru is on a shopping spree to buy them lunch, which on their flexible schedule ends up being more of an early dinner, but when it finally does come is the ultimate picture of gastronomy - oysters, prawns, stinky cheese, fine wine. They always seem to have a glass of wine in their hands as they sail. Why the hell not? This is the life, I'm telling you.

I've walked along most of the canals that they explore. Some form part of the Capital Ring circular route, which I have mentioned before. I was strolling around Paddington Basin and Little Venice with a friend when my fiance rang to say that our offer on our Crouch End flat had been accepted, so it is place that symbolises the start of a whole new chapter in my life for me. I've never been cool or grungy enough for Camden Market, preferring the Greek restaurants round the corner. I always felt threatened in the Lee Valley industrial area, possibly from watching too many people fall into canals on EastEnders. (Ironically, Timothy West is now in EastEnders.)

Tim takes the boat off piste (never an elegant detour) to see the site of the original Pickfords removals company warehouse. When Pickfords first started carrying goods by barge in 1778, Pickfords could deliver packages from London to Liverpool in seven days.

They have a celebratory drink with Sir Ian McKellen in his pub, the Grapes, in Limehouse. Gandalf's staff is behind the bar. Then they have to leave their vessel behind, as narrowboats are too flimsy to be allowed on the choppy, tidal Thames. So Pru and Tim are whizzed by motor boat back to their starting point. Tower Bridge opens up just as they pass through, but not for them.

Now, I can't imagine my family would have ever gone on a narrowboat holiday together when we were kids. Far too confined a space for all those arguments and for a brother who couldn't keep still. My dad hates boats anyway, and he can't swim. I don't think it appeals to us now either. Children, deep water, bumpy ride, temperamental lock gates - all a bit of a health and safety nightmare for a nervous parent. And yet canal boat holidays do have that peaceful pace that you cannot increase, come what may. Just let the world slip by, see it all slowly and at leisure, be at one with nature and amazed by what you see. So - ultimate stress or maximum chill-out? You decide.