MOTs and Mountains: From Garage Stress to Lake Top Wi-Fi

There’s a certain ritual every motorhome owner knows too well: the annual MOT gauntlet. You hand over the keys, hold your breath, and silently pray the tester doesn’t come back with a shopping list longer than the Lidl middle aisle.

This time, we scraped through with just a couple of ball joints flagged. Not perfect, but good enough for another 12 months of legally trundling the big shed around Ireland. Consider it a ticket to a year of “f***ing motoring.”

From the Shed of Shame to a Mountain Top

Fresh out of the MOT bay, we pointed the nose towards Binevenagh Lake — a place we hadn’t braved in years. Why? Back then, parking up here meant no signal, no work, no Netflix. It was just mist, silence, and the faint sound of your sanity slipping away.

But with the arrival of our Starlink Mini, suddenly even the most windswept mountain tops in NI are fair game. We can stream, Zoom, upload, and even wrangle Make automations from the middle of a rain cloud. Magic.

Life on the Lake Edge

Of course, it wouldn’t be vanlife without a bit of chaos.

• The dogs charging around like they own the mountain.

• CCTV armed, because apparently hikers in shorts are a threat now (don’t ask).

• Mrs. M faffing with gear while I tried to keep the treacle scones dry.

And yes, the rain didn’t stop. In fact, it was the kind of sideways drizzle that soaks through your coat and your soul at the same time. But there’s something about sipping tea in a van while the mist rolls over the lake that makes the stress of the MOT feel like it happened in another life.

The Tech Keeping DigitalNomadNI Ticking

This wasn’t just a scenic park-up. Between the showers, I was tinkering with the guts of DigitalNomadNI:

• The homepage now updates automatically — latest blog post and latest YouTube video slot right in without me lifting a finger.

• Our Saturday merch emails are now slop-proof. If I don’t design a new T-shirt in time, the campaign just skips and I get a polite Zoho ping instead of subscribers getting AI gibberish.

• Zoho Mail has finally proven it can behave inside Make — once you teach it the magic trick of empty receipts and HTML <p> tags.

• And yes, all of this was run live from a windswept van on a mountain with Starlink Mini. The future is here, and it’s slightly damp.

Why Binevenagh Lake Should Be on Your List

For anyone roaming NI in a van or motorhome, Binevenagh Lake is worth the climb (literally).

• The views, when the cloud lifts, are jaw-dropping.

• It’s quiet — the kind of quiet where even the dogs look at you like, “are we supposed to be here?”

• It’s not stealth-friendly. You’ll be in first gear for most of the climb, and the van will announce its presence long before you park.

• But if you’ve got Starlink or a decent MiFi backup, it’s suddenly one of the most peaceful remote offices you’ll ever set foot in.

  
  

Final Thoughts

From the shed of shame to the lake of solitude, it was a day that pretty much sums up vanlife: stress, rain, laughter, tech, and treacle scones.

The MOT may be a yearly reminder that vans age like dodgy cheese, but being able to sit on a mountain top, coffee in hand, pushing updates to a website while the rain lashes the windows — that’s why we do it.

Catch the full video on YouTube, and if you prefer words (and sarcasm), well… you’ve already found the right blog.