Pictures: A holiday on a bus? It's just the ticket
Going on a summer holiday for a week or two proved to be a stressful experience for one Shropshire family – so they decided to convert a bus into their own, giant portable home.
Andrew and Lisa-Jayne Powis wanted to travel around the country Cliff Richard-style and spent £15,000 turning a Leyland Atlantean into their dream mobile home.
The bus was originally bought off internet auction site eBay for £2,500 because the family found accommodating Andrew's 6ft 5in frame, their three children and two Great Danes in other people's caravans a problem.
After six weeks of working on the bus, the couple realised keeping it moving would be too difficult – so decided to see if any other holidaymakers would want to rent it on their two-acre small holding in Ryton, near Shrewsbury.
As more and more customers started showing an interest they took the plunge and bought a newer West Midlands Travel bus, which has been transformed into a unique camper van with a kitchen, wood burner and three beds.
Lisa-Jane, 41, said: "We were not expecting the success we had with the first one but after a while we decided to buy a second bus, which was finished last month. With Andrew working as a farmer it was quite stressful and tiring at times but the results have been very rewarding.
"We set up a Facebook page to see if anyone was interested in hiring it and now we're turning people away for next year.
"We're already thinking about a third bus or perhaps we might try something different."
The buses include a bathroom on the lower level, bedrooms on the top deck and a hot tub just steps from the front door.
The Leyland, nicknamed Betsy Blue, sleeps five while the West Midlands bus, now known as Billy, can accommodate six.
Lisa-Jayne, who has given up her job as a school induction manager to focus on the new venture, said both buses were named by their children Charles, 13, Clara, seven, and George, four. Betsy had her deck seats removed to make way for bedrooms while on the lower level all the seats were ripped out to make room for furnishings including a cooker, oven hob and fridge, with a hot tub sitting outside both holiday-homes.Billy was built in much the same way but a third double room was fitted, meaning it can sleep one more person.
They can be hired out for £105 a person per night.
Andrew, 43, said: "I'd struggle alone in a caravan, let alone with three kids and two Great Danes charging about.
"A lot of holiday cottages are pretty dog-unfriendly too and we always found it really tough to find somewhere that would have us.
"So we thought we should build our own super-size caravan."
