Author Archives: Simon Barlow

Bicycle Conveyance Contrivance….

16 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in Maintenance, Modifications, Projects

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The Prologue…

One of the big debates in the caravan world is how to carry your bikes. Our continental cousins have the advantage that their caravans come with a longer ‘A’ frame allowing a bike rack to be installed on it. Fiamma have an excellent range dedicated to just that. In the UK though, caravan manufacturers seem to prefer the stubby ‘A’ frame and basically because of this and the fact that UK vans seem to come pre loaded with the weight of a small elephant already on the hitch, we have to come up with alternatives.

The old bike rack, even on its highest setting, it would not clear the caravan 'A' frame and it was unstable too.

Somehow carrying the bikes on the roof is a bit of an aerodynamic disaster as far as I’m concerned and Sue was adamant that they were not going inside her shiny new caravan so the only place left  was to hang them off the back of the Freelander. We had a bike rack from a well-known car spares shop that fitted on the spare wheel and up to now had worked fine. The problem was it carried the bikes too low to allow us to tow the caravan. I’d adjusted the frame to lift the bikes as high as I could get them, but it wasn’t right and it seemed unstable. Time to look at alternatives. Fiamma was a logical place to start. They are well-known for producing equipment for caravans and motorhomes and have a range of bike racks that are designed with this in mind. Continue reading →

Swift factory visit….

31 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by in Events, General, Travelling in the UK, Trips

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We had been invited on a visit to the Swift factory by Ash Dhir via the Swift Talk forum. We were staying at Bridlington, so it was about a 50 minute drive south from Bridlington to Cottingham where the factory is located. Thursday was going to be another warm sunny day but the forecast was for the weather to break for the weekend. We had a lazy morning, deciding not to do much except potter about the camp site. I replied to some emails and a couple of odd jobs on the van… the emptying or refilling of the various containers that were  connected by umbilicals to the caravan and the general wander round with a micro-fibre cloth in one had and a sprayer containing One Dry in the other attacking anything that looked like a dirt mark, deceased bug or a spot where a fly decided to commit suicide on the trip over. Sandwiches prepared…. with beef from the farm shop up the road we set off for Cottingham about 12:30. Continue reading →

3 Days in Bridlington…

31 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by in Blog updates, General, Travelling in the UK

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Bridlington harbour in the early morning March sunshine

We have just got back from a three day break at the Caravan Club’s site in Bridlington, which, unusually for us was blessed with the warmest March weather for decades. Now Bridlington is not somewhere that would have sprung to mind for a destination, but there was an ulterior motive… we had been invited on a tour of the Swift Factory. The caravan had been given a bit of spit and polish the previous weekend so was looking like it had just arrived from the factory… apart from one thing, the Swift logo had fallen off the wheel centre on one side. Luckily I spotted it as I was removing the Al-Ko wheel lock before setting off so have put it in my caravan tool box to give it a course of looking at when we get back. Continue reading →

A bit of spit and polish….

31 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by in General, Maintenance

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Although we had used the caravan earlier in the year to go to Oswestry for a couple of days, we had not had chance to give it a wash and polish. As the weather was being kind, we decided to spend a day sprucing the van ready for our trip to Bridlington. Now this was the first time we were going to tackle cleaning the van and where we have it stored, there is not a supply of water, so everything we need would have to be “shipped in” How much water do you actually need to wash a caravan? Hmm… and what is the best product to use?  Continue reading →

Hey… someone listened!

23 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Blog updates, General, Help Guides, LPG Refilling Info, Web sites

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Well, I think they did! OK what am I on about? Well, if you have read through my ramblings about the Safefill refillable gas cylinder, one of the comments I had at towards the end was the fact that I had to create my own POI file for my GPS from the map of Safefill accredited filling stations and dealers on their website. I thought that Safefill should have this on their website to make it a lot easier for people that are not quite as savvy on creating POI files.

Well, it seems that good customer service still exists from some companies and they have now made it easy to get a POI file for your GPS.

I tried it out and it’s quite easy, click on the “GPS Download” button on the home page or the Refilling page and it directs you to the contact us area where you fill in your contact details click on request GPS download and click on submit…. a few seconds later a link to the download page arrives in your email in box. Continue reading →

LPG filling stations in Europe

07 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Blog updates, General, LPG Refilling Info, Travelling In Europe, Web sites

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Following a question that I replied to on Swift Talk, about LPG filling stations in the UK and Europe, I couldn’t find a website that had all of the UK and Europe listed. So I started searching for any website that listed LPG filling stations in various countries as I thought at least if there was a directory with them all in one place, it would be a start.

I eventually came across the French site “Annuaire des stations GPL françaises” or “French LPG stations directory” which seems to have links to sites that cover most European countries. The site is in French, but has a small flag on the right that translates it into English.

The site is easy to use and has current pricing for LPG for nearly all the sites listed. It also has a news section which lists sites that are closed and new LPG filling stations. If you click on the “Download” tab at the top it takes you to a page where you can download POI files for your GPS or Smart Phone.

However, the gem for me and what I was originally seeking can be found listed under the tab “Other Sites”. It’s a list of sites that have details fo LPG stations in 17 countries…. how Australia got in there I’ll never know!

If you have an LPG fuelled tow vehicle, motorhome or refillable cylinders, this is a site to bookmark. It has almost everything you could need if you need to fill up with LPG while in Europe (or Australia for that matter!) and certainly for France, lists the current prices in Euros per Litre. I’ve added it to my links page… you could always just bookmark that instead !

S

Had any 13 pin plug problems?

29 Wednesday Feb 2012

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If you struggle to connect your 13 pin plug to your tow car and no one else does, ever wondered why? Well I think I might have one possible cause and it’s fitted to almost every caravan!

A few people have contacted me and asked if I had any answers as to why they keep having problems trying to connect their 13 pin plug every time they hitch up. I always ask them if they store their plug in the little recess mounded into the fibreglass ‘A’ frame fairing, and inevitably the answer almost always comes back as “Yes”. Continue reading →

Back home again…

13 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by in General, Projects, Trips

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Oswestry is a nice quiet little site and is one that we will add to the list of “will go again”.  The eco credentials of the site seem to be good too, all the lights on the bollards have been converted over to LED and the facilities block has a large solar panel array that must offset the carbon footprint of the site. We left around 11:40 and the temperature hadn’t dropped below zero overnight, so no problems with frozen waste-hog or aquaroll. As this was our first trip in cold weather, we were on a bit of a fact-finding mission. Just how practical was it to use the caravan in winter? I had fitted a digital thermometer with an outside probe (Maplin £9.99) to be able to check with a bit of accuracy. Continue reading →

Saturday.. it must be Shrewsbury

11 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by in General, Travelling in the UK, Trips

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From the camp site, it’s about ten miles into Shrewsbury down the A5. If you follow the town centre signs, just before you cross the river, there is a long stay car park next to the Shropshire Council / Shrewsbury Town Council offices and you can cross the river Severn via the footbridge. Car parking charges were a quite reasonable £4 for ten hours.

Crossing the foot bridge, you have to work your way through the Riverside Shopping Mall… then through Gallery Mall. I’m not sure where one ends and the other begins. Walking through the malls it was sightly depressing, every other shop seemed to be empty and in darkness. Sue and I were hoping that Shrewsbury was not going to be another town centre that seemed to be in terminal decline. Continue reading →