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Caravan Chronicles

~ not just another caravan blog

Caravan Chronicles

Category Archives: General

Testing Testing…..

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Simon Barlow in Blog updates, Cleaning, Maintenance, Reviews

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Caravan, Caravanning, Caravans, Cleaning, Drainage, Maintenance, OLPRO

I do like things that do more than one job. I like multi tools for example and I especially like things that do more than one job well. I’m also into things that save space and weight in the caravan, and I have been looking round for ‘stuff’ that does both.

You know those days when you have a cup of coffee in one hand, mouse in the other and you are looking out of the office window at the rain wishing you were staring out of the caravan window instead? Thoughts turn to Googling and by one of those tricks that Google has of finding things you never knew you wanted and completely off the subject I was Googling in the first place found me reading about OLPRO. Continue reading →

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Caravanning with the Devonshires…

04 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by Simon Barlow in General, Travelling in the UK, Uncategorized, Weekend Break

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Caravan, Caravan Club, Caravanning, Caravans, Chatsworth Estate, Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, OLPRO, Touring, Towing, travel, Travel Trailer, Travel Trailers

… not that the Duke and Duchess knew we were there of course! We had booked in at the Caravan Club’s Chatsworth Park site for a couple of nights. Considering the weather so far this year it was kind of a gamble as to what we were going to get. Friday 31st Jan started off dry although another front was forecast to arrive hitting the south-west and west coast up to the Scottish borders with strong winds and rain. As you can’t arrive before 1:00pm at the site due to the limited access road, we didn’t leave home till around 11:30 to pick up the caravan from storage, and we had just coupled up as it started to rain. The drive out of Stockport along the A6 heading out past Lyme Park and on to Chapel-en-le-Frith wasn’t too bad and by the time we turned onto the A623 just through Chapel we lost most of the traffic and with nothing behind us is was a pleasant run even if it was raining over the hills towards Stony Middleton. As we passed through Baslow, we turned left onto the A619 for around 400 yards before the right turn into the private road that leads through the Chatsworth Estate to the site. Continue reading →

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Just click on print…

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Simon Barlow in Gadgets, General, Technical, Tips, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Caravan, Caravanning, Caravans, inkjet printer, Mobile Printing, Printing, Touring, Travel Trailer, Travel Trailers

You know, sometimes I miss the obvious. Someone on one of the forums (Swift Talk) was giving a tip about storing copies of important documents and forms electronically so that if you lost say your insurance document you would at least be able to print out a copy. Now that is a bit of good advice, especially travelling abroad. We have copies of all our documents and a lot of the caravan documents, manuals etc stored electronically. In fact a lot of useful manuals I have put on-line in the “Document Library” section of the blog. Continue reading →

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2014 Manchester Caravan & Motorhome Show…

23 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by Simon Barlow in Camping & Caravan Show, Events, General, Reviews

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Caravan, Caravanning, Caravans, Glossop Caravans, Manchester Caravan, Moto-Trek, Swift Group, WiFi On Board

Heavy rain first thing this morning didn’t seem to dampen the opening of the 2014 Manchester Caravan & Motorhome Show at Event City. We arrived around 9:15 and managed to park at the back of the arena and make our way to the entrance just as the rain stopped. This year, the tiny coffee stand in the entrance hall that was over-run last year had been replaced by a bigger stand far more suited to the number of people expected and there were plenty of tables to sit at while we waited for the doors to open. Continue reading →

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Happy Birthday Caravan Chronicles…

11 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by Simon Barlow in Blog updates, Facebook, General

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

11 January 2012, Caravan, Caravan Chronicles, Caravanning, Caravans, Touring, Towing, travel, Travel Trailer, Travel Trailers

Today it’s Caravan Chronicles 2nd birthday!

The first post “Hello World!” was published back on 11 January 2012 and started the ball caravan rolling. Back then we had a total of 695 views for the whole of January. So far in the first 11 days of January we have had over 3750 views taking our total to over 138,000!

In that time our caravan has travelled over 6700 miles on 30 trips and been on site for 82 nights.

What else has happened.. well we started a Twitter feed (@caravanchron) a few months ago and a few days ago we started our Facebook page – both of which are slowly growing.

So what are we going to do for 2014 – our third year? Well there are a few features planned…

  • An article on upgrading your caravan road lights to LED bulbs and the different types of bulb available (still looking for a company to help out with this)
  • Report on different aftermarket caravan stability systems (and possibly a DIY installation feature).
  • Report on what actually goes on when you have your caravan serviced by a main dealer.

Thanks to everyone that has followed, tweeted, liked, re-blogged or posted one of the 400 or so comments on Caravan Chronicles, I hope I can make the next 12 months as entertaining and informative as the last two years have been.

Simon

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Old School Navigation…

10 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Simon Barlow in Blog updates, General, Navigation, Tips

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Caravan, Caravanning, Caravans, Navigation, Touring, Towing, Travel Trailer, Travel Trailers

Back in the day, practical things used to be taught. One of the things I learnt was how to navigate using my wristwatch. The first time I piloted a single engine aircraft across the Atlantic even though we had accurate GPS navigation on board, I still used it as a gross error check. So what use is it when out in the caravan, motorhome or even tenting? Continue reading →

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Caravan Chronicles now on Facebook too!

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Simon Barlow in Blog updates, Facebook, General, Web sites

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Caravan, Caravan Chronicles, Caravanning, Caravans, Facebook, Touring, Towing, Travel Trailer, Travel Trailers

A number of people emailed me and asked why Caravan Chronicles wasn’t on Facebook? Well after some procrastination as of this morning Caravan Chronicles has a Facebook page… https://www.facebook.com/caravanchronicles

Facebook

So if you have an urge to click “like” on Facebook… just make sure is Caravan Chronicles!

S

PS… Not a clue how this is going to work out, so you might have to be patient!

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Caravan Chronicles 2013 in review

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Simon Barlow in Blog updates, General, Reviews, Web sites

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2013 Review, annual report, Caravan, Caravanning, Caravans, Touring, Towing, travel, Travel Trailer, Travel Trailers

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for Caravan Chronicles – one of the fastest growing blogs in caravanning & travel in 2013.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 98,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Still taking two bottles on holiday?….

29 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Simon Barlow in General, LPG, LPG Refilling Info, Maintenance

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Calor, Caravan, Caravanning, Caravans, Gas Cylinder, LPG Refilling, Maintenance, refillable gas cylinders, Safefill

Safefill are well known for their red 15 litre (7.56Kg of LPG) refillable gas cylinders and we have been using one these for around two years now. We have saved quite a bit of money when compared to using the rental/exchange cylinders that are available.

One of the biggest advantages is we can always set off camping with a full cylinder of gas and never have to worry about running out. We can easily check the contents through the semi transparent cylinder and if required, take the cylinder out of the caravan, put it in the car and re-fill at the nearest LPG station. There are a growing number of Morrisons petrol stations (over 50 at the time of writing) that have LPG pumps and we have never had any problems filling our cylinder in Morrisons.

Image (c) Safefill

Image (c) Safefill

However one of the things people always raise is ” it’s not big enough, we would need two cylinders” OK fair comment and to answer this Safefill have now introduced a new blue 20 litre cylinder… that holds 10.08Kg of gas (that is the equivalent of two and a half 3.9Kg Calor gas cylinders or over one and a half 6Kg Calor gas cylinders) and one of the best things is the price is exactly the same as the red cylinder – £149.99.

At an average LPG pump price of 80 pence per litre, that means it will cost around £16 to fill up from empty… how much would it cost to exchange two 3.9Kg Calor or one 6Kg Calor? (At the time of writing a 3.9Kg Calor is about £15.50 and a 6Kg Calor is around £20.00)

So if you use a lot of gas or are travelling in Europe (European filling adaptors are available) coupled with the weight saving that a refillable cylinder gives over steel cylinders (are you struggling with your nose weight?) and the advantages of being able to always set off with a full cylinder of gas what’s not to like!

To find LPG refilling sites have a look on the Links page or download the Safefill  Refilling POI’s for your GPS from their web site.

S

PS… When we bought our Safefill cylinder back in 2011 I did a review – Safefill refillable gas cylinders

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Some previous posts you may like...

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A Bit Of A Tour…

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More Jobs Ticked Off…

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A Few More Jobs Ticked Off The List…

Like any project, ticking the small stuff off a list is the way to move forward even if it seems like sometimes you have ground to a halt. A bit lacking on photos…. I’m temporarily unsure of their location… pilot speak for I’ve lost them! I’ll correct that in due course. I built a new…

A Few Little Jobs Done…

It seems such a long time since I posted anything. Last time out with the Dreamseeker I noticed that the charging voltage when we were hooked up to the truck was only about 12.1 to 12.3 volts as measured in the Dreamseeker battery box. I know that the VW Amarok puts out 14.6 to 14.8…

Happy New Year…

Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you have a great touring year ahead. I’d like to take this opportunity to give you a bit of an update on my personal circumstances and a look forward to a couple of projects I’m planning to kick off our year. First… … A HUGE thank-you yo everyone…

Sutton-on-Sea In September

Just like to say a huge thank you to so many people that have commented or emailed me over my last post. It has cheered me up no end…. it really has. Enough to rattle this post off! We recently went back to Cherry Tree Springs at Sutton on Sea for an 7 day break.…

This Might Be My Last Post…

Not clickbait…. Three weeks ago Sue and I were cycling between 8 and 10 miles each morning to get a morning coffee. Arrived back home and…. well time stopped. I had received notice that my test sample for Bowel Cancer screening had come back positive. Two days later I underwent a colonoscopy procedure which didn’t…

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  1. Dave Hart's avatar
    Dave Hart on How to: Connect two batteries in parallelAugust 27, 2024

    brilliant and so well explained! Thank you, love your work!!

  2. Simon Barlow's avatar
    Simon Barlow on Caravan Road Lights – Basic Fault FindingAugust 25, 2024

    Please look at my very last post on the blog

  3. Martin's avatar
    Martin on Caravan Road Lights – Basic Fault FindingAugust 25, 2024

    martin here caravan lights worked fine for two stop overs I had then hooking up again for my third trip…

  4. Emmy’s Camper Travels's avatar
    Emmy’s Camper Travels on My last post….August 25, 2024

    I’m so sorry. My sincerest sympathies go to you and your wife Sue. Your ideas and advice have been so…

  5. Steve Walsh-Jones's avatar
    Steve Walsh-Jones on My last post….August 22, 2024

    very sorry to hear this. Your posts have been very informative and enlightening providing an in depth view on different…

  6. thetwinaxletouringscouser's avatar
    thetwinaxletouringscouser on My last post….August 22, 2024

    Good heavens above Simon I am ever sorry to hear of such devastating news for both you yourself and Sue.…

  7. Eileen's avatar
    Eileen on My last post….August 22, 2024

    Simon and Sue, thank you both for sharing your passion for caravans with us. The news is extremely sad, our…

  8. Philip Parkes's avatar
    Philip Parkes on My last post….August 22, 2024

    Simon. So sad to read you last post today. Our thoughts are with you and Sue at this time. Whilst…

  9. Philip Parkes's avatar
    Philip Parkes on My last post….August 22, 2024

    Simon. So sad reading your post today. Our thoughts are with you and Sue at this time.

  10. Philip Parkes's avatar
    Philip Parkes on My last post….August 22, 2024

    Simon our thoughts are with you and Sue.

  11. Luke Tarrant's avatar
    Luke Tarrant on My last post….August 22, 2024

    Very sorry to read this and my thoughts are with you both at this time.

  12. Alan Smith's avatar
    Alan Smith on My last post….August 22, 2024

    Dearest Simon. I have never met you, but I feel as though I have some (limited) knowledge of you and…

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