Category Archives: General

A bit of spit and polish….

31 Saturday Mar 2012

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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

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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 →

Oswestry….. arrival

11 Saturday Feb 2012

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Arrived at Oswestry C & CC site at 12:20 yesterday after an 80 mile drive, which considering it was a Friday only took 1:40.  Leaving home, there was just the odd snowflake, but most of the way here was dry and clear. Only when we got to the outskirts of Wrexham did we get light drizzle.

The warden here is very friendly and virtually gave us our choice of pitches, I think there are only eight or ten caravans and motorhomes on site at the moment. We decided on the far end of the site and the warden walked down with us to guide us on to the pitch.

All set up

Setting up only takes us about 20 minutes, and the kettle normally goes on… or the beer and wine are opened, depending on the weather. This time was a little different. Sue filled the Aquaroll while I powered up the van’s electrics and handled the pink stuff and wastehog at the other end of the van. Returning the watering can to the front locker, I also turned on the Safefill gas bottle and went to turn the electrics on, shut the taps, fire up the heater and turn the water pump on. I always use a gas ring on the hob to purge any air out of the gas line… the ring lit… and the heater soon followed. Now for the water. I shut the drain tap and pressed the pump ‘on’ button…. nothing. Hmm. Frozen up. Bugger. I could hear the relay clicking to activate the pump, but I couldn’t hear it run. I know we were below freezing in Manchester a few nights ago, and I thought I’d got all the water out of the system anyway. Apparently not. Continue reading →

Help Guide updates..

07 Tuesday Feb 2012

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Ever wondered about “reverse polarity” and inverters? They are often misunderstood and sometimes seem like a technical nightmare from a science fiction film! Well, I’ve just finished a couple of guides on inverters and reversed polarity that hopefully makes things a little clearer. You can find them on the “HELP GUIDES” page.

Just starting to think about getting the caravan ready for our up and coming trip to Oswestry this weekend, and looking forward a bit we have received our Red Pennant paperwork today for the French trip in October. I’ve booked one site to stop at on the drive down to La Tournerie Ferme in the Dordogne and for the return trip, but I still need to find a nice site near Limoges. The 300 plus page Michelin French road Atlas arrived from Amazon a couple of days ago, so I guess I’ll take that with us this weekend so I can do a little light reading in the evening. Anyone know what the weather is down there in October?

S

Swift Group factory tour…

06 Monday Feb 2012

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Just received an email from Swift letting us know that we are invited onto the next factory tour on Thursday 29th March. Really looking forward to seeing where and how our caravan was built. I now have to try to remember some of those “I wonder why they did that?” type questions to ask them.

I know one I do want to ask…. “Why do UK built vans have such short ‘A’ frame draw bars when compared to our continental cousins?” As van’s get heavier, the nose weight increases and the list of suitable tow cars decreases… a longer ‘A’ Frame would help mitigate this and provide a more stable tow. I might have an answer at the end of March!

Apparently cameras are not permitted on the tour, so unfortunately I don’t think I will be able to give you any sneak previews of the 2013 models. I might however have seen someone who is working on the 2013 models!.. That will be about as exclusive as it gets for me I think.

S