Category Archives: General

Collecting our new van…

12 Thursday Jan 2012

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Well, I’ve very nearly brought you up-to-date. You now know – if you have read “Hello world” how we got to this point. The day of collection arrived – 6th July 2011 which coincidentally was the same date that 2 years previously I had set off with a group of other pilots to fly single engined aircraft round the world. I hoped that the same spirit of adventure waited for Sue and I with our new caravan.

As usual, it was raining when we arrived at Glossop Caravans. We were early, so sat in the car watching the rain pour off the roofs of the caravans in front of us. If you have ever been to Glossop Caravans, you will know that the car park is up a steep ramp and overlooks the site so you can see almost everything. I have to take my hat off to the chap manning the car park, throughout  the time we were there, he never deserted his post and remained directing traffic in the downpour. Glossop Caravans were very efficient, the day before we were due to collect, they telephone us with the exact time we needed to be there and with a list of items that we needed to bring with us. I had in the boot of the car one 110Ah Leisure Battery and one Safefill Gas Cylinder…. and a bunch of paperwork.

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Hello world! – Pt4

12 Thursday Jan 2012

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The hunt is on for a caravan that ticks all the boxes on our list. Searching on the internet comes up with a number of forums dedicated to caravanning as well as all the different manufacturer web sites. One of the first sites I look at is Bailey’s…. the Orion range. Wow… that looks good, there are a couple of videos on the site of some chap called Andrew Ditton taking them to the beach in Spain and somewhere knee deep in snow. I really loved the idea of the Alu-Tech construction system, it seemed right.

Unfortunately, we were looking just at the time the wheel detachment issue was coming to light with one of the Bailey range and on the forums, there was lots of speculation about the mechanical fastening system of the Alu-Tech construction. This knocked Bailey of our top spot for the manufacturer of our soon to be pride and joy.

We had previously been up to Glossop Caravans to look round when we were looking for what we thought we wanted when hiring. It was time for another visit. Originally it was our intention to buy a second hand van, maybe twelve or eighteen months old, but after wandering round all the pre-owned vans, there was nothing we liked or came close to ticking any boxes. What had seemed like an easy task, finding a suitable caravan, suddenly became a lot harder. If we couldn’t find something at one of the biggest dealers in the North West, what chance did we have.

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Hello world! – Pt 3

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

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Our first attempt at packing the caravan up went rather well… we were up early, I’d cooked breakfast again and we had washed up and stowed everything away. During the course of breakfast we had reflected on the first two nights… and what had been a firm decision on the type of caravan we wanted had to be revisited. We definitely wanted a full rear washroom and we definitely wanted a fixed bed! There was a turn about, after looking at fixed beds back at Glossop Caravans a few weeks ago and deciding they were not for us… we had decided a fixed bed was the way forward. We had also revised our list of things we thought we wanted… but this was very flexible at the moment.

It only took us 20 minutes to pack everything away and hitch up… which was surprising, I’d read stories of people spending all morning packing up and hitching up. I had the feeling we were not getting this right somehow. We finally drove round the access road to Kelvedon Hatch at just before 10:30 in the morning and set off for Canterbury.

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Hello world! – Pt 2

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

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Hi again… you still reading?

Ok where were we, Oh yes… so everything was booked. Now all we needed to do was learn how to “caravan”.

The internet is a fascinating repository of ‘stuff’. I soon learned about electrical hook up’s, how to level a caravan, towing tips, water systems, gas safety, and most importantly the right and wrong way to empty a Thetford Cassette toilet….

Another thing became obvious… we needed to buy stuff. Some light weight crockery, knives and forks, towing mirrors, green solution, pink solution… the list was growing. Again, a search of the internet and we found we had a “Go Outdoors” store near us in Stockport… off we went with our shopping list. Thankfully we managed to get most things we needed in one go, that was untill I read something else on the internet about caravanning and decided we could not possably do without it and must have it immediately … which resulted in several more trips to Go Outdoors and a few places Sue never knew about!

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Hello world!

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

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Well, I guess this is the start of just another caravan blog. I didn’t know really what to call it, as I didn’t know where I was going with it. This is my second blog.

The first one was easy as it was all about one particular event, me and a bunch of other pilots in a handfull of small planes flying round the world… if you really want to have a look its called “Round The World Flight“

So, whats this blog all about then?

In May 2011 I had a photographic shoot to do in Essex and normally I’d have driven down from the North West, done the shoot and driven home again. A round trip of 400ish miles and a very long day. As Sue had some time off we decided to hire a caravan to see if it was something we would enjoy. Now you don’t just sit there reading a paper and suddenly announce to your partner “I think we will hire a caravan next week dear” how did we get to this point?

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