A Bit Of A Tour…

21 Friday Jun 2024

Posted by Simon Barlow in 5th Wheel, Fifth Wheel Company, Glastonbury, Rhuallt, The Old Oaks

Tags

5th Wheel Company, Caravanning, Chester Services, england, Glastonbury, Gloucester Services, Rhuallt, rv, travel

Well not really a tour, only two locations. The first leg was down from Manchester to Glastonbury and a stay at The Old Oaks. We first went there in 2012 and had five or six more visits in the next four years. So it had been quite a while really.

We were located in the Upper Oaks area on a premium pitch which was easily big enough for our 5th Wheel. The site was as pristine as you can get really and I was particualarly interested to see that the lawns were now cut with an electric rechargeable mower working 24 x 7. We kind of got attached to the one trimming the central area and I named him “Earl”. It became a bit mesmerising watching Earl trim the grass and we felt sorry for him when he was out there in the pouring rain working trimming away while everyone else was huddled in their caravan or awning. I really think he needed a cat companion sat on him keeping him company.

While we were there we had a few jobs to do in the caravan. We replaced the bathroom taps, kitchen taps and water filter tap. I’ve still got to install the new drinking water filter and connect the filter tap. We also cleaned the awning rails, which still need a bit of work on them with a tooth brush in the rails. Sue valiantly attacked the locker handles with something called “The Pink Stuff” which was recommended to us by The Caravan Nut…. and fine stuff it is too. It has almost brought the handles up to new condition. Another session and we should almost be there with them.

This is my spot…. find your own doughnut!

The big one was replacing the runners on the shower doors. I’d ordered a set from Amazon and they needed fitting. I never knew that shower doors were going to be so heavy! We removed the bi-fold doors and got the bottom runners replaced then came the task of re-installing the doors… you have to lift the things into the correct position then install the top runners… between the two of us we seemed to make it hard work, but got there in the end. The original runners had cracked as there didn’t seem to be a way of securing the doors while in transit. The method was to secure the doors in an open position… and now knowing the weight of the doors came to the conclusion that this was not going to work. The doors needed to be secured in the closed position so the weight was evenly distributed and the doors were held securely by the frame of the shower. A simple solution was to use a child proof door securing strap. These came with two buttons you secure with 3M VHB pads and one step secures the door in the closed position easily…. even with my weight pushing on it.

In the mean time we have been making the inside ‘ours’ if you know what I mean. The installation of some pictures and side lights makes it more like home.

The side lights are ones we found at IKEA. I shortened the mains leads to about 8 inches to reduce the amount of spaghetti cabling and used command strips to hold each light firmly in place. Each light has a dimmer and I selected warm tungsten effect LED bulbs to give that cosy feeling when watching TV and the rain hammering down outside.

We also supplemented the coat rail with a hat rack (again using command strips) to house my mahoosive collection of 6 baseball caps. This was finished off with a wall clock almost matching the wall colour with a style that we were looking for. The clock was a B & M special I think. Again held up with command strips. So far we have not had anything fall off using these strips.

Henry Fluffybutt III enjoying a belly rub

Sitting back enjoying the few days work it took…. and a big belly rub for Henry for putting up with all the too and fro while we did the work. You can see one of the side lamps next to Sue… turned up to full, this provide an excellent reading light as well and generating mood lighting at a lower level at night. All the sockets I installed have twin USB charging ports and I installed a 4 port charging station near the TV… just in case!

Stop No. 2…

From Glastonbury we headed back north, this time to Rhuallt in North Wales. Home of The 5th Wheel Company. When we bought our 5th Wheel they replaced the water heater/warm air boiler and the Thetford fridge. We had been developing a problem with the fridge door….. to the point when we closed the door you had to give it a gentle kick at the bottom to make sure the door closed properly. I sent some photos of the corners of the door as it looked as though it was racking and the corner joints were pulling apart. Simon at the 5th Wheel Company sent the photos off to Thetford and they agreed to replace the door without any hesitation. So we had scheduled a day to visit to get the door replaced… as we also had a few days to spare we turned it into a three day stopover. I do have to say the service from everyone at The 5th Wheel Company always exceeds expectations.

On Saturday, the trip from Glastonbury to North Wales was sunshine one minute and torrential can’t see a thing in front OMG it cannot rain any heavier nightmare. It didn’t help that a large proportion of the drivers on the motorway required driving lessons… the well known makes were doing their own thing as usual.

As we passed Chester it was nothing but clear blue sky, a welcome change from the grey on and off again drizzle at Glastonbury.

The sunshine also gave us a chance to go over the 5th Wheel with an combined exterior cleaner and silicon polish… which really only took us a couple of hours. A few weeks ago we did a deep clean on the exterior that took us nearly two days. Mind you it was down to scrubbing all the locker frames with a tooth brush and most of the running rails. We gave it the first silicone polish back then and that causes the water to bead off really easy and also helps prevent black streaks which are caused by dirty water running off the roof. Yep, we still have to tackle the roof…. it’s a bit of a large task though.

Homeward Bound…

We left Rhuallt a bit later than we expected and headed home. The following day I had an appointment at The Christie for bloods and ti see my oncologist. Heading out of North Wales we decided to call into Chester Services… Flippin huge mistake. Chester Services has to be one of the worst services in the UK. Considering three days before we called into Gloucester Services on the M5 which is probably the best services in the whole of the UK…. maybe Tebay is close but as they are both owned by the same group… I’ll say Gloucester tops the list.

We entered Chester Services and missed the small “Caravans” sign and ended up back on the roundabout for a second attempt (things you do for a Costa Coffee) taking a bit slower and being a bit more vigilant we noticed the red – white text, the sign that said ‘HGV Caravans” So we followed it. It took us straight to the lorry park. I pulled in behind a refrigerated trailer and turned off the engine. We sat there for a minute or two trying to see how the heck you get to the main building as most of the perimeter was thick bushes you could not see through or over and no signs. I opened the door… and shut it again.It wasn’t a particularly warm day but the smell of emptied stale urine bottles and dumped poo bags was overpowering. The only thing that would cure this would be the purchase of a good jet steam cleaner and steam cleaning all the concrete and surrounding areas.

I did have a look on google earth to see if I had missed the caravan parking area… but alas there isn’t one. The best bet I think would be to pull into the coach parking area as this did not seem to have any coaches…. why would it with the smell wafting over from the lorry park.

I could not even see a way to squeeze in the main carpark…. the lanes between rows of parked cars was ridiculously tight. 4 minutes after we pulled in and turned the engine off, I was reversing out of the lorry parking lane and we were back on our way. Even the pull in behind the Drive Through Costa Coffee was too short… it had a mini in it and was full. We could not even use the Costa Drive through… although the building didn’t have an overhang…. it did have a steel height barrier. Another thing I noticed were the bushes at every road junction. They all needed a good trim as the sight lines were very restricted… at one point I had to get the Amarok half way across the road just to see if there was any traffic approaching the junction from the right. The shrubbery has encroached to the road edges since the satellite photo above was taken.

I understand that the Tebay group has gained planning permission to build a new service station serving the M62 / M56 at Tatton… which is now it would seem being held up by a central government planning enquiry. Why am I not supprised. https://www.tattonservices.com

So, we are now back at home, I had my bloods and checkup yesterday and all going well. I have a CT scan next week so we will know more after the results of that. It’s back to planning our next adventure hopefully another two or three stopper. Sue has been binge watching “Vera” on TV…. so I can feel a trip to the north east on the cards.

Take care and safe travels.

Sutton-on-Sea In September

16 Monday Oct 2023

Posted by Simon Barlow in 5th Wheel, Bikes, Cherry Tree Springs, Fifth Wheel Company, MiRider, Sutton-on-Sea

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

5th Wheel Caravan, Cherry Tree Springs, Cycling, MiRider, Sutton-on-Sea, Touring

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. We had been there earlier in the year and really liked the atmosphere and the people there. As we have been trying independent sites this season over Caravan & Motorhome Club sites, I did a comparison. To stay at the C & M Club site for the same dates would have cost £280.00. We paid £178.50 at Cherry Tree so a saving of £101.50…. in fact we stayed an extra night making 8 in total so saved even more!!!

The facilities block is as you would expect… really clean, plenty of hot water and warm. The rest of the site is really well maintained and the pitches are level with plenty of space for parking and room for a large awning.

Even with our slide out… out, I still had room for the VW Amarok and plenty of room on the other side for our huge roll out canopy.

Apart from a couple of days the weather was blueish skies and warm for September which allowed up to get a bit of cycling in. Having the MiRider bikes stored in the garage in the frame I made (read “Rack’em Up“) makes it easy to get them out ready for a quick ride out. Mornings were usually a cycle, north up the coast to Mablethorpe for morning coffee, either sat next to the beach…

… or sat up on the elevated section in front of the cafe next to the life guard station. The coffee there is much better we think.

Top Tip

A great little shortcut on the bike to get to the front…

If you turn right out of Cherry Tree Springs enter Huttoft Road and follow this for about 300 metres… the first turning on your right is Bluestone Road. Turn right and cycle 70 metres up Bluestone Road. At the end is a T-junction, turn right and 8 metres on your left is a walkway between the houses. Take the walkway and at the end is Walkington Way. Cycle along walking ton Way to the end to another T-Junction. Turn left and ride for 100 metres and on your right a steep ramp up to the top of the Roman Bank… this will get you on the prom and you can cycle all the way to Mablethorpe on it. If you turn right at the end of Walkington Way you can fool Huttoft Bank all the way to Chapel St Leonards.

Its a quick little cut through and allowed us to get to the sea front in about 6 or 7 minutes

Another nice cycle ride is to follow Huttoft Bank south to Chapel St Leonards… it’s a bit further but easy cycling and stop off at North Sea Observatory, Chapel Point for a coffee….

We can both recommend you try out their toasted tea cakes…. The coffee is rather good too! looking at some of the plates being brought out to other customers, the English breakfast looks rather good as well. Unfortunately cycling with a full English onboard is not something to be undertaken lightly.

The nice thing about Cherry Tree Springs is there always seems to be someone to have a chat with… not in an intrusive way but sat out with Henry – yep he’s getting better at this now with his little harness on and rather like the attention he gets.

The 5th wheel aways attracts attention and we had a few people stop and talk to us about it. We have done a couple of walk throughs and I’m now getting dab hand at going through the usual questions about what its like to tow (easy peasy, much easier than a bumper pull) and what needs to be done to a pickup to convert it and the weights. Everyone still has a jaw dropping moment when I tell them our user payload is 960Kg… which is slightly more than half of the total weight of our old caravan fully loaded! (PS 5th Wheel Company…. I think we deserve some tee shirts!)

The next step I think will be to install some solar…. and we have a nice flat roof as I found out when I stood on the bed and poked my head out of the front skylight… I think it will be easy to get 800 or 1000 watts of panels on there!

Currently I’m leaning towards Renogy’s kit as the big blue seems to be getting very overpriced and you need so much of it box wise to make a system. But that’s for the future… and maybe if I can get them to work with me on it.

PS If you do stay at Cherry Tree Spring….. give Square Pizza in Sutton a go…. the details are in reception…. not found anything that beat’s them outside of the USA (so far!)

Rack’em Up…

14 Thursday Sep 2023

Posted by Simon Barlow in 5th Wheel, Accessories, Bike Rack, Bikes, e-bikes, MiRider, Modifications, Projects, Sutton-on-Sea

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

5th Wheel Caravan, Bike Rack, Bike Storage, e-Bike, MiRider, Modifications

One of the huge advantages of having a 5th wheel caravan over a bumper pull caravan is the payload and space. It’s as good as a large motorhome… we have around 960Kg of payload available to use. One thing we wanted to do was move our two MiRider e-bikes into the ‘garage’ locker of the 5th wheel. Although I built a great rack for the VW Amarok towing a 5th wheel means I had to take that off. When I designed it I aways wanted it easily removable just in case I ever needed the full capacity of the pickup.

The garage space in the Dream Seeker is big enough to fit the two bikes without having to remove any wheels. On the pickup we already removed the seats and dropped the folding handlebars so this is the same with the garage space. I needed something that would allow me to ‘wheel’ the bikes in keeping the front wheels straight and at the same time retaining either one of the bikes in an up right position while the second bike is loaded.

I wanted something that could be installed and removed easily and could also be used in my workshop to store the bikes if required.

After a bit of mooching around the workshop I initially thought of using an old bike rack we had for the rear of our Land Rover Freelander…. a day spent disassembling and reassembling resulted in a heavy and awkward contraption that didn’t really do anything I wanted except hold the bikes.

Mk II

OK, time for coffee and a rethink. Day two. A flat sheet with rails seemed like a good start…. with a small end wall to stop the bikes going in to far…. extend the rails up the wall to hold the front wheels upright would work. I needed to leave a gap for part of the steel chassis of the 5th wheel…. a plan was forming… more coffee.

I’d worked out that if the bikes were 250mm apart, with the pedals folded and the handlebars folded they would pass each other with ease. I off set this slightly so the edge of the plywood would lie flat right next to the rear chassis cross member and left a gap so the short rear chassis rail would pass through the middle. The front wall was tapered either side so I could install the rack through the door vertically and then twist it 90 degrees to lie flat on the floor. To hold it in place I fabricated 4 aluminium plates that would drop onto the existing bolts in the rear chassis crossmember. These bolts were just long enough to allow me to drop a plate on and a second nut. This way I didn’t have to touch the original bolts… they were still to the factory torque.

I thought about clear coating the stand…. then thought about a brush on wax shaded to match the Dream Seeker’s woodwork…. In the end I use some old exterior white hard coat gloss… several coats in fact. One less old paint tin in the workshop! I think that it looks OK and installed in the garage looks bright and clean… for the moment!

I added a ratchet strap, secured at both ends and cut short enough to allow me to hold the bikes down but not get in the way when loading or unloading.

To stop the two bikes pulling together a simple length of oak with a round cut out in each end holds the bikes 250mm apart.

Fitting into the Dream Seeker was easy enough and I installed the fixing plates once I was sure everything fitted in OK.

The bikes fit in perfectly and are held securely. For security I have taken measures that secure the bikes directly to the chassis in two locations and with the bikes in the garage make it damn difficult to even get access to try and defeat them. Obviously I’m to going to show this.

Bikes installed…. and still a bit of space to fit locate the two seats and bike helmets. So off to Sutton-on-Sea soon to test them out!

P.S. While I was at it I also installed two 240 volt sockets in the garage so we can plug the chargers in if needed. Although my preference for safety is to charge the bikes outside the Dream Seeker. I installed the sockets near the opposite door so they will reach the bikes while they are under our awning…. or allow us to power an electric griddle plate under the awning. Always thinking.

An Appointment In Rhuallt…

04 Tuesday Jul 2023

Posted by Simon Barlow in 5th Wheel, Fifth Wheel Company, Rhuallt, VW Amarok

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

5th Wheel Company, Caravan, Caravanning

It’s Wednesday 28th June, and we have an appointment in Rhuallt… we are going to the Fifth Wheel Company for the big handover when we collect our 5th wheel caravan. This not just a handover, it’s a Fifth Wheel Company handover. Which means 3 days of training, acclimatisation and adjustment to a 5th wheel caravan and the all important hitch installation in the VW Amarok which will be completed by the technical guys at the Fifth Wheel Company.

The previous week…

We had spent the previous week unloading our Swift Celebration 550 of its contents…. 12 years worth of touring “stuff” which initially didn’t seem like much, but stacked up it filled my workshop, I mean really filled my workshop. I had also tackled removing the sports bars from the Amarok, along with the bike carrier as well as the sliding bed and inbuilt tool box. I was now out of space in the workshop.

What followed was a cleaning frenzy.. Sue tackled every surface of the caravan, the loo, shower and sinks were cleaned and polished. The carpets were brought home cleaned and vacuumed to within an inch of their lives and returned to the caravan. We removed the Safefill gas cylinder and I started collecting all the original accessories for the caravan…. Alko Hitch Lock, Alko Wheel Lock, Alko Jack (still in its original protective wrapping) and I even had the original braided gas hoses along with the steady winder. As we were leaving the Fiamma sun canopy on it I found all the original bits to go with it. All the original paperwork from Glossop Caravans along with the Folder from Swift that came with the caravan contains all the manuals for the installed equipment was put in the front draws.

The big day…

Even though the pickup bed was completely empty we could not get everything in the truck that we needed to take over so we boxed up everything we thought we would need and loaded the boxes on the floor of the caravan. It was a lot of stuff. It filled the caravan floor forward of the axle and the truck bed.

Henry was put in his carrier and secured in the Amarok. He seems to have got quite used to the journeys now spending his time either looking out the window at passing cars or sleeping. The run over to Rhuallt from our storage site was a little over an hour as the traffic was light especially along the North Wales Expressway.

We pulled into the carpark and leaving Henry in his carrier… with both back windows three quarters down so he could see out and had a bit of a cross breeze went in to meet Simon again. In the reception area was a sign welcoming us by name to the Fifth Wheel Company (We didn’t get that when we picked up our other caravan) Simon showed us into the showroom where our caravan was parked up all shining and the lights on inside. Time for some paperwork to be exchanged along with the required number of beer tokens.

All change…

I pulled our old caravan… that technically was now not ours, up to the showroom roller door and we started the process of transferring all the boxes from our ‘technically not ours” old caravan to the 5th wheel caravan. The plan was to get everything out of one caravan into another then Simon would tow the 5th wheel caravan a couple of hundred metres along the road to Rhuallt Campsite which adjoins The White House Restaurant and Hotel where we could spend the rest of the day transferring everything over from the Amarok and putting everything away.

We parked up our old caravan next to a rather splendid Ineos caravan next to the factory and said our farewell’s to it. Even Henry watched it through the back window as I unhitched and pulled away. I think really he was thinking it was snack time and that is where his snacks usually materialised. 12 years of caravanning, and the reason this blog came into existence was ending but a new chapter was starting. One that had more wheels in it than you could shake a stick at!

We followed Simon the short distance up the road and pulled into the carpark of the White House which leads through to the camp site. First snag… there was a conference on in the hotel and the car park was packed and Simon could not make it round the 90 degree bend due to two vehicles parked in areas that were not marked parking bays. A short delay, cars were moved and Simon finally got it on to the pitch. There are a number of pitches reserved for 5th Wheel caravan as this is where you can overnight when you bring your caravan for servicing. We went briefly through the unhitching process and then in a little more detail the actual setting up, connection and operating the slide out and a run through of powering up everything. He then left up to start putting everything away and said he would come back in a couple of hours to answer any questions we had and run through anything we were unsure of.

The pitches were obviously designed for 5th wheel units. With power, water and drains set up for dumping grey water tanks. We filled up the 230 litre fresh water tank and turned on the water heater. Our unit is not a new caravan, but it has gone through a full factory refurbishment that included a brand new Truma Combi 4E with iNet controller, brand new Thetford N4000 fridge, new twin 11 litre GasLow refillable bottles and a full reseal as well as lots of other details. It was also fitted with a SOG fan system on the Thetford toilet. It came with a Samsung TV and LG Sound bar installed. The brake system is electric over hydraulic and I was later to find out just how good this was.

Storage… OMG the storage!

We eventually got everything stowed away… everything we had brought with us… and we had not really filled any storage compartment or cupboard. In fact we has storage cupboards and compartments that were still empty. Then we found more storage under the seats in the slide out… and even more behind the wardrobe. It also has a huge under floor locker (As we are now currently set up our available user payload is around 960kg.

Simon called back to see how we were getting on and if we had any questions. I’d noticed a couple of things and he headed off to the factory and returned within 20 minutes with replacements. I will probably repeat this several times but I can’t get over just how good the service and all our dealings have been with everyone from the Fifth Wheel Company. It is exceptional to say the least.

Simon left us to enjoy the rest of the day in our caravan. Tomorrow (Thursday) we have the day to ourselves… which would include a run out to to do a bit of shopping. Friday Simon was going to collect the Amarok and take it down to the factory to have the Reese hitch installed, the electrical conversion and additional systems installed for the electric over hydraulic brake system and air assist bags installed on the suspension which would allow the Amarok to be plated to a GTM of 6400kg.

Henry just checking in with Sue and making sure She knew where the cat biscuits were stored.

During the course of Thursday we had new neighbours arrive in their Celtic Rambler… Gary and Helen, who were also newish to Fifth Wheel life having taken delivery of their unit last November but it was really great to chat to them as they had some really helpful tips about things they discovered since starting out with a 5th wheel. It was also great that Gary spent a little time going through some of the things he had come across hitching and unhitching…. useful information if we ever come up against similar situations.

Friday morning and Simon appeared early to collect our Amarok. As it drove off we set about re-organising stuff we had previously put away as talking the evening before we realised the whole way we had caravanned before would change. I took the opportunity to do a test dump of the grey tank using our colapz waste pipes from the previous caravan and swopped fittings on our blue water hose so I could connect to the tank filler.

That afternoon Simon returned with one of the company vehicles and we went through hitching up and unhitching a couple of times until we had… saying mastered it would be wrong…. become familiar with the sequence might be a better way of putting it. I think we will be using the checklist for a while longer! There are quite a few more steps to hitching, but I’ll swear it is easier than hooking up a caravan on a tow ball. Sue called the list out as I went round going through the process. I guess if I can remember the Emergency checklists for aircraft I’ve flown then this will become as easy as that.

Simon returned late in the afternoon with our Amarok…. all converted, new weight plate fitted and the truck bed was looking really clean. They had managed to install all the connectors in the side of the bed rather than in a box ad it looked really neat.

We still had lots of room in the bed of the truck and one of my future projects is to re-install the slide out tray back in. It will need shortening but I think it will be achievable.

OK, I know you are going to ask….. why is there a 13 pin plug hanging out next to the two sockets? Well part of the installation was to move the connections for the tow bar mounted socket over to the pickup bed so that is the primary connection for the 5th Wheel. The 13 pin plug is effectively a short extension down to the tow bar so I retain all the functions at the ball hitch for towing our trailer. All I have to do is plug it in to the thirteen pin socket in the pickup bed. I have now put a green cap on it and it is secured in a clip.

The installation has also allowed me to continue using our Roll-N-Lock bed cover and as an added bonus, If I want to fit the bike rack on then I can do easily within a few minutes. Obviously we can’t tow the 5th wheel with the bike rack on.

Wagons roll…

Saturday morning arrived…. put the awning away (something that took about 1 minute seriously!) dump the grey and fresh water, turn the gas off. Sue stowed all loose items, bought the slide in, stowed the waste pipe, and dropped the tailgate.

Reversed and aligned up on the hitch adjusted the hitch height using the electrical landing legs, reversed on with a small ‘clunk’ as the jaws closed going the pin. Quick pull test, and as I hooked up the 13 pin plug and the break services plug Sue raised the landing legs. Henry stowed in his carrier… looking quite satisfied with the trip in general as he seems to have found a few new spots to snooze in we were ready to pull out. From the point of us saying “Right shall we make a move” I guess it took less than 30 minutes before we were ready to pull out. It really was easy to break camp.

Pulling out of the site onto the road wasn’t difficult. I need to adjust my mirrors slightly as I’d like to see a bit more of the 5th wheels tyres on the road, especially for cornering. The first real test was approaching a small roundabout a few hundred metres up the road…. I didn’t think we were slowing enough and I was going to overshoot onto the roundabout, so I pressed the brake peele a bit harder… then the trailer decided that meant it must be a sign more brakes were required and it obliged… wow those brakes do work well. I don’t think there is a delay as such, you just have to give them a clear sign of what you want them to do. So a little feathering of the foot brake to shed a few miles per hour you don’t really feel them, but add a bit more pressure than that then they come on enthusiastically for a millisecond until they judge just how much you want to slow down by then match you somehow. You feel them come on then ease up to match you. Never had that on a trailer before.

The trip home was rather uneventful…. except for the looks that you get… I don’t think we would have got more looks if we had been driving a bright pink soft top Ferrari with a giraffe in the back seat.

A Huge Thanks…

I’m going to say it again. A huge thanks To Simon, George who we initially dealt with and to all the staff at the 5th Wheel Company. This not sponsored, we didn’t get or receive any special discounts and although Simon was aware I wrote a blog, I really don’t think this influenced the way we were received or treated. We spoke to Gary and Helen (our neighbours) and they said the same. The service and level of commitment to the product and their customers is second to none, especially in this industry.

The Big Reveal…

28 Wednesday Jun 2023

Posted by Simon Barlow in 5th Wheel, e-bikes, General, Motor Home, Rhuallt

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

5th Wheel Company, Caravanning, Towing

I think one or two of you might have already guessed… we have bought ourselves a 5th wheel caravan. (Was it the pickup that gave it away?) So here it is…

Why a 5th wheel?

We decided that as we have now both fully retired that we would like to change the style of caravanning from a few days in one place then returning home to more of a few days somewhere…. then a wander somewhere else for a while then maybe move on again over a period of a couple of weeks before returning home. We can (and have) done this with our old caravan but packing up and then pitching again was becoming a chore for multiple stops. So we started looking at motorhomes as these had the advantage of more payload and a bit more elbow room. Something else we wanted to do was store our e-bikes inside rather than secure them outside when on site.

However when the cost of a suitable motorhome started to creep well above £100K…. we dismissed all the UK built motorhomes as most are just a caravan dropped on a chassis with an engine. So A-class it was. We looked at Carthago and really liked the c-line but my wallet went into cardiac arrest. We could cut costs a little if we cut some of our requirements and on top of that adding a vehicle that we could tow. It meant we were looking at the thick end of £150K. On top of this would be the cost of a towed vehicle and the decision to either flat tow or trailer. I believe that flat tow can be a bit of an issue in some European countries, but that might be hearsay. The yearly cost of two services, MOT’s, Insurance was also a big factor.

We started looking again at caravans with a new vision. The problem was for me, writing this blog for over 12 years now, I was a little nervous of investing in the mainstream UK offerings. It also left us with the original reason for changing over to a motorhome – the convenience of it all, that was still in our minds.

We had known about the 5th Wheel Company in North Wales for a long time, in fact a few years ago we sat in both a Celtic Rambler and a Dream Seeker at the Yorkshire Caravan Show and I had a bit of an affair moment with them. However back then we were still towing with our Land Rover Freelander (which we still own and is still going strong!) and the cost of a pickup and a 5th wheel was just not within our budget. But my brief dalliance with the 5th wheel remained in the back of my mind.

Just before we went to Sutton-on-Sea we had talked about maybe a 5th wheel instead of a motorhome. It has the load capacity (with this one we have about 950Kg available) plenty of elbow room, storage and it only requires servicing… no MOT or vehicle insurance only caravan insurance, this time we already have a pickup so no need to change vehicles. It is fitted with a 250 litre fresh water tank, grey tank, still uses a Thetford Cassette for the loo (so no issues trying to dump a black tank) so is exactly the same as a motorhome in a lot of ways. Plus it has a slide out for that all important elbow room (I’ll refrain from saying ‘enough room to swing a cat’ as Henry might be lurking around)… I’m getting ahead of myself.

I dropped an email to 5th Wheel Company asking if they could put us on a list just in case they had any pre loved units come in for resale. A few days later George from 5th Wheel emailed me back that they just happened to have both a Celtic Rambler and a Dream Seeker coming in and sent me the details they day we departed for Sutton-on-Sea.

Long story short… we received an email while we were in Sutton-on-Sea from George at the 5th Wheel Company letting us know they were having two opening days and asking if we would like to come along. The first one was Friday the day after we were due to return home from Hanworth Country Park.

5th Wheel Company Open Day

Friday was warm and clear blue skies and the run out from Manchester to Rhuallt was rather pleasant with light traffic. We were a bit early so stopped for a coffee at a service statin that overlooks the North Wales Expressway and parked looking at all the caravans and motorhomes passing by in both directions. I’ve aways wondered why so many caravans and motorhomes only seem to have one bike… there seemed to be a lot more with one bike that two and of course there were camper vans that looked like support vehicles for the Tour de France with six or seven on the roof or hung off the back.

When we arrived we were met by George and shown into the main showroom and offered coffee’s. We chatted to the couple manning the coffee table and discovered they had just sold their 5th wheel and bought an Inos caravan. Sorry I can’t recall their names. We had a look round the Dream Seeker and then the Celtic Rambler. For us, the Dream Seeker seemed the right ‘fit’. Although the Celtic Rambler has a larger bedroom we actually preferred the layout of the main living space.

The previous owners had opted for a few extras, a twin 11 kg Gaslow system with external filling point, twin 110Ah batteries and a 15 foot Carefree awning as well as a leather upgrade, Nature Pure water tap and a few other bits were included. Simon came over and introduced himself and we started chatting, answering my growing list of questions. He asked if we would like a test drive of a unit that had outside. It was a customers unit that they had permission to use. We hopped in and Simon took us out for a short run and then we swopped over and I had chance to get the feel of pulling just over 4 tonnes of Celtic Rambler. The unit was fully loaded with the customers belongings so it was a good test of reality. My honest opinion was to be a bit underwhelmed… I don’t know what I expected but it was such a non event towing it round small welsh backroads, through a couple of small villages and honestly the roundabouts, I didn’t even feel I was towing. OK the performance reflected that there was 4 tones back there but handling was no problem and even accelerating onto the Expressway, put your foot down it still went. Probably a bit better than some of the large motorhomes.

We got back and went and sat in the Dream Seeker again…. with another coffee. We spoke to Simon about figures, weight’s, costs etc and had another wander round.

The Drive Home…

The drive home was a little busier and full of conversations about what to do. Late afternoon and I think the whole of the North West was descending on North Wales. The queue round Shotton and back to the M56… and on the M56 was horrendous. Thankfully we were heading in the opposite direction.

That evening I emailed Simon to ask if he could just check the door opening size of the garage, Sue wasn’t convinced we could get out bikes in, I kind of thought we could but best to make sure.

Saturday morning Simon emailed me back a photo of the door with all the sizes on it.

I emailed him back simply saying…. “Put a Sold sign on it”.

10 Days, Two Awesome Sites and Breaking News… Pt 2

11 Sunday Jun 2023

Posted by Simon Barlow in General, Hanworth Country Park, Lincoln

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Tags

Caravanning, Lincoln, Touring, travel

On Sunday we left Cherry Tree Springs as close to the departure time as we could as the GPS gave us a travelling time of about an hour… which would have put us arriving before the arrival time at Hanworth Country Park. We headed west towards Lincoln following the GPS. I’d flown over Lincolnshire many times in the past… one glorious sunny Saturday actually flying over most of the old WW2 airfields, or where they once were trying to spot the outlines of now long forgotten runways. I’d never driven much around Lincolnshire, except for a stint while working on the AWACS project, Alpha Dispersal at RAF Waddington or “Waddo” back in the late 90’s.

The weather was good, traffic light and apart from me missing a turn after a late call from the GPS a great drive. We got to see some really lovely parts of Lincolnshire. I do really like trips where you have two or more stops as you drive through parts of the country you would normally mis in a ‘home to site and back’ trip. (keep this in mind for later!)

Hanworth Country Park

Hanworth Country Park in Potterhanworth is a bit more than just a park. Created by two chaps, one a farmer who’s family had owned the farm since 1931 and the other a builder who shared the vision of what Hanworth Country Park could become set about transforming the land and are still at it today. It’s not just park with caravan pitches… it has glamping pods, luxury lodges, leisure lodges, shepards huts and lakes… lots of lakes… it has to be on any fisherman’s list of places to fish. (I don’t fish… so may be talking out of my Bass)

It’s also got a rather fine cafe. Well when I say cafe…. “Brewers” is a bit more than just a cafe you would expect to find at a country park…. in fact it seems to be a go-to place for locals too!

Check-in at reception was quick, easy and the staff were welcoming. You get all the information you need in an arrival pack. We booked a full service pitch, which was firm… very firm… I had to use rock pegs to secure the sun shade. Phone signal on O2 was a tad weak, I had to tweak our router to only connect at G3…. but it was fast enough for internet and tv streaming of iPlayer and Netflix.

Monday we did a few odd jobs and caught up on things while our friends that we had arranged to meet up with traveled down from Edinburgh. We got the text message they had arrived at the Petwood Hotel where they were staying. So we set off to drive over and spend the evening with them. Henry wasn’t best pleased as I think he was expecting an evening curled up on Sue’s lap receiving belly rubs… Henry is our cat by the way!

Petwood Hotel

Petwood Hotel is rather a special place for any one with a remote interest in aviation. During WW2 it was the officers mess for 617 Sqdn, probably better known as “The Dambusters” . It’s amazing to think that Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC DSO DFC may have thrown a ball across this lawn for his dog (who I’m not allowed to call by name) to fetch while having a pint with his fellow officers.

Wandering around the hotel there is an amazing collection of photos and historical items from that period. I did take photos of many of them, but not wanting to breach copyright, they will remain for my own collection.

A splendid evening with friends was had along with an excellent meal and a great catchup as it has been over 12 months since we last saw them.

Tuesday…. we take on Lincoln

There is a great resource in Lincolnshire called the Water Rail Way. It’s the route of the original Lincoln to Boston rail line that has been turned into a cycle way. From the site you have to navigate to “5 Mile Bridge” which unsurprisingly is 5 miles from Lincoln.

The route however from the site to 5 Mile Bridge is a little wiggly….

The distance we cycled was around 18.7km and took us 1h 22m… but that did include a couple of stops to check directions and a bit of a back track when I got it wrong. We eventually got to 5 Mile Bridge…

The MiRider bikes are really outstanding bits of kit!

… and turned left to cycle the remaining 5 miles into Lincoln. Sue was rather pleased with her performance as it was the first long ride since being diagnosed with a heart condition. The Water Rail Way was a wide tarmac track that generally was in a good state of repair and easy to ride. The total climb for the trips was only around 20 metres. On the stretch into Lincoln however, there is no where to stop for refreshments…. so pack water, and if it is a hot day make sure you have enough for the whole trip.

The section into Lincoln gats a bit confusing as you approach and it’s handy if you have had a look at the map and got a bit of an idea where to go as it involves going through a car park and crossing over a rather humpy bridge…. well it does the way we went.

We found somewhere to sit outside and have coffee and as a treat, squishes before heading back. No, we didn’t tackle “Steep Hill” (I challenge anyone to tackle Steep Hill and not say part way up “Bloody Hell this is steep”) on this trip, however we decided we will be back and I think I have found an easier cycling route from the site to the Water Rail Way that reduces the distance by about 7km in each direction. The total cycling for the day was 36.1 km or 22.4 miles.

Wednesday was a bit of a relax (read: a bit tender) so we only managed a cycle round the grounds of Hanworth Country Park and a strawberry cornetto from the cafe…

We Interrupt You Scheduled Programming with some Breaking News…

I know you have only been reading down to this point to find out what the breaking news is…. so here goes….

We are selling our caravan! Yep it’s as good as sold all bar the paperwork… is that someone cheering I can hear….. Graham is that you… the Caravan Vlogger…. I guessed as much.

Yep soon it will be off to a new owner to hopefully allow them to enjoy caravanning as much as we have done over the last 12 years. Are we giving up caravanning… ah that is the question. Lets just say the day after we came back from Hanworth Country Park we headed over to North Wales…. to Rhuallt to be exact to see George and Simon….. and see the next stage in our adventures.

That’s it for now.

Bet you can’t wait for the next blog post.

Or are you going to have a guess in the comments?

PS…. someone asked for more Henry….

10 Days, Two Awesome Sites and Breaking News…

10 Saturday Jun 2023

Posted by Simon Barlow in Cherry Tree Springs, General, Lincoln, Locations, MiRider, Sutton-on-Sea

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Cherry Tree Springs, Sutton-on-Sea

We have just got back from a ten day trip to two awesome sites. The first part of our ten day outing was back to Sutton-on-Sea on the east coast, located half way between Mablethorpe and Skegness. The weather on the east coast was not playing ball and we had some grey skies while the west enjoyed some glorious sunshine. Coming from Manchester it’s always a bit of a downer when the weather is better at home than where you are.

Sutton-on-Sea

After looking at prices for the C & M club site for serviced pitches…30th May to 3 June it came in at a whopping £231.00 ! So a quick search via the usual web sites came up with Cherry Tree Springs, for the same period on a serviced pitch came in at £147.50 a big saving of £83.50.

Cherry Tree Springs is a quiet site, only about half a mile from the C & M club site and Sutton-on-Sea is just as easily accessible. The staff are super friendly and the grounds people were always happy to stop for a brief chat and help out with local questions and advice on best places.

The facilities block was spotless and cleaning was at a sensible time too (yep been caught out on leaving day… just when the block was closed for cleaning!) The pitches were good firm hard standing and level. Th access roads were a tad narrow but we have been on a lot narrower sites.

I think that Cherry Tree Springs is one of those sites you don’t really want to tell people about when you discover it… you want to keep it all for yourself… so please don’t tell anyone else. We don’t want it booked up when we go back in autumn.

There is also a great dog walk that is off road and takes you right down to the beach in about 15 minutes. Ask at reception for a map.

We cycled up to Mablethorpe for morning coffee each day it was a round trip of about an hour on our MiRider e-bikes and really didn’t need any battery assist… apart from one day when it was a good 20 knot headwind heading into Mablethorp. A couple of times we had a cycle round either Sutton or Mablethorpe for an explore.

I’ve zoomed in a bit so you can see the route we took out of Cherry Tree Springs to get to the beach front. If you head right out of the site onto Huttoft Road, you are only on it for about 300 yards, then right turn into Bluestone Way follow that to the end on you will see a passage between two houses that takes you through to Walkington Way and some immaculate bungalows. At the end turn left onto Roman Bank and another 200 yards you will see a steep ramp curving round up to your right. Ride up this and you are on the “prom” with all the beach huts. Keep peddling north for Sutton and Mablethorpe

Saturday Night…. Film and Pizza Night!

Our Saturday nights are always film and pizza nights and have been for quite a few years. After having a mooch on line for a suitable purveyor of round Italian delight, we came up blank. Well there were quite a few but the reviews were… well we wouldn’t be ordering.

Helpful staff to the rescue… I asked in reception if they could recommend anywhere for pizza… (up to this point it looked like I would be driving to Pizza Hut in Skegness) The young lady came up trumps and gave a local company called “Pizza Square” (21 Hight Street, Sutton-on-Sea) a huge recommendation. I’d seen the reviews for a company at the same address that were really bad, however there had been a change of ownership and a new name and a growing reputation for providing excellent pizzas.

Square Pizzas…. best thing since sliced bread!

OK, here is the thing… pizzas are round, yep everyone agrees with that. BUT you are missing the four corners which if you think about it a 12 inch round pizza is actually missing a lot of real estate when you cut the corners off over a 12 inch square pizza. We ordered two 12 inch pizzas…. and we had slices left for the following day… and a couple the day after as well. Just glad we didn’t order a garlic bread (yep 12 inch square again) to go with it. It was delivered within 25 min right to the site and the friendly driver even had change which is unusual as in Manchester like many other cities, they don’t carry cash anymore.

Of course, pizza… or any food really is only as good as the last person to order it thinks. I would however say, check with the staff where ever you are staying and if they say it’s OK, then all you can do is give it a try. If it’s not up to scratch, let the staff know where you are staying and maybe the next person to ask them for recommendations might be directed somewhere else. For us though, Square Pizza gets our thumbs up. Ask in reception… they have some menus!

Sunday arrived and it was time to move on. Just before we left some friends who live in the Isle of Wight were actually up in Edinburgh and travelling back home via Lincoln as they were attending an IFFR (International Fellowship of Flying Rotarians) get-together and staying at the Petwood Hotel, which was 617 Dambusters Officers Mess during the war. We arranged to meet up with them while they were there and found a great site nearby… Hanworth Country Park located between Lincoln and Woodhall Spa.

But I guess that is for part two… along with the breaking news!

End of Year Catch Up…

28 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by Simon Barlow in Amarok, Blog updates, Christmas Markets, Durham, Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Accessories, Durham, holidays, Jorvik, National Railway Museum, Touring, travel, York

Wow… it’s been quite a while since our last posting, and many thanks to all those of you who have emailed asking if we are OK. We are both fine, thanks.

Back in October we were due to go to the Caravan & Motorhome show and we had booked in to the campsite at the NEC for 4 days. However, the day before, we actually wondered why we were going. Plenty of other bloggers and video bloggers would be going and posting on YouTube. I guess the plethora of video bloggers filming each other meeting other video bloggers wasn’t what we were about…. so we went to the C & M Club site at Southport instead.

The weather played ball and we had a great few days in the October sunshine getting some cycling and walking in. This was also a bit of a try out for the bike rack on the Amarok and a change in how we pack. Although I’d done a couple of check-runs to make sure everything was stable with the bikes, this was the first real run with the caravan in tow and I’m pleased to report that the rack was stable and didn’t affect the towing in any way.

The bikes were fairly easy to load and unload thanks to the drop down step I’d previously fitted to the rear of the Amarok and all things considered, I think we will now be taking the bikes on more trips. The other change was to how we pack. We now have ‘pre-loaded’ more of the items we take away with us and this makes things a lot easier having a stacking system with boxes for specific things. We are lucky that I have a “bat cave” at home. It’s a workshop really that allows us to store our packing boxes (check out the Really Useful Storage Box Company ) and get them stocked up ready for the next trip over a period of time. It now takes about 10 minutes to load the Amarok and all thats left is to load the clothes.

The other bit of kit that we are long-term testing is the Sterling Power Wildside unit. I’ve written a couple of things in the past about this unit and so far the only thing I can really add is that it has exceeded my expectations of its performance. After not using the caravan for a couple of months and having a parasitic current draw from the alarm (the small charging circuit and 12 volt battery in the alarm has failed yet again!) by the time we had towed from Manchester to Southport our battery was fully charged and the fridge was cold as expected.

Christmas Markets…

Many of you will know in December we like to kick off the festive season with a Christmas Market or two. For the past couple of years we had gone down to Birmingham but this year we fancied trying something different. We booked a couple of sites to give us the chance to try somewhere different.

The first was Durham Grange C & M Club site just off the A1M. This would put us very close to Beamish Museum and Durham. Although Durham Grange is really close to the A1M Junction 62 you can’t really hear the traffic and is a great little site. The general site and facilities were up to standard and the wardens very helpful.

We were on a fully serviced pitch and my standard ‘kit’ of parts allowed connection to the grey water drain without any head scratching.

Again we were lucky with the weather, mainly dry but turning much colder. Beamish is only about a 20 minute drive away and it meant that we could have a full day at the museum without having a silly o’clock morning start. If you have never visited Beamish, I would recommend you put it on your “must do” list, especially if you have children/grand children. One thing you must do while there… go and see the dentist and have a chat and then visit the fish and chip shop with the coal-fired frying range. Standing outside smelling fish and chips frying mixed with the smell of coal fires really takes me back to my early childhood.

Durham Grange is also a great base for a trip into Durham. The Cathedral and Castle are worth a visit and there are plenty of shops to explore in the tiny streets in the city centre. Getting into the centre from the caravan site is easy. On the other side of the A1M to the site is a park and ride that takes you right into the city centre. However a word of caution….. if you walk you have to cross two-three lane slip roads to the A1M and it’s busy even out of peak periods. Trying to walk back to the site in rush hour has to be avoided. We got the park and ride bus in but decided that it would be safer getting a taxi back. In summer however, if you ask the wardens they have a map with the details of a riverside walk into the town centre.

Three days at Durham Grange really didn’t give us chance to explore further, it has been added to the long list of “must go back so we can see….” collection.

Next stop…. York

York has to be on everyone’s list of favourite cities. We had chosen a Tranquil Touring site – York Caravan Park for the second part of our festive tour. Despite the weather forecast of strong winds for the next 24 hours and an increasing chance of light snow the further south we got, the drive down from Durham was an easy tow and the sat nav directed us round Yorks outer ring roads. The only real traffic we saw was around the ring road. As York is a bit of a no go for visiting by car the ring road and feeder roads to the various park and ride points can be a bit congested, but a bit of patience and we were only around 15 minutes late based on what our sat-nav had predicted when setting off. The temperature by now was also dropping and hadn’t risen above four degrees for the whole journey.

York Caravan park is only a couple of miles outside York and right outside is a convenient bus stop with a bus that will whisk you right into the centre in about ten minutes. It had been several years since we had both been to York and one of the stops Sue wanted to do was Jorvik viking centre. The bus dropped us off and we headed in the general direction of Jorvik through all the Christmas Market stalls. At one end of the market was a large teepee that had a log fire burning in the centre and a bar serving all manner of festive spirits. While Sue opted for Mulled Wine, I decided on a mug of hot chocolate with Baileys… well it was only three degrees with a bit of a wind chill.

We really enjoyed Jorvik and it seemed bigger than we remembered it… which I don’t think it was unless they dug a bit more up. Unusually I didn’t see a restriction on taking photos… so I managed to sneak a few… without flash of course (just in case… and I hope I’m not in breach of copyright!).

While mooching round the shops we came across The Cat Gallery (45 Low Petergate) and couldn’t resist a visit…. emerging with a rather fitting mug for Sue “…everything tastes better with cat hair in it”. We headed back towards the station to catch the bus back to the site. As it was Sue’s birthday today, a bit of a tradition to mark the start of our Christmas is the annual viewing of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Nothing better than sitting in a toasty caravan with frost forming outside, a satisfied fullness from an enjoyable meal and a couple of drinks watching a favourite movie.

National Railway Museum…

A visit to York cannot be called complete without a visit to the NRM. The cold weather had now really arrived and far to our west in the Pennine hills snow was forecast. We however had a cloudy but bright frosty morning.

We caught the bus again and this time stayed on all the way to the railway station. You can cut through the station over the foot bridge to the railway museum.. which if it’s raining can be handy. Over the past few years we have done quite a few railway trips on heritage lines and visited a few of the museums but the last time we were here was 32 years ago. A lot of the exhibits had changed of course and the site has expanded.

By mid morning we were part way round it was time of a coffee and we stopped by The Dining Car Restaurant and Sue tried out one of their speciality teas with a sausage sandwich and I can say their coffee was up-to-standard and so was their bacon sandwich. A huge improvement on the old BR offerings!

One of the things that I personally think is a “must see” at the museum if you have any interest in railways is hidden round the back of the Flying Scotsman in the store-room. The museum has opened up its stores so you can wander the shelves and see some of their collection that they haven’t got room to put on display and in here you will find the layout used to train signalmen. Each day (check timings) a number of retired signalmen put on a live demonstration on the layout of how signaling works and that is followed up by what can only be described as a re-enactment of a rail disaster. The one we watched saw 7 signalmen going through the sequence of events and demonstrating on the layout with running trains what happened. Very thought-provoking. It’s a must see but please check the timings so you don’t miss it.

It seems that these breaks are over all too soon. The temperature was hovering around one degree and the water hose had frozen overnight as we started to pack up. Snow was forecast later that day and the Pennines had already had an inch or two of snow and it was falling over the M62 west of the Pennines for the run back to Manchester. Thankfully towing our caravan with the Amarok is quite easy and we have a towing ratio of about 65% which really makes things easy and stress free in difficult weather conditions.

The snow wasn’t too bad and not as much as was forecast and we arrived back at the storage facility at the time the sat nav predicted when setting off. Last trip of 2017 done and planning for 2018 can commence.

Some other bits…

As I write this Caravan Chronicles this year has had over 7.8 million page hits – around 14.5 million since I started the blog (I’m still amazed!). This year has basically doubled the number of the previous years total. A lot of this is due in part to links from other blogs and forums, to some of the technical pages. I did look at some of the links into the site and saw that how to connect batteries for example were linked to off grid housing forums, boating, canal boat, sailing, RV, eco and everything in-between. I now find that I receive emails containing questions from all over the world about all sorts of subjects. How many emails?…. well this year it’s been over a thousand that I’ve answered. As a consequence it now takes me a bit longer to respond.

I have found out though that folks that follow links to Caravan Chronicles from some forum or other that they don’t really know about Caravan Chronicles and simply assume that there is a highly paid team in the background answering questions and have a specialised knowledge of their particular field of enquiry and get quite upset when I tell them I haven’t a clue about the house batteries on a Fairhaven 32 foot motor launch and how they are connected (totally made up question of course).

I remember the late (and great) John Wickersham once telling me “Once you have answered a question in print that will be your life”.

The other question that pops up now and again are about ‘merch’ as the Americans refer to it. Do I have a shop with stickers, mugs branded paraphernalia etc. Nope, nada. So far I have resisted the temptation to commercialise, product place or have adverts on the blog. I don’t really want to go that route.

I do however do the occasional review of products that manufacturers send me and try to attempt to be as honest as I can with what I write. I do also work with a couple of manufacturers on products that they are developing or ideas that they have but these don’t get written about.

What’s happening in Caravan Chronicles in 2018…

Well there will be some trips of course and we will be visiting our “local” caravan show at Event City in January.

We are in two minds whether to get a new caravan… we would like a twin axle, twin bed, mid bathroom layout, but we keep thinking there is nothing wrong with the one we have… decision decisions!

There are a few things that are going to be changing on the blog. I have been procrastinating on starting a searchable Q & A page. I’m not sure if this is possible in a WordPress blog and it might mean having to change how the site is hosted. I also want to link up to an interactive travel map. I’m still researching this one though. I’ve also been thinking about the blog’s style and look…. it’s over five years old now and does it need an update?

Towing covers….

OK, so now I have a question for you….. I’m a bit undecided about getting a towing cover. They seem to be gaining popularity and after our trip, the front of the caravan could have done with some protection from all the road salt and grime thrown up. As we have never had a cover of any sorts, I’m looking for a bit of feedback on features to look out for and things to avoid. I’d be grateful for any pointers.

Sue and I hope you have a very Happy New Year and safe travels in 2018.

PS… as I sometimes do, a few arty photos…. (proper engineering in monochrome!)

About 12 months ago I ditched using Adobe Photoshop which had been my go-to photo editor for over 10 years in favour of the free Polarr Photo Editor… which I do like for it’s speed and ease of use. I’ve been playing about trying to reproduce the varoius classic postcard looks from the turn of the 19th centtury and mid 20th century…