As you have seen from previous pictures my touring van is not a super modern version, but rather a very well looked after ‘classic’ style tourer, it lacks the most modern sophistications, but I have most of the essentials if I need them such as toilet, shower and washing facilities, Hot & Cold pumped water, kitchen area with gas hob and grill, sink & drainer. It has a small fridge that can work off 12V, 240V or Gas, I have 12V and 240 V lights and power socket outlets to run my TV set, toaster, kettle, microwave cooker, electric fan etc. So although not thoroughly modern it does have most of what we need to get by with and I can either hook up to an external 240V supply or run everything off my 12V leisure battery and bottled LPG gas if ‘wild camping’. I keep it at home and I usually have some project or another on the go to improve things or to make life more comfortable, so it is more a labour of love, I could if I wished buy a brand new one, but like owning a classic car it gets lots of comments and to be honest I do not want a new one, this van owes me nothing, it has paid me back already and every trip out is a free bonus plus with it not being ‘brand new’ I am not afraid to make physical changes or additions to it like the bed and mattress cushion mod I did a few weeks ago.
Depending upon the duration I either take a full awning with me that when erected gives me a huge additional outside covered area that is fairly weatherproof. It has zip doors, windows, curtains, a breathable groundsheet and then interlocking soft neoprene mats to give the floor a cosy feel, add a table and a camping chair and you have everything you need, it could easily accommodate two double air-beds if you had visitors staying with you. I recently added an external 240V power outlet that can be used with this awning if required or cooking Al Fresco. Obviously these things take me a few hours to set up although the caravan is fairly quick and easy to do as it has a ‘motor mover’ fitted to the two road wheels and once engaged and the towing hitch disconnected from my car I can drive it about using a remote control, a bit like a child with a remote control toy. It is so accurate to use that I can stand behind my car and drive the caravan tow hitch exactly over the cars tow ball and then simply lower it to engage the two parts together with little or no effort from me. The awning however can take me a couple of hours as it is hard work pulling the beading around the groove to attach the roof section to the caravan, then being on my own I have to struggle a bit to get all the internal poles in place whilst trying to keep things upright, it is hard work but I now have it down to a fine art. For that reason I would hesitate to put it up for anything less than a full week or so. The other option I have is a sun awning which is basically a ‘fly sheet’ with braced poles. This also attaches at the top to the awning rail and is then held up by a couple of poles and guide ropes, I still usually put down the breathable ground sheet to make things more comfy, I even plant a couple of those LED lights around to stop people tripping over the ropes. To make it more private and pleasant I will put up a very lightweight windbreak, these are not your heavy canvas seaside ones and will only stay upright if properly tied down with guide ropes.
We were the only ones there so had the place to ourselves so I chose to set up in the top field that was well away from the road which was nice as Annie had more freedom to wander around outside without me worrying too much about her safety. So on this trip I opted for the sun awning and windbreak as those only take about 30 minutes to sort out, so I picked a nice spot under an Oak tree and set up our camp as it gave me a nice view across the fields.
The beach was not far away, maybe a ½ mile stroll down through the fields. So there we were all set up by the late afternoon and we went for a short local drive to get my bearings, each side road down to the beach was excruciatingly narrow and I found myself in some very tight situations and barely able to turn the car around at the end. Most of these roads led to static caravan sites and due to controlled access for security and it was impossible to park up anywhere, so I decided that we would call it a day and in the morning we would just walk through the fields to the beach.
We settled in for the night and I broke out a bottle of Merlot and put my feet up after a long tiring day. During the night the weather broke and storm ‘Hector’ blew in, it blew in more ways than one, rain lashed the caravan and rocked us from side to side, the branches above us our heads creaked and groaned as the racket outside grew louder Annie would leap off the bed barking at the world. I settled her down and had visions of everything flying away over the fields, but I was in no frame of mind to go out in a storm to try to dismantle it all, it would just have to take its chances. I peered out in the morning to see everything strewn about, poles, ropes, tent pegs just about restraining it all from blowing away. The sun canopy was wrapped over the caravan roof and the windbreak like a streamer in the grass fortunately held down by the overturned table, despite this nothing was actually damaged or lost, an interesting start to our short break
