We have just completed our first outing, around 1000mile round trip from Cheshire to the Vendée via Portsmouth. With 6 up in the car pulling our new (to us) first caravan, a Stirling Eccles Sport 586, the cars data tells us that we averaged 50MPH and got 27MPG , which given its 90% motorways/ dual carriageways I was quite pleased with.
First rookie error was arriving at the site where we had a fully serviced pitch, then positioning the van so we made the best use of sun & shade, without any regard to where the services were situated! Fortunately the electric hook up reached, however our water hose was 7m short as was the grey waste piping, had we turned the van 90° everything would have reached, unfortunately by the time I realised this , the awning and gazebo was up other things were unpacked , it was a boiling day late in the afternoon, I’d have been really unpopular had I suggested the move, especially as we could simply set the aqua roll and grey waste tank up.
Second error and comedy moment, the following day I drove to the nearest Brico store to get a longer water hose to enable us to then use the float valve in the Aqua roll, most of the hoses in the Brico were over 20M long, there was one that was just 10M and at only €10, I thought that together with a pipe connector that would do the job. Got it back to site, plumbed it all in, turned the water on……Aqua roll was not filling up
however the entire length of the new pipe was covered in water droplets? It then dawned on me, I had bought a porous water pipe, designed to sit under hedges or along borders to provide water, Doh! .........2nd trip to the Brico return with the right hose and job sorted 😊
3rd error, "gas and regulators”. Probably like a lot of you, we’d rather cook outside , we bought a Campingaz Party Grill 600. My belt and braces approach for the gas; I had 2 full 6kg bottles of Calor, and a new full 907 cylinder of Campingaz to use as an overseas emergency supply. I’d bought a tail for the Campingaz so that it can be used for the van supply, a standalone Campingaz regulator and an external gas socket to enable the BBQ to run off the van Calor, unfortunately I didn’t have time to fit it the external socket prior to our trip…setting the BBQ up I pulled the “spare” Calor cylinder out to use for the BBQ, of course what I didn’t have was a standalone propane regulator ☹, no problem I thought , as I seen all sorts of gas fitting at the Brico when I bought the hose. So back to the Brico….Now in the UK we use bullnose POL fittings for Propane, in France they don’t! really annoying as I have several of these fitting in the UK! So we had to use the Campingaz 907 to fuel the BBQ, annoying as the 907 refill was £48, 4x the cost of Calor Propane! Over the 2 weeks we emptied the 907 cylinder, having use almost zero Calor! On a positive note the refill of the 907 was only €27 at the Super U Brico in France, half the price of the UK, I also got a couple of 901 cylinders exchanged as we use for some old lamps, again about half the UK cost.
One thing that I was really pleased with was the Kampa Air 390 pro awning. Because of the really wet weather we had in the UK prior to us going away, we didn’t get a chance to check it out or have a trial setup, I went armed with stuff to repair the bladders, fortunately not required. What a simple piece of kit the 390 awning is to set up 😊 first effort we had the thing up in about 10 mins, my daughter did most of the work, taking it down was probably a similar amount of time, I did clean and dry lubricate the awning channel, we had an awning pully that made light work of everything.
We had a great time ,every day is a school day we learned a lot from our first trip and no doubt will keep on learning, looking forward to the next trip.
First rookie error was arriving at the site where we had a fully serviced pitch, then positioning the van so we made the best use of sun & shade, without any regard to where the services were situated! Fortunately the electric hook up reached, however our water hose was 7m short as was the grey waste piping, had we turned the van 90° everything would have reached, unfortunately by the time I realised this , the awning and gazebo was up other things were unpacked , it was a boiling day late in the afternoon, I’d have been really unpopular had I suggested the move, especially as we could simply set the aqua roll and grey waste tank up.
Second error and comedy moment, the following day I drove to the nearest Brico store to get a longer water hose to enable us to then use the float valve in the Aqua roll, most of the hoses in the Brico were over 20M long, there was one that was just 10M and at only €10, I thought that together with a pipe connector that would do the job. Got it back to site, plumbed it all in, turned the water on……Aqua roll was not filling up
however the entire length of the new pipe was covered in water droplets? It then dawned on me, I had bought a porous water pipe, designed to sit under hedges or along borders to provide water, Doh! .........2nd trip to the Brico return with the right hose and job sorted 😊3rd error, "gas and regulators”. Probably like a lot of you, we’d rather cook outside , we bought a Campingaz Party Grill 600. My belt and braces approach for the gas; I had 2 full 6kg bottles of Calor, and a new full 907 cylinder of Campingaz to use as an overseas emergency supply. I’d bought a tail for the Campingaz so that it can be used for the van supply, a standalone Campingaz regulator and an external gas socket to enable the BBQ to run off the van Calor, unfortunately I didn’t have time to fit it the external socket prior to our trip…setting the BBQ up I pulled the “spare” Calor cylinder out to use for the BBQ, of course what I didn’t have was a standalone propane regulator ☹, no problem I thought , as I seen all sorts of gas fitting at the Brico when I bought the hose. So back to the Brico….Now in the UK we use bullnose POL fittings for Propane, in France they don’t! really annoying as I have several of these fitting in the UK! So we had to use the Campingaz 907 to fuel the BBQ, annoying as the 907 refill was £48, 4x the cost of Calor Propane! Over the 2 weeks we emptied the 907 cylinder, having use almost zero Calor! On a positive note the refill of the 907 was only €27 at the Super U Brico in France, half the price of the UK, I also got a couple of 901 cylinders exchanged as we use for some old lamps, again about half the UK cost.
One thing that I was really pleased with was the Kampa Air 390 pro awning. Because of the really wet weather we had in the UK prior to us going away, we didn’t get a chance to check it out or have a trial setup, I went armed with stuff to repair the bladders, fortunately not required. What a simple piece of kit the 390 awning is to set up 😊 first effort we had the thing up in about 10 mins, my daughter did most of the work, taking it down was probably a similar amount of time, I did clean and dry lubricate the awning channel, we had an awning pully that made light work of everything.
We had a great time ,every day is a school day we learned a lot from our first trip and no doubt will keep on learning, looking forward to the next trip.
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