Summer season drawing to a close

[saint-spoon]

It is with a twinge of sadness that this weekend’s expedition will probably mark the end of the summer season for us, and with it weekends away in the New Forest’s semi-wild offline camping sites. Over the course of the year the kids have enjoyed these the most, they have met new friends each and every time, they have ran around unfettered and pretty much enjoyed every aspect apart from the hikes into town which are apparently boring and make their legs hurt (oh well never mind). Sadly, but for good reason most of the sites that we frequent over the summer close at the end of September.
On the plus side there is always the winter season to look forward to…

 

[Raywood]

We have used the caravan a bit less this year due to one of our daughters having had twins rather thoughtlessly in the middle of Summer and needing lots of help. We did have to cancel one trip but have booked to be away this weekend and another for October so not done yet.

 

[saint-spoon]

How blinking inconsiderate of her … and congratulations of course Ray. We have this weekend and nothing yet planned until the end of October when we are away for half term, then a couple in November and I expect that as per normal December will be a bit quiet due to Decembery things that happen. Straight back into it for January though and looking forward to Mid-March when the Forest Sites reopen for the spring and summer months.

 

[Dustydog]

Glad you are enjoying all year round pitching.
When we worked the Weekends away were a real bonus especially if a Monday meeting was near the site. Cheaper than a hotel. The boss didn't mind.
Also sites within half an hour of home were targeted. Amazing what you discover just down the road

 

[Raywood]

How blinking inconsiderate of her … and congratulations of course Ray. We have this weekend and nothing yet planned until the end of October when we are away for half term, then a couple in November and I expect that as per normal December will be a bit quiet due to Decembery things that happen. Straight back into it for January though and looking forward to Mid-March when the Forest Sites reopen for the spring and summer months.[/quote

Thanks, real problem is I get withdrawal symptons. Have to go and sit in it and pretend I am doing something useful.

 

[cluker11]

As the summer season ends the autumn and then the winter seasons begin.

Apart from January we usually caravan at least for one trip during every month though only usually begin touring late in February.

I guess we are fortunate being retired.

We make maximum use of our caravan and have done about 76 nights this year to date.

Being retired we are careful with the pennies and rarely use commercial sites when in the UK.

Having only last week returned from 8 nights away in Northumbria/N yorks we have no future trips planned as yet.

But my feet are already itching - and it wont be long.

A solar panel and THS's are the mainstay of our UK trips and at ( usually ) less than £12 PUN they enable us to go away often without breaking the bank.

We occasionally use commercial sites too but only if no THS's or rallies in the area we want to visit.

On the continent this year for 5 weeks we used rallies on commercial sites with EHU and at less than £15 PUN.

Some UK sites really take the Mickey with site fees - we don't use them.

Others in a similar position to us should research alternatives if they don't want all singing, all dancing sites.

It need not be an expensive hobby.

Colin

 

[saint-spoon]

I have got to agree about the solar panels, worth their weight in gold as far as I can see when it comes to off line camping. We don't take a telly with us so power usage is pretty much down to what the fridge and other equipment control circuits use, water and toilet flush and lighting (which is all swapped for LED lamps) so not a great deal of usage even if the Long Haired Admiral does have her mobile phone constantly on charge.

Over the winter months we tend to opt for ELU pitches just because the heating tends to be on a lot more and the Females of the spoon-clan can use a hair drier.

I do like to think that we choose the sites at which we stay on more than just the price but I must confess that the costing can and does sway our choices.

 

[cluker11]

I have got to agree about the solar panels, worth their weight in gold as far as I can see when it comes to off line camping. We don't take a telly with us so power usage is pretty much down to what the fridge and other equipment control circuits use, water and toilet flush and lighting (which is all swapped for LED lamps) so not a great deal of usage even if the Long Haired Admiral does have her mobile phone constantly on charge.

Over the winter months we tend to opt for ELU pitches just because the heating tends to be on a lot more and the Females of the spoon-clan can use a hair drier.

I do like to think that we choose the sites at which we stay on more than just the price but I must confess that the costing can and does sway our choices.

We don't usually need to skimp on power consumption from the battery when we go off grid with solar.

We use TV most nights for probably 2 - 3 hours.

My Mrs also washes her hair every day and uses a 600W low power hair drier powered from our on board invertor - only takes her 5 minutes, short hair.

I don't use the invertor at other times - I installed a 12 to 19V 35W power convertor to charge & power laptop.

When I installed solar I also did a complete internal ( & awning ) light conversion to LED.

When I bought the 80W solar kit in about 2012/3 it cost me about £120 complete ( fitted myself ) and that year we went to Devon and Cornwall for a month on a few THS's near to main resorts with no EHU.

In the previous year we did D & C for 3 weeks on commercial sites at sometimes £27 PUN.

The savings by using THS's and solar meant that the solar kit had paid for itself within 3 weeks of that 4 week t trip.

We use solar outside the main summer periods too - we ( I ) have to be more careful then but the battery still charges and the Mrs still uses her hair drier every morning.

I watch the power monitor I installed more carefully then - sometimes we have to use TV for shorter periods.

I have an 85 AH leisure battery with the option of an additional 85 AH on board battery which I usually only take with us during non summer months..
Don't need it at other times.
We also have a motor mover.

There has been the odd occasion on prolonged dull non summer days when I've said we need to preserve power during the later evening - but not that often.

On average I would say solar saves us about £10 PUN and often more when we use THS's compared to commercial sites.

And, as I said previously, all singing all dancing family sites ( with kids & possibly noise ) are not for us anyway.

We rarely go short of much when on solar.

Colin

 

[saint-spoon]

We chose not to have a telly because if we had one then the kids would want to sit and watch it all day. No loss to me to be honest, there is always the radio and we both enjoy reading (as do the two girls to be honest), there’s board games and so on so plenty of entertainment to be had. Our choice of site does tend to revolve around making sure that the children have fun and have other children of similar age to play with, as such we found over the past year that the CC sites are just too sterile and regimented for our liking and will be avoiding them completely over next summer. The places we have found to suit us the most are the open plan Forest sites without EHU where there is a mixture of tents and caravans because this is where the children have the most fun and this is where the solar panels come in handy.