Not that I'm obsessed with chronology or anything, but this being a
Motorhome Blog about a
newbie tourer, and the hope being that we
get better at this touring malarky as times goes on, it might well be pointing out that this blog documents our second outing in our 'van. To read about the first, click here:
Tales of a Newbie Tourer Part 1.
Sitting in the back of our Knaus Sports Traveller on our inaugural trip, I admit that I am unlikely to ever sit in the front passenger seat, judging from the crackling excitement of our 5 year old son sat alongside his Dad up front. He’s already worked out that if he waves frantically at other motorhome drivers coming in the opposite direction, then he’s likely to get an affirmative response be that an austere nod, the nonchalant lift of an index finger or a reflection of his beaming grin in return.
We’re off to Wales for the Easter weekend, to Pembrokeshire, an area that we know and love well. There’s a fair wind blowing as we leave Devon and head up the M5 towards the bridge into Wales, but the forecast looks promising and everyone is smiling. We’ve set off after work on a Friday night, a little naively perhaps; heading up to Wales in a car after work is something we often do but fairly shortly it becomes apparent that we haven’t accounted for the additional time it will take to transport this over-sized ice-cube 200 miles into a head wind. We make a call to the campsite owners to tell them we will be arriving late – no worries, we’re told, there are three grass standing electric hook-up pitches on the left as you enter the camping field and 3 more further down the field; all are available. 10 to midnight sees us winding the final miles lanes towards the village of Marloes on the Western-most tip of St Brides Bay, a little freaked out by the narrowness of the lanes which seem to have sucked themselves in even further now that we are driving a wider vehicle. A fleeting glimpse of a hovering barn owl hunting along the bank ahead of us and we have arrived: Foxdale Campsite.
Now, this is where I try hard to wrench my account of our inaugural trip from the clutches of ‘The Cautionary Tale’. In hindsight, asking direct questions of the campsite owner prior to arrival about where we should and shouldn’t drive in order to get to the electric hook ups would have been sensible and it is certainly something that we will ask direct questions about in future. Of course, we should also have realised that a grassy field in early April is likely to be a little moist under-tyre. At least we have the sense to realise we are stuck in the mud and avoid the excessive wheel spinning that will wake campers and dig us further into the mulch. With a great deal of muttering, we pull down the blinds and the overhead cab, make up the double bed and wriggle exhausted into our sleeping bags.
It turns out that feeling a bit daft and more than a tad sheepish is going to be something we will have to get used to as newbie motorhomers…mistakes will be made and, for the most part, people will be kind about them. The tractor which towed us out of the muddy middle of this particular campsite, safely to our pitch, had already arrived from a nearby farm by 9am and, by all accounts, this was a fairly regular occurrence. You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last… a useful mantra, we decide.
Within the hour it’s as though our troubles of the night before never happened. We’ve hooked up to the electric, have cooked up a breakfast storm on the ‘van’s gas hob; our son has made two ‘best friends’ from the family camping opposite and the sun is throwing shafts of that golden light so characteristic of the West Wales coastline through dispersing clouds.
Marloes is a great based from which to explore this stretch of the Pembs coastline. Marloes Sands lies a short drive or walk from the village, a series of connected coves with golden sand, giant rocky outcrops and fabulous rockpools. Watch out for the blennies – they nip! At low tide, nearby Musselwick Sands is a delight. Just a short, pleasant walk down from the road through fields towards the coast, this is a vast sandy beach surrounded by towering cliffs with plenty of space for the few handfuls of sun-seekers who make it over the rocks from the footpath. The village of Marloes itself is a pretty cluster of houses and cottages, with a village shop for provisions, a couple of cafes and a friendly pub. Fabulous fish and Chips are served from Foxdale Campsite itself every Friday and Saturday night…what more could you want?
So, plenty of learning for me once again on our second outing.
It’s not that I’m a naturally impractical person – I will have a go at most things if I have to – more that over the years of being married to a somewhat proud man, I’ve allowed him to take the lead in learning about the more technical aspects of how to make things work in our lives. Determined, though, that I’m not going to end up only a passenger on our touring holidays together, I started as I mean to go on and learnt a few of the technicalities of touring on this, our first inaugural trip.
1. Hookup – it’s easy! Simply make sure that you park your 'van in a positoin to be able to reach the plug
(and it's fine to get out and look at these things before deciding how to park, we've decided!)Thankfully we had paid the extra for a
25 metre Electric Hook Up Mains Lead, which made reaching the side of the van from the hookup under the bushes at the back of the pitch a great deal easier.
2. Chemical Disposal. Hmmm.
It's fair to say that we didn't fight over this particular job! Slightly more technical – and a tad messier than I'd imagined.
Adding to my newbie motorhome tips: if you are on the lighter, less muscley side like me, I found the 'full' tank to be really rather heavy, ours not being on wheels. In future, if I was touring on my own, having a trolley or emptying it more often might be in order. Of course, having a range of
Caravan and MotorhomeToilet Chemicals to hand was
essential.
