19th April 2009

We stopped at a caravan accessory store near Southampton to try and get a small travel BBQ and a hose, but they had neither.  I did get a head cushion for our garden chair that didn’t have one (we lost it somewhere).  I told a fib and got it free – how naughty!  We also got some more toilet blue so we have enough to last us now.  We aren’t sure if they have it in France and in any case we don’t know where the camping shops are.  We drove on to Premier Motorhomes in Chichester to see if we could get the BBQ there but no joy, so we drove on to Sandy & Tony’s house.

We opened all the mail we’d had re-directed for the duration of our trip – thankfully there wasn’t much. No final bills for electric and gas yet so I emailed them, paid the water bill and then we left for Dover.  We’ll be taking the Eurotunnel to France tomorrow.  Oooh!

As we neared the campsite in Folkestone, we saw a caravan dealer so we stopped to see if by some chance they might have a small BBQ.  Well would you believe it they did. We also bought some spare gas canisters for it.  We then arrived at the last British campsite we’ll see for a while - Black Horse Farm Caravan Club site - and checked in.

The showers were the best we’d used so far, powerful water, proper cubicles, a place to put your things out of the spray, and a place to dry yourself, so no plodding back to the van with wet feet.  We’ve decided that this is the worst aspect of the showers, walking backwards and forwards with wet feet.  I hate my feet being wet and trying to get dressed – yuck!
***

The end of our Mini Tour of the UK

Miles travelled: 700 miles in 14 days

And so that’s the end of our shakedown tour.  We’ve learned a lot and bought a lot of extra things, but tried to stick to those items that we really need as opposed to things we thought we needed.  The van has run very well, no problems, fuel consumption around 25 m.p.g and no oil used.  It’s been comfortable to travel and sleep in and we’ve had a great view as we are high up.  We’re looking forward to the next phase.

Problems encountered:-

• Paul left our bottle of toilet blue on the ground after filling up the chemical loo at the Crossways campsite in Dorset. By the time we realised and went back some git had nicked it.
• In Riverside at Plymouth he left the water cap on a wall after filling up the tank but luckily we got that back. 
• I got the blade stuck on the chemical loo and Paul got drowned in the back flush trying to free it – yuck! He got a face full of wee ha ha !. Good job it wasn’t anything else. We did vow after that that we would only use the toilet for weeing in just in case. 
• We drove for about half an hour with the TV aerial still raised on the roof. Luckily it wasn’t damaged.
• I got two huge bruises on my arm and I fell over and twisted my ankle, I tripped over a ledge in the gravel whilst carrying the bag of washing. I felt the pain shoot through my ankle and thought ‘Oh No! I’ve buggered up my ankle, that’s the trip off then.’
• When Paul was filling up with diesel at a garage the trigger didn’t shut off properly and we had diesel all over the place, on the van, on the ground - about 5 litres which we had to pay for hmmm!
• A jar of Mango Chutney fell over in the fridge and the lid came off and it all leaked out and made a horrible mess;

Ha ha ha, luckily nothing too major and it’s given us a good laugh looking back on it.