Motorhome Adventures 2016: Burnham on Sea

We arrive at Hurn Lane Caravan site where the guy on reception asks if we've been there before. No, we say, we've not been anywhere before. He tells us to find a vacant pitch and then return to let him know which one we took. Arthur tried backing in to the first one he came to and I had point out it was a disabled pitch. We're not that decrepit yet - there are people who need that far more than us!

We move on and take pitch 69. We're getting the hang of the lingo already. The area you park your vehicle in is a "pitch" and plenty big enough for a motorhome and a car. We could probably park our whole house on it. Your vehicle is an "outfit" - presumably caravans don't count as vehicles the same way and this term encompasses both.

Our "outfit" on our pitch

We forgot to bring any bread so we head back to reception where there are a few essential items for sale. Not exactly a shop so much as a couple of shelves and a chest freezer in reception. Several people greet us on the way across the site, so we conclude caravan and motorhome people are very friendly.

The inside of the van with our travelling companion, Paul

There's also wildlife. I open the blind at 6am next morning and there's a rabbit right outside.

We figure out that we're supposed to tighten the wheel nuts on the van, but can we find the tool kit? You guessed it, no. We looked in the "garage" which is a fancy name for what is essentially the boot, although it's rather bigger. We looked under the bed and in all the cupboards. We e-mail Nigel who sold is the thing - he assures us it did come with a tool kit. So where is it? We eventually find it under the seat in the cab, and tighten the nuts.

The site has two toilet/shower blocks, which close for about an hour a day for cleaning, but they seem to stagger that, so no need to worry about getting taken short at cleaning time. The toilets have the radio on 24/7 - it seems whatever time you go in, even at 11pm and 6am, there's music playing. Presumably it's left on all night. There are play areas, dog walks, a laundry, a place to do washing up and even a special tap for washing your dog.

This month's Caravan Club magazine features, by coincidence, the very site we're on and has printed a walk you can take into town. It takes about an hour and is mostly along Berrow Beach, a vast expanse of sand with a shipwreck and a surprising number of discarded vehicle wheels. Very windy on the beach, as we were warned, and hard for anyone with even chin-length hair to see where they are going! (By an even more amazing coincidence, the next issue of the same magazine features the site in Much Wenlock, part of our next trip. Will be interesting to see if this happens again in the September issue.)

At the end of the walk there's the wooden lighthouse on nine legs and a wonky church tower, and more importantly by this time, somewhere to have lunch. Ready for the nice chilli they served up.

Shipwreck on Berrow Beach

Nine legged building

Wonky church

On the second day we'd had enough walking so we drove to Axminster and visited King John's Hunting Lodge, a museum run by the National Trust. Their blurb said that it was never actually used by King John, it's never been used by hunters and it's not strictly speaking a lodge - but otherwise the name is accurate! Exhibits included two human skeletons, a vintage fire engine which was basically a tin bathtub on wheels fitted with contraptions for pumping water.

We tried out the cooking facilities in the van and dined on pasta with a Lloyd Grossman sauce and polished off what was left of the box of white wine we bought for our recent barbecue.

One of the purposes of this short trip was to find out all the things we ideally need for these trips, over and above what is provided and what we considered to be the absolutely obvious. I'll include our list for anyone thinking of a motorhome holiday:

• Coasters/place mats
• Dustpan and brush
• Power adapter so we can plug the van into the electrics at home (when we bring it into service as an extra bedroom)
• Low wattage toaster (has to be low wattage or you blow all the fuses)
• Kneeling mat (to extend the stabilsers it's necessary to kneel beside the vehicle and this is very painful on a gravel pitch)
• Something to hang washing on to dry
• Wheelie thing for suitcases (people seemed to be using those to transport their toilet cassettes to the emptying point)
• Marigolds (for this and other dirty jobs)
• Foil windscreen screen (the blinds that come with the vehicle apparently get damaged with too much exposure to sunlight)
• Groundsheet for the awning
• Dustbuster
• Fitted sheet for the bed (you can get them custom made for the funny shaped mattress)
• Small washing up bowl
• Doormat.

This was a very short trip, just to get used to the vehicle; even shorter for me, as I needed to leave first thing on Friday morning to get to my volunteer job.  

Motorhome Adventures 2016: Brecon Beacons

A slightly longer trip now we're getting the hang of things. We found last time that having a car as well as the van was invaluable (yes, you can drive about in the van but it's a hassle unplugging all the electrics etc; yes, you can take bicycles but sometimes you want to go a little further or you need to pick up heavy stuff like a spare gas cylinder; and there isn't necessarily a handy bus service). So I followed the van in my car (humming "my old man said follow the van" as I go).

I lost him at the toll bridge but had my sat nav to get me most of the way there - but realised I had neglected to ask what the site was actually called. So had to stop in a layby and phone. Turns out it's "Brecon Beacons Caravan Club site" and I was about 100 yards from it.

We select pitch 17 this time and I unload the car while Arthur goes to inform them where we are.

The satellite dish isn't working so looks like we might have to go back to Kendal (where we picked up the van from) to get it fixed. I don't mind too much - I'm spared the news for a few days. Arthur seems to like being terminally depressed by what's gong on in the world while on holiday, but I don't!

We walked along the canal to the town of Brecon to find somewhere for lunch. Our path was crossed by a creature I think must have been a water vole. It didn't have a long enough tail to be a rat. There were houseboats gliding serenely along, several cyclists and lots of sheep (well, we are in Wales, after all).

Brecon has a castle and a pretty church and a place that did Sunday lunch.

The site is similar to the last one, except the shop is much bigger. There are also more families (mostly people even older than we are in Hurn Lane, but then, it wasn't school holidays when we were there.)

Ate in again, cooked chilli and retired to the sound of some bird hooting (it didn't sound like an owl, don't know what it was) and Arthur saying "I wish that bird would shut up."

Next day, it rained. And rained. And rained. We considered having sandwiches in the van but figured if we didn't go out for lunch we wouldn't go out all day so we went and found a little cafe in Brecon that did all day breakfast.

The lowest Rainbow ever

We visited Brecon Cathedral and a military museum - a veritable Aladdin's cave of military stuff.

Brecon Cathedral

Went back to the site and watched the new arrivals in the pitch opposite putting up their tent in the rain; the people walking along the path with about five small dogs on leads and a pushchair. When they get closer, we see they don't have a child in the pushchair - it's another dog; people driving up with no less than six bicycles strapped to their car and a caravan which was actually smaller than their car.

The next day the weather's slightly better and Arthur fancies doing something called the Four Waterfalls walk he's seen on the internet. We drive to a place called Ystadfellt where there is a nice pub which does an amazing variety of vegan pies. Laura the bar person sold me on a drunken mushroom pie only to come back after I'd ordered it so say they were out of it - so I had a curry one instead. Delicious. And you don't have to be vegan to eat them.

A standing stone in the hills

The first waterfall

We set out on the walk which was very muddy and quite hard going clambering over tree roots and rocks and leaping over streams. We found the first waterfall but were put off by the fact the map classified the rest of the route as "hard and strenuous" and we thought the "easy" bit was strenuous enough.

Driving too and from this place was a bit like driving in the Alps - steep, bendy, narrow roads, only with less snow and more sheep. Luckily the sheep have the sense to get out of the way when there's a car coming.

By now, the people opposite had put their flag out, which, according to Arthur and Google, was the flag for Kent.

View from the camp site

The following day we thought we'd try another walk but it was pouring again and my waterproof jacket isn't. We stopped for a burger in a layby and mused upon the weather. It was quite likely it would rain again and I was reluctant to risk a two to three hour walk in a jacket that's only shower proof. So instead we went back to Brecon and went shopping. One of the outdoor shops had a sale on so I got two waterproof coats, one for walks and one to wear at home since the coat I bought last year turned out not to be waterproof, either.

The weather cleared a little bit later on so I went and explored the camp site. Found the dog walk, and next to that was a sign to a pub which advertised itself as doing food all day with a phone number to book. 10 minutes walk, it said. Arthur looked it up on Trip Adviser and it turned out to have the best reviews of any restaurant he'd ever seen on there - ever. We booked, probably got the last table. They could only fit us in eating at the bar at 6.45. Bit early for us, but needs must. Despite calling itself child and dog friendly there weren't any kids in there and just one dog, which lived there.

It was a rather fortunate find. A real gastro pub with the menu printed on brown paper and served rolls with Marmite flavoured butter. Which people either love or hate, I guess, but we liked it. Had monkfish in gin and tonic batter (though you can't taste the g and t any more than you can taste beer in beer batter but it was very nice all the same!) So if you're in Brecon, the Three Horseshoes is definitely worth a visit.

Motorhome Adventures 2016: Snowdonia

Arrived in Coed-y-Llwyn Caravan site after a two and a half hour drive from Brecon during which I managed not to lose the van once, so we actually arrived at the site together. We'd stopped a couple of times to let the cars which had been stuck behind us for miles go past. The second time, I noticed, the exact same car that had been behind me the first time was behind me again. If that car had showed up a third time I would have started getting very suspicious!

This is a smaller site with only one toilet block and no 24 hour radio. There seemed to be less children on bikes and I wondered if it was an adults only site at first, but we did see kids after a while. Perhaps these ones weren't allowed out to play in the rain like they seemed to be at the last place. There's a resident squirrel here, too.

The resident squirrel

Lunch options were somewhat limited. There was a pub called the Waterfall five minutes walk away but it was shut. Didn't open till 5.30pm. There didn't seem to be anything in the village and so we drove a bit further afield and were beginning to wonder if cafes and pubs that open at lunchtime even exist around here. We eventually followed a sign to a tourist attraction, thinking that surely there'd be a cafe near to that. There was, so we didn't go hungry.

The attraction concerned was the Ffestiniog railway, which Arthur was fascinated by as he's got some board game somewhere in which players build it. It's a little narrow gauge railway with steam trains that runs from where we were, Blaenau, to Porthmadog (pronounced Port Madock). Decided we'd take the trip next day.

In the evening the Waterfall in was open so we went and ate there. Not the most atmospheric place, but the food was good and so, surprisingly, was the wine. The wait staff all appeared to be young girls who weren't old enough to drink, and they didn't seem well versed in the kinds of things punters are going to ask them. "What's the soup of the day?" "I have to go ask." "What wines do you do by the bottle?" "I'll have to go and ask." The people on the next table (who were sitting there writing up their travel journal and sticking things in it between courses) asked if the gammon steak came with ham or pineapple - she had to go and ask. Suspect they were a new intake of students.

With regard to the wine, we were asked if we wanted a small bottle or a big bottle, a big bottle being the usual standard size. They only did one white wine in a big bottle so we were a little unsure if it would be any good, but it was actually very nice.

Next morning we go back to catch the little train. There are only four a day and if you get one any later than the first one at about 11.40 you'd not have time to have lunch or look around much before having to catch the train back. Massive queue for tickets which moved painfully slowly - I began to fear we wouldn't get on.

We did, however, and set off on a scenic ride through forests and little villages where the train goes so close to the houses that you can see inside people's windows. Also on the way, a park bench and a hut on a grass hill that was evidently a platform (there are request stops where you have to wave to the driver so he'll stop, and people wanting to get on have to change the signal); a sign warning people of dragons, a rubber duck floating in a trough in a wood in the middle of nowhere and a structure made out of sticks.

Arthur on the train

Views from the train

There was time for lunch and a wander round Portmadog which has a pretty harbour and lots of shops, before getting the train back. It's more obvious on the way back that the train is going uphill, and that on the way to Porthmadog it saves power by using the engine brakes and gravity while on the way back it uses the engine. A family sitting behind us were going on about how the track goes up in a spiral which apparently starts at a white building; they were getting their kids to look out for the building.

The train

Porthmadog

The next day we visited Portmeiron. I'd heard of it and fancied going there. It seems to be most famous because the programme "The Prisoner" was filmed there. Arthur used to watch it but it's a tad before my time, so I'd never seen it, but liked the idea of the quirky location. I used to think it was an actual town but in fact it's a holiday resort, designed by a chap called Clough Williams-Ellis in the 1920s. He looks like a total eccentric, striding around in plus fours and yellow socks. (Later on I was playing a quiz game on my ipad and the question came up, which tourist attraction was designed by Clough Williams-Ellis! Spooky. Before today, I wouldn't have known.)

He started off with just a dilapidated hotel and built the whole thing around it. Italiante style, they call it, and looks very continental with domes and towers and brightly painted buildings. There are lots of murals and statues. Apparently some of the facades were donated from crumbling stately homes and incorporated into the mix.

We arrived in perfect time to take the free orientation tour in which we learned about all the celebrities who'd stayed there through the years. Noel Coward went there because he was finding it hard to come up with a light-hearted play in war torn London, and the result of his stay was "Blythe Spirit". George Harrison wanted to stay in a cottage overlooking the cliff, but was talked out of it by his manager because the safety rail to the balcony was very low and they were afraid he'd have too much to drink and topple over it. Jools Holland is a regular visitor since going there to film a spoof of "The Prisoner" and falling in love with the place.

Various views of Portmeiron

Some of the film "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" was filmed in the local countryside, since at the time it was impossible to get into China. The Chinese children were bussed in from Chinatown in Liverpool and were forbidden from talking on the soundtrack because their Scouse accents would detract from the authenticity of the film! A result of this was that Portmeiron has a gold Buddha statue left behind by the film makers.

Found somewhere for lunch and got chatting to a little old lady who shared our table. She was on a coach tour from Leeds, and was feeding the birds (a couple of blackbirds, a robin and a greenish one that was probably a blue tit) with her left over food.

After lunch, we went for a walk in the woods and found the Chinese lake and a fake lighthouse.

The Chinese Lake

A fake lighthouse

We ate in the Waterfall Inn again. It seemed the young girls had the night off and a more experienced adult was serving.

Motorhome Adventures 2016: Much Wenlock

The route from Snowdonia to here was via some very bendy A roads. Arthur said he dreaded to think what the B roads were like and was glad he'd programmed his sat nav to avoid them. There must have been a motorbike rally somewhere as we saw literally hundreds of motorcycles.

Here we're staying at Styche Caravan Site in Much Wenlock, which isn't Caravan Club. It has largely the same facilities, only smaller (3 loos and 2 showers - supposed to be 3 but one's out of order) and there are more people camping in tents. Friendly staff. They had to loan us a power lead because the pitch they put us on was too far from the power point.

We chilled with a glass of wine before heading into the market town of Much Wenlock for a meal. The first time we took the route through the fields and the woods, which was pleasant enough but would have been tricky coming back after dark. We found a place called the Fox Inn which did Sunday Lunch till 7.30 (Arthur was sold on that immediately). The food was so good that we ate there every night. On this occasion we got talking to the couple at the next table who were locals and filled us in on all there was to see and do.

Much Wenlock

We walked back through the town in order to check out the High Street which turned out to be quite a happening place on a Sunday evening with two pubs pumping out live music. We decided to stop at the George and Dragon for another drink and to listen to the music. A very enthusiastic audience, several of whom got up to sing. One bunch left before us; one guy was on crutches. His friend thought we needed to know his story, that he'd been in the TT races and had come off his motorbike when swerving to avoid another accident. I assumed this had happened recently, but the guy added, "that was 20 years ago and he's determined to keep walking."

Two more drinks than usual meant rather more trips to the loo and Arthur claimed he was stalked by a rabbit on the way to the toilet. There were rabbits around, so he may have been.

The following day we visited Bridgnorth. Historic town with a ruined castle and a short funicular railway that links the upper town with the lower town. We didn't go on it, just enjoyed the view from the top. The historic courtroom and council chamber were open to the public so we had a look in there, but they were quite anxious to get everyone out as there was a wedding on.

Bridgnorth

Found a nice literary cafe with wifi and shelves of books.

The following day there was some excitement as we ran out of gas. We'd been told by the guy at the dealer's when we picked the van up that the gas cylinders last "literally for ever" so we were somewhat surprised. Presumably they don't give you a full one, but it would have been nice if they'd pointed that out so we could have made sure we had a spare. As it was, Arthur had to go and ask the wardens (he'd normally look online but this place has no wifi or even 3G) where the nearest source of gas cylinders was and go and get one, and a spanner to undo it, before we could have our morning cuppa. They directed him to a country store which sold everything from greetings cards to shotguns.

In case you're wondering why we picked a relatively obscure place like Much Wenlock it was so we could swing by Stourport and have lunch with our friends Don and Jo, who we last saw when they put us up when we went to the Caravan and Motorhome show in Birmingham and bought the vehicle. Had a nice lunch and catch up with them and their daughter Julie and grandson Joshua in a pub called the Old Beams.

Having had a substantial lunch, that evening was one of our nights in, although we did still walk up to the Fox Inn for a drink so we could use the wifi.

The next day we visited Ironbridge, which has a historic - you guessed it - iron bridge. It was built in the 1700s and was a toll bridge up until 1960. There was a sign there giving the tolls for carriages and various types of animal like sheep or cows or pigs. In the little museum in the old toll house there was a picture of an elephant crossing. No mention of what the toll was for an elephant! Even royalty had to pay to cross and there was also a picture of Prince Charles handing over his toll when he visited.

The Iron Bridge

After lunch we followed the recommendation of the people we met on the first night and sought out the Victorian town museum. It has a street laid out with shops as they would have been in Victorian times. They actually sold things, and people who really wanted to get into the spirit of things could visit the bank near the entrance and change their money into old money. Every item for sale had two prices, old money, about 2d, and current day, about £1.50!

There was lots of industry around the area back then and a lot of the old works are preserved alongside the town along with some industrial relics, old engines and the like. Lots to see including a shire horse being led through the streets, an incline plane (basically a railway line that goes uphill), a funfair, chickens having sex and old fashioned signs and adverts, some of which could be rather amusing.

The Victorian Street

A bicycle shop, Victorian style

Advertising, Victorian style

Back home the next day, although Arthur took a detour to Northampton to see the people who fitted the satellite dish. It had started working again in the second campsite but he wanted them to check it, anyway, so I just headed home.

The vehicle is back in store now until next month when we're planning a trip to Scotland.