Campsite Wardens - so was it worth it?

Well, we've finished for the summer, the last 6 weeks at our second location. We feel that having seen it through to the end we probably won't be doing it again!

The campsite for our last 6 weeks was quite large and run by the owners who work full time at it. One other warden couple covered maintenance, odd jobs, pitching arrivals, reception, shop etc. - our duties solely revolved around cleaning.

In itself cleaning showers and toilets isnt too bad BUT, sadly some folks' behaviour and treatment of the facilities can be beyond belief - we were warned back in Cornwall days that there were certain 'horrors' that we could face... And we have!

Some of the work was made harder and less pleasant because of things like poor drainage and ageing equipment and facilities - meaning that a plunger and a practiced technique was required most days and often more than once a day.

You get a little hardened to it but the unreasonable gross behaviour nearly caused us to quit at one stage.

Financially the work produced what we wanted. This type of job rarely pays much more than minimum wage but with enough hours most of the earnings were banked because of the free living aspect with electricity, water and pitch all included. This particular job paid a set 33 hours per person per week over 5 and a half days (meaning 6 early starts a week) rather than the previous campsite which was by the hour worked and with 2 full days off.

As far as living in the van is concerned we've managed pretty well, a little more cluttered than we are usually when touring but we sort of got used to it. A lot of space was taken up by having all electric appliances - toaster, coffee maker, hotplate, frying pan and kettle to make use of the free electricity all have to go somewhere.

Our van is 6.5 mtrs and has enough space for the 2 of us + dog but I probably wouldn't recommend doing this sort of job in anything smaller.

So with the season, for us, at an end we can now concentrate on getting the motorhome serviced and MOTd, annual dentist and health checkups completed and then we can head south again - Aires hunting together with some R&R enroute to Spain

No more alarm clock controlled mornings!