Club Motorhome Bloggers

A New Year and a revival of our blogging!

Downsizing - We planned to do this at sometime in the future but circumstances brought our plans forward some years.

Our previous van was a 2006 7.8mtr Carthago A-class and we now have a 2018 5.99mtr Challenger PVC and our first impressions of the change are as follows:

PROs

Drivability - much like a car.... Easy to manouver and park
No additional speed limits to abide with so faster journey times
No additional weight limits to consider
Much less affected by crosswinds
Better fuel economy
Quicker to heat internally
Very comfortable ride
No special categories required on driving licence
Standard glass/bodyparts should replacements be needed in future
Less problem getting on tight fuel forecourts
No need to consider waving to other motorhomers because they don't realise you are driving one until its too late :)

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics – A motorhome (RV) tour around Nova Scotia & Cape Breton.

There is some doubt who coined the phrase ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’, but for the purposes of this account let’s say it was Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. I plumped for Disraeli only because, according to my research, there are parallels between Disraeli’s imperial ideas and that of Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A Macdonald.  I was also struggling to find a suitable title for this blog that would gain your attention long enough for me to convey some of the facts about this wonderful part of the world.

First I will talk about the statistics and then, if you are still reading, ‘the lies’ and maybe some damned lies!

First the statistics.  

We've just spend a superb month in company with some friends travelling around the Valencia/Alicante areas of Spain using a mixture of Aires and Wild Parking for stopovers.

We met up with our friends, Steve and Lorna, at one of our favourite spots just by the beach at a small Spanish resort, it was their first trip to this area and they were very pleasantly surprised by what a great spot it is! Very busy though with maybe a 100 vans and sad to say that some motorhomers were becoming very territorial about their spaces - even using water bottles to mark out their 'pitches'

That aside we had a great few days R&R before we went for an inland tour to show Steve and Lorna around a bit. Just a few miles inland there is a great, and little used, Aire. Free to stay with a proper service area we enjoyed a couple of nights and made use of one of the town's great little bar/restaurants - menu-del-dia at just 7.50€ and a wonderful part restored Monastery which was free to wander around plus free wifi at the Tourist Office.

On the second morning a Belgian couple joined us at the parking and proudly told us that they had been to the Aire before and were a bit dismayed to see others using it as they had been determined to keep the location a secret! They didn't approve of websites and books that publish locations, I kid you not.....

From there we drove over the nearby mountains to the next valley and on to an Aire that we had recently discovered. On arrival it was deserted and the electric gates were firmly shut. I phoned the number on the gate to see if they would open it up for us and in my best Spanish understood that someone would be along shortly.....

Planning to travel up to 400kms a day we knew of a village Aire on the main route that was likely to have room so we headed for it. On arrival there was space but the layout was such that it was going to be best to reverse into a corner of the parking area.

A new experience reversing an a-frame other than in a straight line..... I had set the rig so there was the least angle to manouever possible but on a slippy gravel surface I couldn't get the cars front wheels to co-operate and rather than force to car against its will I just un-coupled again, parked the car, reversed the motorhome up to it and re-coupled ready for the next morning's departure. In practice this is quicker than 2 or 3 attempts at shunting backwards and forwards as could be the case with a conventional trailer.

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.

Well, no-one can accuse us of sitting on our laurels! 

After quitting the job in Cornwall we were a bit down, but mainly because of sitting back and reflecting over the recent events. Although we were bucked up a bit by comments by friends and fellow members of Club Motorhome and also offers to park up on their drives should we need somewhere - Huge thanks to all! Caroline got back onto the internet and looked at couple of campsite job finder type websites and found a likely looking position in Norfolk of all places, so ideal for seeing the family before we do eventually head off into Europe again.

I telephoned the site and had a chat with the owner who sounded very positive and he subsequently emailed some details of the job to us. I returned our CV and said that we would be interested should they wish to interview us.

Nothing more happened for a day and we thought that was it - but no worries, we'd just go and see the folks and forget about work for the time being.

As we were packing to leave the site our mobile rang and it was the Norfolk site owner saying that he was pleased to offer us the job and gave us a start date and an invitation to visit beforehand to look around and iron out any queries that we may have.