Brooks on Tour

A bank holiday weekend, we didn't want to travel far but we still wanted a weekend away so decided to travel to Cirencester.  The site is very busy, but we still found a space in our favourite area on grass (pitch 153). The heating came on overnight briefly, the pump seems much quieter but this could be because we are no longer sleeping on top of it!  We decided to give it a proper test in the morning. The noise from the Alde holding tank is louder and you can hear it bubbling as the the fluid circulates.  Wondering if the system has been bled properly. Saturday we went shopping in Waitrose for treats and the spent the rest of the day reading.  On Sunday we went into Cirencester and bought a small Roberts rechargable DAB radio.  We like to listen to the radio overnight, particularly the BBC World Service, because the caravan speakers are at the front of the van we need to have the volume up high to listen so worry that we will disturb our neighbours.  O...

We were supposed to pick up our new Unicorn Cadiz on 15th August 2015 and we did go to Webbs to do this.  We had a very thorough handover where everything was explained, transferred all of our bits and pieces from the Seville into the new caravan and went to hitch up.  The movers wouldn't work!   Webbs were very apologetic, they had used the Powrtouch fitter to do this job and expected everything to be in order as did we.  It was no use us taking the caravan away without its movers working, the storage site we use has very narrow roads and we cannot reverse our caravan onto the storage pitch. They agreed to call the fitter back and sort out the problem (a new circuit board was needed) and also a new battery which Webbs funded, they also offerred us our first service in 2016 without charge as way of apology for the inconvenience.  We returned to Webbs on 22nd August to find everything in order and made our way to Devizes. The new caravan tows really well t...

We took the Unicorn Seville to Webbs in Salisbury for its annual service and spotted a new Unicorn Cadiz. We like this layout very much with two single beds instead of having to make up the beds each night and have talked about buying this model for when we retire.  After a short discussion we decided to buy the Cadiz it might not be available when we retire and as we use our current caravan so much we might as well do it now. We requested to have the movers as well as the battery moved to our new caravan.  We can pick the caravan up 18th August 2015  Much excitement in the Brooks household.  We have spent 39 nights in the Seville since we bought it a year ago.  We may not have travelled far with our Unicorn Seville but we have thoroughly enjoyed the opporunity to escape it gives us and we have learnt an awful lot about caravanning along the way, it has been an ideal introduction for us.

We had planned to be touring for a two week holiday at this time and had sites booked in Derbyshire at Chatsworth, then on to Yorkshire and finally Northumberland unfortunately the cold that both of us had was still taking its toll and so we cancelled.  We spent the first week of our holiday at home feeling generally sorry for ourselves and keeping ourselves awake at night coughing!   Towards the end of the week we felt we could manage a trip away.  We both love Exmoor and have always had at least one camping trip a year under canvas on Exmoor at a fantastic campsite just outside Exford at Westermill Farm .  Our frequent visits meant that we knew the top end of the moor very well but we were not so familiar with the lower end of the moor towards Devon. The Caravan Club has three sites in the Exmoor area Minehead, Dulverton (Exmoor House) and Exebridge Lakeside.  We decided to try Exebridge.  We were not disappointed.    . The sit...

We returned to the Cirencester site with plans to explore the nearby town.  The site was very busy, w e chose a pitch at the top of the site on grass.  Unfortunately I woke on Saturday morning with a streaming cold and felt generally unwell.  We drove into town for a visit to the chemist then back to the caravan for more sleep, a waste of a weekend away!  We did put the Caravanstore up and left it up all weekend it seems very stable but not sure I would trust it in the wind.  Too many years of tightening guy ropes on tents in the middle of the night has taught me that if there is more than a breeze this canopy will be back in its bag before I go to bed. Sunday morning we packed up leisurely before making our way home.

A weekend away after a very busy time at work.  Getting away on a Friday night is great but you don't want to travel too far. We are lucky that we have some good sites in interesting places about an hour away from home.  This was our first visit to the Cirencester site although we have friends who live nearby, we have visited Cirencester regularly over the years but never as tourists.  The site is huge, on a gentle slope at the end of a well worn lane with huge potholes.  There are hardstanding and grass pitches The site is surrounded by trees it seemed very peaceful despite the number of units on site. The weather was warm but quite windy so we decided to leave the Caravanstore in its bag, we are unsure how well it copes in wind.  The site is very close to Cirencester town which is about 20mins away on foot through the Bathurst Estate.   There are several supermarkets on the outskirts of town the nearest is Waitrose.  We did some food shopping tre...

For May Bank holiday we decided to try a small camping and caravan club certificated site. This site is not too far from home but is easy to get to on a Friday night after work.  The site has 2 toilets and a shower available for campers to use.   The site is all grass behind the owners farm. We pulled into the yard, booked in at the farm and were directed through some gates to the campsite. When we arrived there were already two other caravans  on site. The site is a long narrow strip at the back of the farm buildings, The site has fabulous views towards Frome with mature trees in the next paddock where we saw a deer.  We enjoyed a very relaxing weekend here reading and enjoying the views at £12.00 per night it felt a real bargain. The weather was good and so we cooked out on the cadac and enjoyed our meals under the awning.

We returned to Longleat caravan club site for the bank holiday weekend. Our journey to site again caught the rush hour traffic.  The site was very busy with a caravan club district association rally on site.  We chose pitch 83 which has a waterfall behind it as well as the passing train from the Longleat minature railway.  We have bought a Caravanstore roll out awning and were hoping to try it out over the weekend.  On Saturday morning we visited BCH Camping in Trowbridge and bought a cover for the Cadac and then on to home as people were travelling from Camarthen in Wales to purchase our largest Cabanon tent. We have loved this tent, it has seen us through some very stormy weather on cliff tops and moors. We will be sad to see it go but know that we will not use it again now that we have the comfort of a caravan. Our prospective purchasers were delighted with our tent and are planning to visit France later this year with their three boys.  We are sure they ...

This was the quickest and easiest hitching up we have ever done.  We have a routine now that means we are both doing different jobs at the same time also we can use the movers much more easily now that the pitch at the storage yard is gravelled and paved.  Our journey to Longleat took an hour as we caught the rush hour traffic.  The Longleat site is at the end of a long narrow lane on the Longleat Estate, it is big, all pitches are hardstanding with plenty of trees.  There are two toilet blocks, a play park, a very comprehensive information point and outdoor chess. There is no tv signal unless you connect a ariel cable to the hookup point. A small train runs inside the safari park that can be seen at the rear of some pitches, hours of fun can be had waving at the passengers!  . You can hear the  animals in longleat safari park particularly at feeding times. On Saturday morning we went to Frome there is a market on a Saturday in the carpark.  Frome ...

Our furthest trip so far!  Hunters Moon is a Caravan Club site (we recently joined).  The A350 felt very narrow in places! The site is lovely, huge pitches and very clean facilities.  This site must get very busy in summer.  The trees are all bare at the moment which make it seem very light and open.  The are hardstanding and grass pitches although the grass pitches which are near the play area are currently closed for winter.  There are fully serviced pitches near the entrance.  Lots of birds around we saw a "flock" of around 10  bullfinches never seen so many together. Wednesday we drove to Swanage on to Studland and then caught the ferry to Sandbanks.  We completed the circle back to the site.  Thursday we went to Corfe castle - it was closed for staff training.  We did enjoy the walk from the NT car park to the castle and back to the car.  We drove on to Swanage and wandered around the town and along the seafron...

Back to Devizes for our first trip of 2015.  We have booked a week away in March and wanted to check that the cold weather had not done any damage to the caravan.  We had drained everything down as instructed but when you don't really know what your doing you worry a bit.  Our worries were unfounded and everything was fine.   We have been trying different ways of sleeping in the van. We originally started out in sleeping bags on the bench seats which was ok but the benches were a bit narrow.  We then made the bed up by pulling out the slats and sleeping in sleeping bags, we moved from this to using the sleeping bags to lie on and bought a Duvet to go over the top.  This was the most comfortable arrangement so far however, the sleeping bags did wriggle up over night as there was no way to hold them in place. Also the seating is very firm so we decided to look for a matress topper that we could sleep on to improve the comfort.  A trip into Devizes ...

This was our first "longer journey" and also our first tow on the motorway and in honour of this we had taken a days holiday so that we could arrive on the site before dark.  We had been thinking about going to watch the Severn Bore a tidal wave that rushes up the river Severn several times a year.  The height of the Bore varies but at times people surf the wave. Watching the Bore is very popular and often occurs early in the day. We wanted to check out possible caravan sites so that if we went to watch the Bore we could stay locally rather than get up in the early hours of the morning and travel to the river. We picked up the van from storage and headed to the M4. Once we got onto the M4 it felt very comfortable towing the caravan we are still "feeling" the caravan at times and are not sure if this is normal, we know that our nose weight is fine so are assuming that this is ok.  It was strange travelling on the inside lane instead of the usual middle and outside...

We are lucky to have sites close to home that we can use to enjoy spending time in the caravan for a weekend. You don't need to journey many miles from home to make you feel that you are on holiday. This makes it ideal for a weekend trip after work. The site was very quiet with mainly motorhomes rather than caravans.  We enoyed a meal at the 3 Magpies, a Wadworth pub that is just 5 minutes walk down the road from the site.  We were able to visit family and spend time together without having to rush off home.  We used up our first bottle of gas (it was not full when we bought the van) although we have been using gas to heat the van instead of electricity.    We are beginning to understand the van better and the way that the heating and hot water work.  We treated ourselves to a small dustbuster cleaner - we certainly know how to have fun!

It took us about an hour to drive to The Old Oaks at Glastonbury, after work on Friday night.  We had heard lots about this site and were not dissapointed, we were pitched in Walnut Terrace.  The facilities at this site are fantastic with private shower rooms as well as the usual toilet and shower blocks.  Some pitches have water on tap and drainage on pitch.  The pitches are well laid out with lots of privacy.  The best views over the country side are from "Top Oaks". On Saturday morning we went Clarks Village in Street, a local outlet Centre, we had been before. We were not impressed previously and saw nothing to change our minds this time.  We stopped in Glastonbury on the way back and enjoyed a walk up the High Street people watching.  After lunch we walked up to Glastonbury Tor following the path that runs behind the site.  We didn't make it to the top of the Tor as the path was very steep. Sunday morning saw us on the road by 10am an...

Following the purchase of the television we found that the caravan television ariel was not working properly so  we returned to our caravan dealers in Salisbury who sorted out the problem for us.  We also treated ourselves to another gas bottle and a noseweight gauge.  Rather than go home we decided to head for a caravan site next to Salisbury racecourse Combe Caravan Park for a night. Driving round the Salisbury ring road was made interesting by the number of cars that just wanted to get by us.  We eventually arrived and set up.  The site is on top of a hill with extensive views over the Wiltshire countryside.  In the afternoon we drove to Wilton to buy some food as we had not initially planned to be out overnight.  Although we were familiar with the nearby outlet shopping centre we had never been into the town before.  A pleasant hour was spent wandering around looking at the buildings and small high street before we returned to th...

When we were trying to make up our minds whether to buy a caravan or motorhome we decided to hire a motorhome in Scotland for a week.  Although when the time came to jet off to Glasgow we had already bought a caravan it seemed silly not to go, it would either confirm that we had made the right decision or make us want to sell the caravan asap. We were met at the airport by the hiring company who drove us to the outskirts of Glasgow for a comprehensive handover of the motorhome.  The motorhome was a six berth, very clean and well looked after. It was kitted out with everything that we would need except food. We had planned this trip in detail I wanted to revisit Arisaig, a place I had camped as a child with my parents. We wanted to enjoy the journey from Glasgow to the West coast and experience the motorhome life stopping off to visit places of interest enroute. We were aiming to get up to Loch Lomond our first night and as members of the camping and caravan club stay at Lu...

We returned to the Camping and Caravanning Club site in Devizes for our second weekend this time with more equipment on board, this site is not too far from home so it is easy to pop home and collect something vital. We tried out the heating for the first time, although the weather was not too cold we were very impressed with the way it works. Included in the purchase price of the van was an awning so Sunday morning saw us putting up the awning.  As experienced campers we expected this to be a doddle - we were wrong, we can understand why awnings are known as "divorce in a bag".   The awning eventually went up and I think we did a good job but by this time we decided an awning was not for us.  We offered it to the wardens of the site who said they would sell it on and use any money for their flower fund which keeps the site looking beautiful we happily agreed to this. We had lots of vistors this weekend who were keen to have a look at our new pur...

With great excitement and some trepidation we drove to Salisbury to collect our first caravan.  The weather was appalling with heavy rain requiring double speed windscreen wipers.  We were given an extensive handover where everything about the workings of the caravan was explained to us and before long we were hitched up and on our way through flooded roads on Salisbury Plain towards Devizes. Our tow car a Ford Kuga was more than up to the job of towing our Unicorn Seville although t owing a caravan was a new experience and the initial see-saw motion as we pulled away took some getting used to.  We arrived at the Camping and Caravan Club site in Devizes in just over an hour.  By the time we had set up our caravan the rain had stopped, we celebrated our purchase with a glass of bubbly . We had a quiet afternoon trying everything out and making sure we understood how it all worked. 

We had enjoyed camping for many years and had worked our way through a series of tents each one larger than the last.     We were hardy campers preferring natural sites without electric hook up however, in 2013 we got cold.  We were camping in East Anglia in June, we couldn't get warm so bought ourselves a fan heater and hooked up to the electric.  We began to wonder if we needed to rethink.  On our return home we went out looking at motorhomes and caravans but couldn't decide what would best suit our type of holiday. We liked the idea of being able to travel with our "home" and stop where we wanted in the same way that we had done with our tents so, decided to hire a motorhome for a week to give us an opportunity to try it out.  The idea to make it an adventure with plans of driving up the west coast of Scotland appealed so we found a motorhome hire company in Scotland and booked flights to Glasgow for September 2014.  Howev...