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Published: March 14th 2013
Our departure time gets closer and, being complete novices at 'motorhoming', we still don't know how things work: vital things such as our water system and the toilet!
With limited weekends free and recent weather disgusting we haven't been able to practice living in our van so we booked a night at a nearby campsite last weekend with the intention of trying to figure out all the systems. Frequent weather checks, on the run up to our weekend, showed the outlook gradually getting colder and colder, Steve eventually decided to stop checking, as it was almost as if Mother Nature was having some kind of joke! Saturday came and we packed the van with blankets, quilt, a multitude of garments made of fleece and woolly hats (a tip of my mums: 'you always have a better night's sleep with a woolly hat on!', from The Guide Camp years I assume?) and set off.
Our stay at Waldegraves holiday park was short and pretty uneventful but the point was to give us some practice time, turns out it's impossible to fill Petit Van Blanc's water tank with a bag and a funnel, apparently you do need a hose! However, the
heater and the gas hobs and oven work very nicely thank you, which was lucky as the temperature plummeted to around -2 degrees over the weekend. We also took time to carefully check out the on site pub and if I remember rightly I beat Steve at the pool table?
Sunday morning brought snow, sleet and an alarming amount of surface water, Mersea Island is bleak at the best of times (sorry, if you're a devout fan) but this weekend the weather was truly vile! We were finally ready to leave the site, on the promise of lunch at my mums, by noon... the drive wheel span (and span) in the mud, we were clearly going nowhere unless someone could pull us out! Luckily, the site maintenance man (I'm embarrased to have forgotten his name, as he was definitely the hero of the hour) had us towed out in no time and we were heading back to civilisation.
I had forgotten that you arrive on, and leave, the island via a causeway and, as we approached, could see it was hidden under floods of water and a queue of traffic was waiting for.... what? The tide to turn?
A dry day? Urged on by a rotten 'Ruddles Bitter' hangover, Steve decided to risk driving through, rather than join the queue, a choice decision it turned out, as we were across the water in a few minutes, with no issues, due to Van Blanc's height!
We eventually rounded off the weekend at mums, with an awesome sausage and mash lunch and a full throttle wood burning stove... bliss!
We look forward to some better weather for our travels across Europe this year but the weekend was an adventure... even though we still don't know how to work the toilet or the water system!
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sharon stone
non-member comment
sounds like you had a great time lol!