Monday, October 02, 2006
2nd trial run
Our second outing was to Highlands Caravan Park near Bridport. We thought we’d try a full service pitch, which includes water & waste hook-up as well as electric. This required us to reverse the caravan onto a fairly small hard standing with a close access road and our first pitch turned out to be too much for us, so we drove off again in search of an easier one. The second pitch was a little easier and our neighbour kindly moved their car so we could get square. Having such a long (26ft) twin axle caravan has disadvantages!
Not having to empty the wastehog or fill the aquaroll all weekend provided an easier life and now we’ve got all the right connections we’ll try and get full service pitches where available. Day 1 was pretty sunny and we managed to get the awning up this time with help only to get it along the rail. Day 2 turned out pretty miserable with howling winds and rain, as the wind got stronger and stronger the awning was definitely looking unstable so we searched for guy ropes only to find the manufacturer kindly provided 12 eyelets and only 2 guy ropes! A swift trip up the shop and we had an awning tie down kit and enough guy ropes to tie down the millennium dome.
I promptly broke off the spiral awning strap peg eyelet whilst screwing it into the ground and the opposite one broke off under the strain an hour later. We decided to leave it to fate and went off swimming in the site’s indoor pool and hope we’d come back to a complete awning. The pool was good but the managers are very anal with the rules allowing no jumping, kid throwing or general fun in its entirety. We came back to quieter winds and our awning still intact to learn that a neighbour’s had actually blown away!
On the way home, Ali had her first go at pulling the caravan driving 10 miles or so on the A35 dual carriageway, she looked nervous but rose to the challenge having admitted later that she would be quite happy for me to do all the driving whilst away!
