Monday, October 02, 2006
New toys
We collected the car on the 4th of August, which, within 2 miles of the car showroom decided to reset all the instrumentation and satellite navigation from English back to German! Hoping that this wasn’t the shape of things to come I figured out how to change it back and avoided a trip back to the showroom.
The following weekend I attended the Caravan club’s driving course, which became the first time I’ve ever towed anything. The course (held near Winchester) was excellent and gave me a chance to practice everything before doing it for real as well as gaining insights from the experienced instructors in all things caravan related. I strongly recommend this course for anyone considering towing a caravan for the first time it was invaluable.
We collected the caravan on August 10th near Bristol, which entailed a 3-hour tow back to Dorset. We’d booked the kids into the nursery for the day to allow us to nervously drive the outfit back in peace.
By the time we left, we’d missed lunch and were both ravenously hungry. At one stage Ali suggested pulling into Sainsbury’s but I feared I’d never get the wagon out again so we pressed on keeping our eyes peeled for a truckers café or similar.
Finally we came across a Little Chef that ‘welcomed truckers’ so pulled in. Having heard that some truckers get upset with caravans that pull into their designated spots, I attempted to park in the normal car park first. This was a mistake: we not only took up two end to end spots but the entire access road behind as well! There was nothing for it but to park in a HGV spot. We pulled alongside a lorry and I was surprised to see that we were the same length (although he was much taller and wider). We had our first lunch in the van and pressed on straight to Birchwood Tourist Park in Wareham Forest.
