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Camping in the New Forest

We have lived in Hampshire for the past 27 years but have never really spent any time exploring the New Forest which is on our doorstep, however last weekend we decided to change this. Fiona and I booked a 2 night stay at the Holmsley site in the Forest, loaded up the van with everything we might need for 2 nights away, and headed off to Ashurst and beyond. On arrival at Holmsley on the Sunday afternoon we booked in, filled the fresh water tank and found a decent level hardstanding pitch for our stay. Within a few minutes we had connected up to the site electric supply, unloaded and setup the BBQ and picnic stuff; we unwound the awning then relaxed, opened the bottle of wine and cooked our dinner.

Holmsley is a nice quiet and relaxing place. A large number of New Forest ponies loitered outside of the campsite, being kept out by the cattle grids and fences. There were a quite a number of very young ponies which were cute.

The campsite is an ex-RAF wartime airbase and quite a lot of the concrete aircraft ‘parking’ spots continue to be used, although today they are the ‘hardstanding’ pitches.

On the Monday of our first full day at Holsley we used our bikes to explore the surrounding area, stopping for a pub lunch at the Crown in Bransgore before cycling (and walking) back to the campsite in the late afternoon sun. Another bottle of wine was consumed during dinner, which comprised of Kangaroo steaks cooked on the BBQ, followed by relaxation out of doors until it became too cold to stay outside.

Much to our relief there were cattle grids and fences protecting the campsite from the numerous ponies and cattle, the ponies seemed to have a desire to stampede around in the early mornings.

Off to VanBitz

At last the time has come for us to get the ‘van fitted with a real scumbag-deterring alarm system. We’d been on the VanBitz installation waiting list for 2 and a bit months and at the beginning of May we drove the ‘van up to Cornish Farm outside Taunton so that the alarm could be installed.

We had made our preparations as this was the first time we had used the van overnight; we loaded up with sufficient food for dinner and next day’s breakfast, milk for tea and coffee, and took a decent bottle of wine to consume with our dinner. The weather was superb, warm and sunny. The 2 ½ hour drive was uneventful, no kerbs were clipped, no traffic was held up too badly and we kept to a decent speed all the way there and back.

After dropping the ‘van off at VanBitz the next morning we were taxied into Taunton, courtesy of VanBitz, and spent a good few hours looking around Taunton, which we both thoroughly enjoyed. We lunched in a small cafe before retreating to a large park and enjoyed the sunshine as we whiled away the day. We took a bus and walked the remaining half mile or so in the glorious sunshine back to Vanbitz which was out by the M5 motorway. Although we was close to both the town and motorway, there were plenty of Buzzards showing off their aerial prowess to us, I think we counted 7 in all as we crossed the motorway bridge.

Going out for a curry

Sunday evening saw the two of us parked up in the sunshine at Hill Head/Meon Shore where we picnicked on chicken curry. We had prepared the curry at home earlier and heated it up on the van’s gas hob, cooked the rice and heated the chapatis once we had parked up.

This gives ‘going out for a curry’ a whole new meaning even though having a curry on a Sunday is probably heresy.

We attracted a few good stares from passers-by, I’m not sure whether it was for our pic-nicking or for parking across three parking spaces.

Cooking on Gas

The Hymer is now fitted with a refillable gas system comprising a removable nozzle, high pressure fill hose and lightweight Alugas 11kg refillable gas bottle. The whole job took us around about an hour excluding the drive to Wickes to buy the hole saw, and the time taken to view the ‘how-to’ videos on Youtube and to read the installation instructions on the Gaslow site.

We now have gas powered heating, hot water, gas driven fridge/freezer as well as gas for the cooking hob.

Filling with LPG after the installation was a bit stressful but we managed it without any mishaps and now have a half tank of LPG to play with, and I really do like the price. At 56pence per litre its less than half the price of a Calor refill, and there’s no ‘hard to get back’ deposit either.

The next step is to fit a second refillable gas bottle which would give us a capacity of 42 litres of propane so we should never run out of the stuff.

Camping with cutlery

Finally , we have started to use our motorhome for its intended purpose which is to see the world and go ‘camping’. Our limited first attempt is to see Lee-on-the-Solent and have a picnic on the sea front.

Saturday started off as a lovely dry and bright day, ideal for a sea front picnic, however, as evening came so did the rain. We didn’t allow the rain to deter us so as soon as Fiona came home from work we put our pre-heated plates in the cooler box and headed off in the van towards Lee on the Solent where we ordered a takeaway from the Mandarin Chinese restaurant, and then headed down to the seafront to enjoy it. Here we are enjoying our picnic complete with tablecloth, crockery and cutlery.

Camper update

We received the vehicle’s V5 from DVLA then went to Halfords to get the number plates made up. Sadly we had to get the ‘EU’ style plates which was a disappointment – never mind though, we can probably change them for real British plates later this year….

With the new plates fitted we were free to take the camper for a spin around some local roads and lanes. This was our first time driving a big left hand drive vehicle in the UK and I’d have to say it was stressful. The van is much wider than either of our cars, and it is a whole lot longer so we took it easy and very carefully. I’m glad to say that we didn’t clip any kerbs nor have any heart stopping moments.

On our second outing we parked up at Meon shore and enjoyed the sea views, the photos of our parking are below. Thankfully the car park was quiet, I guess I’m going to have to get down there early in the day to park in the summer.

Parked in 3 spaces at Meon, overlooking the sea

Campers

Well, we dillied and dallied around for a long time as we thought about which camper to go for. We went to the big motorhome exhibition at the NEC in 2015, we visited numerous dealers and crawled over countless motorhomes, we did heaps of analysis on what we liked, what we disliked, what we could compromise on and then finally made up our minds to go for a Hymer B544 after seeing one at Premier in Sussex.

We liked the ample living accommodation, the spacious kitchen and washroom and the large double bed all within a length of 6.5 metres from nose to tail. We compromised on not being able to store bikes within the van, instead they will be secured on the tail mounted bike rack but be protected by the alarm system.

We have yet to drive it on the road as we are waiting for final DVLA approval and registration as we had it imported for us by Bundesvan.co.uk, and we are both really excited.

Here is a selection of my photos of the van, click on any of the photos for a bigger version:

Mountain biking

I’ve had a lovely old mountain bike for almost 20 years, Fiona bought it for me for my 40th. It’s a Raleigh M-Trax 1000L, which is rather basic by today’s standards with its steel frame, 26″ wheels, 3×7 gear ratios and its lack of suspension, but it is a lightweight, sturdy and comfortable bike. I’d not used it for quite a while as it is rather worn out, but its too good to scrap.

A while ago I fitted it with a new 7 speed cassette and new chain, but its gear changing was still erratic. On closer inspection I found that the rear wheel was completely worn out, the gears wobbled from side to side and the freehub was making grinding noises.

Have you seen the price of new wheels? You can pay £hundreds for new wheels.
I finally bit the bullet and splashed out £38 on a replacement rear wheel. This cured all my gear changing problems and now the bike feels as good as new so I’ll definitely keep it for the time being. I have started using the bike again, but only for the less speed focussed outings as it allows me to follow bridle ways and take the muddier tracks down to the seaside, but it is much heavier than either of my road oriented bikes.

Now, it just needs a new saddle and some decent tyres to complete the refresh, but I’ll wait to see how it goes before spending any more as the bottom bracket is rumbling a bit and that might turn out to be an expense I can do without.

Here is a picture of the bike, which I think looks good despite its age:

Day out at Wychwood Brewery

What could be better than a day out at a craft brewery?. I’d read Palmer’s book ‘How to Brew: Everything you need to know to brew beer right the first time‘ ahead of our much anticipated visit to the Wychwood brewery in Witney in Oxfordshire. I had a whole list of things to ask, specifically about how to cope with water when it has a high calcium and bicarbonate content, and the value of protein rests, and I was looking forward to an evening of beer tasting.
Fiona and I packed our stuff in the car and set off for Witney in good time; our intention being to get there early, have a relaxing meal and then join the brewery tour.
We filled up with diesel at Tesco, Winnal, and headed off up the A34. The traffic was busy with a lot of heavy freight, but that didn’t bother me as we stormed along in the outside lane overtaking everything. Overtaking a truck on a slight incline while doing about 70mph (honest) I felt the car give a bit of a jolt and then lose all power. Damn, I had to get to the inside lane and pray the damn thing had gone into its ‘limp home mode‘.
The praying didn’t work, the car slowed to a halt. The A34 is dual carriageway with no hard shoulder; all those trucks we had passed earlier now passed me, many of them were obviously annoyed that our car was now blocking the slow lane and getting in their way.
We piled out of the car, left it with the hazard lights flashing; we moved to a safe location well away from the car and Fiona called the Police. The cops arrived within about 10 minutes shortly followed by a highways agency 4WD which towed us to a nearby layby and the cops called for recovery.
The recovery truck turned up about 10 minutes later, needless to say we were really appreciative of, and very impressed with, the Traffic Police, highways and breakdown people and of Steve who came over to Eastleigh to pick up us and drive us home.
I’d have to admit to being less than impressed with the Audi which is unlikely to be fixed before the end of next week (29th Jan).

Updated on 28th Jan:
Its not good news on the Audi, apparently the cam-belt tensioner has disintegrated. The man from the VW Service Centre called me to let me know. The better news is that the cam belt was replaced only 18000 miles ago and is still under warranty. The A3 will now be transported to VW/Audi and they will take over the warranty fix so I probably won’t get the car back for a few weeks, hopefully without having to pay a great deal towards its repair.

Another update, 15th Feb:
Well, I got the car back on the 10th of Feb with a brand new engine complete with a full 2 year warranty courtesy of the VW Service Centre in Gosport who convinced Audi that it was a warranty fix. I have to say that I am delighted, all it cost me was £72 for transporting the car to Audi so I bought a selection of cakes for everyone at the VW Service centre as a token of my gratitude to them.

Winter Cycling

It’s that time of year to put away my decent road bike to save it from all the salt, gravel and sand deposited on the roads. Its been raining more or less non-stop for the past six weeks or so, and those nice little country roads are now flooded with the run off from the fields which makes progress hazardous on skinny 25mm tyres. I have decided to park the road bike in the garage for the next few weeks and to get the old cyclo-cross bike out of the shed again.

The difference between the two bikes is surprising, the road bike is so light with great brakes, the cross with its knobbly tyres feels very heavy and ‘clunky’ by comparison but will help me keep fit throughout the winter without wrecking the road bike.

After a quick blast yesterday, it looks like the old bike needs a new chain and sprockets as its not changing gear nice and cleanly, and those rim brakes really are awful now that I have become used to disc brakes. What a marvellous excuse to buy a new cross/adventure bike next Spring!