Tuesday 11 October 2011

First Caravan Weekend

Doe Park Caravan Site, Cotherstone, Barnard Castle, County Durham,
DL12 9UQ  Telephone;  01833 650302   Fax; 01833 650302

Friday the 30th September-Sunday 2nd October 2011 
Lovely site only an hours drive from home.  Flat and well kept pitches, lots of hardstanding.  Had corner pitch on field with lots of seasonal pitches. Toilets and showers clean and reasonable. No play area for the kids but did not matter as the novelty of the new caravan held their interest.  A high prevelance of midges, especially around our pitch.


After an hours How To lesson on setting up our very own caravan followed by a very quick sign over of a large amount of cash we were off.  Or were we?  As the process of hitching up wasnt quite as easy as it seeemed and another trip into the shop was needed to part with even more money for an electrics adaptor.  I am not sure who was the most anxious, Paul towing a caravan for the first time or me in the passenger seat realising we had forgot to pack the wine.  
A few miles from the site the sat nav took us along a less than ideal country road with some rather steeep hills.  As it was quiet we were able to take it easy and arrived at the site in tact.  
On arrival at the site worried glances were exchanged by the wardens on hearing it waas our maiden caravan voyage.  The warden promptly offered to reverse our brand new van onto the allocated corner pitch and Paul gladly agreed.

For a first time, the set up took over two hours and involved sorting out the toilet in the dark.  We however were enjoying a family meal of Chicken tikka, rice and Naan less than three hours after arrival.  The highlight of the weekend for me was opening the curtains at 7.15am on Saturday morning and relaxing in my cosy bed to watch a beautiful sunrise while the rest of the family slept.
A trip to Catterick caravans was followed by a walk around the farmers market in Barney in the glorious autumn sunshine.  A barbecue finished of a lovely day and we both agreed we were feeling relaxed about packing up on Sunday.   The site had agreed to a late departure so when Paul and Kieran travelled toSpennymoor for a football match Kayleigh and I packed up the awning and mada a sunday lunch of pie, taties and veg.  
Final packing up was stress free but after arriving at our storage park 10mins before deadline in the pouring rain the process of positioning our van in its bay was incredibly stressful.  The difficulty of reversing and pushing the van into its spot resulted inthe decision to purchase a motor mover. 
I now get this Caravanning Lark ....






1 comment:

  1. Hi. Welcome to the world of caravanning! Enjoy your time in your caravan, it wont get long to get the hang of things, anything we can help with, just shout!! Jools and "M"

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