John and I had been
mulling over the idea of having a motorcaravan for some time and having made
the journey from tents, through trailer tents to caravan (and don’t forget the
boat!) we knew we could do the “living in confined space” bit. But we decided it would be prudent to “try
before we buy”.
So in May
2012 we hired a ‘van from Wildax Motorhomes.
First impressions inside the van were good – all mod cons and plenty of stowage. We took our time to load up our belongings
until we couldn’t put off driving the beast any longer; I was more than happy
to let John be the first behind the wheel, but took my turn later in the week. It turned out to be relatively easy to drive
and there were no problems parking at a supermarket to stock up on provisions.
Not wanting
to overload the brain during this week, we had pre-booked our sites, a mixture
of Camping and Caravan Club sites with full facilities, a hideaway site with
very few, and a commercial site, to try out all possibilities.
We had a
thoroughly enjoyable time travelling around Derbyshire, via Crowden, Ashbourne
and Leek. We were amazed how quickly we
got ourselves organised to leave each site; so much easier than a tent or
caravan, and we didn’t have to go back to
the same place! In the course of the
week we walked round Torside Reservoir, directly accessible from the CCC Site at
Crowden,
and along part of the old Cromford and High Peak Railway,
cycled along the
Manifold Trail, stopping to clamber up to Thor’s Cave,
and visited Lyme Park
(National Trust).
Up to this point, the weather had been quite good, but on our final full day we sheltered from the rain in a delightful café in Hartington, which also served
as the local post office and seemed to be the meeting place for many of the
locals.
At the end
of the week we were wondering why we hadn’t visited Derbyshire more often and
decided we would return. And what were
our first impressions of motorcaravanning?
We felt very positive, liking the idea of moving on from place to place
and didn’t feel too confined in the ‘van.
In fact, we liked it so much, we decided to call in at IH Motorhomes at
Ferrybridge on the way home ….
