Peak Practice

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 ….