A Canterbury Tale

NEC (18 October 2013) and Kent (25th to 27th October 2013)

Although we had originally intended to have a weekend away in Theodora in conjunction with visiting the Motorcaravan Show, for reasons we won't go into here, plans were changed and we had two weekends away instead!

Despite arriving at the NEC before the exhibition had opened and not leaving until late afternoon, opportunites were not exhausted, even if we were!  Having now had Theodora for a year, we were interested in looking at layouts we had previously rejected, in the light of our (limited) experience.  We also called in at the IH stand, to say a quick hello to Nigel and Nicola and to see the innovative features on their latest van conversions.  The caravan-style door certainly makes a van conversion look less like  ….. a van conversion and gives more scope inside the van.  The slide out section on the top of the range 630SL gives a more spacious feel, but the price tag is on the “ouch” side. Then there were the gadget stands (impressed by the cleaning gadget – hope it lives up to our expectations), and the site and travel stands, and the clothing stands.  Not looking forward to the Visa bill next month!

So where should we go for our weekend away?  Not too far as we only had 3 nights (actually turned out to be only 2).  I recalled that our one attempt to visit Canterbury many years ago in our caravan had ended in disaster when a wheel came off the van.  Why not try again and combine with a visit to family in Ashford?

We fancied stopping off somewhere en route to photograph the autumn colours and Hucking Estate near Maidstone was one of the places which came up on the www. The wet and gloomy weather when we set off from home was replaced by brighter skies and sunny intervals north of the Thames but once we had crossed the QE2 bridge, it became distinctly grey again.  At the Hucking Estate there were supposedly walks from either a designated car park or from a pub car park a bit further on.  Thinking of Mervyn and Sheila (IH owners, who will understand the reference to them), the pub seemed a good option, especially when the Woodland Trust car park had a height barrier.  Doomed!  Admittedly we were a long way off the beaten track along a single track road but the pub looked long closed and we had to provide our own lunch in the 'van before having a very muddy walk in the woods.  Not particularly colourful either, unfortunately, due to the mild weather apparently.  But we did come across a very interesting carved tree trunk.  

Must get the Woodland Trust to update their website to indicate the height barrier on the car park and the lack of pub!

Then on to the Canterbury Camping and Caravanning Club site, which we used as our base, and which was well up to the usual high standard.  There was a choice of pitch – the one we chose was nice and level – and if you are lucky enough to be there on a Tuesday, the fish and chip van calls between 4:30 and 6:00.  The bus stop to go into Canterbury is only a five minute walk away, so we opted to leave Theodora on site and use public transport.  However, there is also a motorhome friendly park and ride (Dover Road) and parking for motorcaravans in the coach park (signposted), so there are plenty of different ways of getting into the city.

We found Canterbury very appealing, with its medieval buildings, walks along the River Stour

 and along a small section of the city walls to Dane John Gardens 

where there is an historic mound providing views of the city.

Do  not confuse the City Walls with the Cathedral Walls, which you are very definitely not allowed access to.  Talking of the Cathedral, it looked grand from the outside 

and we would have liked to see the inside too, and although we are always happy to make a contribution to the maintenance of these grand edifices, we felt that a ticket price of £9.50 per person was going too far.  The Beany Centre, which houses the Tourist Information Centre, a cafe and exhibitions is a good starting point.  There is a huge array of places to eat and we can particularly recommend the Veg Box Cafe, tucked up a sidestreet above Canterbury Wholefoods – www.thevegboxcafe.co.uk.  It is quite small, so don't go at peak times.  Quite by chance the two week Canterbury Festival was underway (19 Oct – 2 Nov 2013) and although none of the Saturday events appealed to us, we managed to get tickets at the impressive Marlowe Theatre to see Alan Bennett's play “People”, which was very funny, at the expense of the National Trust.  Just over the road from the theatre is The Pilgrims' Hotel, where we had a very good and reasonably priced meal beforehand.  It was a stroke of luck that the play finished in time for us to catch the last bus back to the site – it's a very dark walk from the bus stop – take a torch!

On Sunday we met up with my sister and watched our nephew play football as part of the Headcorn Under 16s team.  Unfortunately they were up against the team who are currently top of the league, so the result was not good and we did not feel we had been lucky charms for them.  We had been keeping a close eye on the weather forecast as storm St Jude was brewing and as the worst was expected on Monday morning, when we planned to travel home, we decided it would be prudent to dash back home on Sunday evening.  And very glad we did too!

And that will probably be the last of Theodora's adventures for this year.  But we are looking forward to making plans for 2014 over the winter months.