Holidays 2010

In a couple of days I'll be packing Max and my son and I are heading south for our first trip to the Isle of Wight. Really looking forward to it. We're sailing out of Southampton via a Red Funnel ferry - past all the ocean liners - and into Cowes.

Anyone going off in their BraziBay soon?

Like you Tim we are packing, we have camping trips with friends for the next two weekends, then on the third we are off down to Devon,Dorset, Cornwall for three weeks, just going to see where the road takes us. Bit of a gamble not booked anywhere but that's the fun of it. last year we stayed in a couple of national trust car parks as well as on Dartmoor, had a great time!

Nick (Irishman)

Maybe see you around Bude the first week of August then Nick?? I'm staying at Widemouth Fields that week. Excellent site - probably got space around that time too as it's large and new.

We're off for another 3 nights down at Damage Barton next week. Sea, sand and hopefully sun on the north devon coast, no where better in the whole world.
Have fun everyone, and we want to see those pic's.

Try and head for Bude then Tim, sounds like a plan....... Sorry Denni, where are you going? Seriously, we are hoping to head over to France next year for four weeks and just go where the mood takes us. Have you booked sites in advance or will you just take you luck. I'd be interested to find out if you can wild camp in France, I had heard it was fairly easy.

Nick

im going to the peppercorn event near langley kent this weekend then to the lake district via cadbury world,laurel n hardy museum hadrians wall and centre parcs early august. Got a couple of sites booked along with centre parcs in Penrith. taking my wife two sons and mother in law along.........hot weather stuck in traffic.....long journey.......a divorce is gonna be on the cards ha ha ha

2007 t2 lhd wrote:

im going to the peppercorn event near langley kent this weekend then to the lake district via cadbury world,laurel n hardy museum hadrians wall and centre parcs early august. Got a couple of sites booked along with centre parcs in Penrith. taking my wife two sons and mother in law along.........hot weather stuck in traffic.....long journey.......a divorce is gonna be on the cards ha ha ha

An onboard DVD player will certainly help with this situation I guarantee.

less than two weeks to go, then hols!! Start with ferry to Santander - then driving Pyrennees - Spanish side first, then French, then up to Lot and Dordoyne, and then all small roads over to Vendee and Brittany, home to Plymouth via Roscoff. Am packing spare accelerator cable, clutch cable, and fan belt, as well as oil. Hope it all goes smoothly!! And of course European break down cover...just hope I don't need it!

dartmoor wrote:

less than two weeks to go, then hols!! Start with ferry to Santander - then driving Pyrennees - Spanish side first, then French, then up to Lot and Dordoyne, and then all small roads over to Vendee and Brittany, home to Plymouth via Roscoff. Am packing spare accelerator cable, clutch cable, and fan belt, as well as oil. Hope it all goes smoothly!! And of course European break down cover...just hope I don't need it!

That sounds like a lot of fun. Lots of photos please on your return Mark.

If anyone is around...

Eva is off to Damage Barton on the 15 August for 3 nights, then it's on to Namparra campsite on the Lizard for 4 nights and finally, River Valley Holiday Park, St Austell for 5 nights before making a homeward leap on the 26 August.

Does anyone know of any decent stopping places on the way up from Cornwall to Hampshire?

Am hoping to be moving in a couple of weeks. . . slightly hectic!! The only thing booked is Camp Bestival, at Lulworth Castle at the end of the month. A family festival for three days!! Can't wait. Been looking at the wildcamping website, that looks like fun, maybe after the move!

Just back from two weeks abroad. Started from the Plymouth-Santander run. Arriving in Santander at 1pm is a baptism of fire! The traffic police are whistling madly and fantically waving you straight off the ferry onto a three lane roundabout chockablock with loadsa traffic. Sat Nav hadn't adjusted and was screaming "turn around where possible" !!

Well we survived that and had a fab couple of days in rural North Spain - superb campsite with the cleanest facilities I have ever come across. Then across the Pyrennes climbing to around 1300 metres. The aircooled van did brilliantly - it got very hot, but cooled down very quickly with no adverse effects. The Pyrenees were just stunning - tested the van on those really high steep roads.

Then to Dordogne - on hot midday roads the engine kept her cool brilliantly. The brakes got very squeaky though from collected dust!

Then Loire, and Brittany and home vua Roscoff-Plymouth. 2000 kilometers in total and no break downs or mishaps at all.

The French campsites were mostly good - but the French still haven't learnt how to have clean nice loos - over 50% were disgusting! They need to take a lesson from the Spanish!

Driving was great - actually French lorry drivers are much better than the ones here - they gave us space, were patient, and overtook safely. They are very fast though! Huge 38 ton Renault Artics travel at around 100 kph on the motorways!!

Fully laden, four up, with roofrack we averaged 28 mpg. Our max was 30 mpg - a stunning figure! The van was happiest at 55mph - 60 mph was ok, but she would run a little hotter - and more than that for any length was asking too much, so I was always kind to her! Oil Temp on hot days was running at 100-110 degrees - rising to 120 on long hills. On slower roads she was between 90 and 100 degrees on oil temp. I won't tell you what it up to on the Spanish-French Pyrennees pass! (but I was amazed at how quickly the aircooled engine can get rid of heat). I will give her some nice fresh oil this week now I am back.

My fridge was great - kept butter and cheese and 1 euro rose wine really cool!

All in all a great trip. The engine was strong and superb throughout - my only gripe with the van is the fact that the brakes get dusty and squeaky so quickly - but they work just fine - always keeping me in a straight line.

dartmoor wrote:

my only gripe with the van is the fact that the brakes get dusty and squeaky so quickly - but they work just fine - always keeping me in a straight line.

Are you sure it was dust and not them overheating. Being an avid Tour de ffrance watcher, i've seen some of those hills. We had our brakes overheat and start to fail going down a steep hill in dorset not long back, no where near as long as anything in france. They squeeked for days after.

Looks like you had a great time, and nice to hear that it was a trouble free trip.

Just back from 5 days in the south-west and Max performed superbly.

The trip down was a slog as an accident just south of Guildford held us up for an hour there and then another hold-up on the A303 added another hour. Still I only had myself to blame as we were travelling on a Saturday and I should have left earlier - it just didn't work out that way. The on-board dvd I fitted last year was a perfect distraction for Jnr - ironically he watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles!

On the way down we caught up with and then overtook another Danbury T2 which later pulled up behind us at the next services. It was filled to the brim with kids, dogs and loads of stuff for a real tour and it's new owner whose name escapes me at the moment (sorry if you're reading this) explained that she'd recently bought the bus from Snailtrail. It was known as Phoebe there but this family had renamed it Lola after their original T2. The best bit about the van for me was the number plate that had been included in the sale. Superb. Hopefully Lola and her family will be joining us here on the forum soon.


I went back to Widemouth Fields Touring Park as I'd enjoyed staying there last year on my tod and was happy to take my son there. Wide open spaces, great facilities including a courtesy bus to the beach if you don't fancy driving - but of course we did. No way were we going to Widemouth Bay without our Bay!

I took the Khyam Motordome awning to throw all the usual crap in and all was going well until the last night when gusty winds kicked off around 10pm and I wondered if it was a good idea to have the awning attached to the van. For those unfamiliar with the Khyam product, it's a terrific awning, very straightforward to erect and it attaches to your Bay's gutter via a plastic 8-shaped tube. The base of the awning-to-van tunnel is pegged down at each end but there's no means of locking the centre section down. So if a gust of wind comes up from underneath and pushes the connection tube up, then the whole thing comes off your van and in my case starts to bang against the side of your Bay. Bad times.

Fortunately I was half asleep as the wind noise was incredible and I leapt out into the foul weather wearing not much and held the attacking tube at "Bay" with one hand whilst dismantling it with the other. Miraculously there seems to be no damage to the paintwork - I suspect because I'm so generous with the Meguiars wax and it provided enough slip on the paintwork for no damage to take place. I got chatting with a Classic Bay owner the next morning and he said he'd had the same problem with a Khyam previously and had bought a new rubber tube to attach his awning with great success. Apparently it's an awning to caravan tube which you can get from caravan accessory stores. I'll look into getting one and will let you know how it fares. He worked for Bentley btw so probably knows his stuff.

The only other problem we had on the trip was when I foolishly elected to drive across a gulley in the car park at Widemouth Bay rather than drive down it. The car park was full and I thought I'd head across the grass to the exit rather than down the well carved out dried mud gulley that's been there for years. The width of the gulley was exactly the width of Max's wheelbase so having got the front wheels down into the gulley, once the rear wheel dropped in - we were well and truly locked across the path! How I laughed. NOT!! Instantly a group of people formed and with them pushing from Max's front I reversed out and away very red faced. One of the guys who helped said that I'd only gotten the help as my van had such a lovely paintjob! Result.

Bus-wise I was very happy. I get stick from my tech guy (who's a purist) for running Max on Mobil Semi-synthetic 10-40W but the engine just seems to revel on it. It purrs along and seems to have great guts for tackling the long hills of the south-west. Further it keeps the running temp in check - at a constant 60-65mph the oil temp was sitting at 220F. Not sure what mpg I was getting - I don't tend to work it out much - but it must have been at least 25 - the amazing thing was the 114p per litre to be found at the pumps on the A303 around Crewkerne. Why can't it by like that at home?

3 generations converge at Widemouth Bay:

TimV wrote:

I took the Khyam Motordome awning to throw all the usual crap in and all was going well until the last night when gusty winds kicked off around 10pm and I wondered if it was a good idea to have the awning attached to the van. For those unfamiliar with the Khyam product, it's a terrific awning, very straightforward to erect and it attaches to your Bay's gutter via a plastic 8-shaped tube. The base of the awning-to-van tunnel is pegged down at each end but there's no means of locking the centre section down. So if a gust of wind comes up from underneath and pushes the connection tube up, then the whole thing comes off your van and in my case starts to bang against the side of your Bay. Bad times.

Had the same thing happen to my awning as well, luckily it fell down and flapped against the awning instead of the van. I've got a Mobil Camper riviera, bargin at £90 brand new. Had a bit of fun putting it up in the wind but luckily once again the wind died down once it ws up and we had quite a still night. not sure how it would hold up strong winds though. Think I'll look into the awning to caravan tube as well, was thinking about some sort of clap to hold it in place but if the tube works will probably go for that instead.

kiteman wrote:

TimV wrote:

I took the Khyam Motordome awning to throw all the usual crap in and all was going well until the last night when gusty winds kicked off around 10pm and I wondered if it was a good idea to have the awning attached to the van. For those unfamiliar with the Khyam product, it's a terrific awning, very straightforward to erect and it attaches to your Bay's gutter via a plastic 8-shaped tube. The base of the awning-to-van tunnel is pegged down at each end but there's no means of locking the centre section down. So if a gust of wind comes up from underneath and pushes the connection tube up, then the whole thing comes off your van and in my case starts to bang against the side of your Bay. Bad times.

Had the same thing happen to my awning as well, luckily it fell down and flapped against the awning instead of the van. I've got a Mobil Camper riviera, bargin at £90 brand new. Had a bit of fun putting it up in the wind but luckily once again the wind died down once it ws up and we had quite a still night. not sure how it would hold up strong winds though. Think I'll look into the awning to caravan tube as well, was thinking about some sort of clap to hold it in place but if the tube works will probably go for that instead.

Ah...what you need is this:

http://www.fishbrain.biz/acatalog/awning-attachments.html

Look at the gutter bulk strip. Very cheap simple solution.

I'm off to France first thing in the morning from Dover in Herman, with a site booked for the first few nights, and then hoping we'll be able to find something for a week or so after. If they're all full, it'll be interesting! After a trip to Eurodisney for the young 'un (honest!), gonna play it by ear around northern France/Belgium, I reckon.

Anyone got any site recommendations?!

Thanks for that Dartmoor, just ordered a strip.

It wasn't filled to the brim - there was loads of room left !!! We got an additional two ton of sand in it for the return trip

Trip

Trip wrote:

It wasn't filled to the brim - there was loads of room left !!! We got an additional two ton of sand in it for the return trip

Trip

dartmoor wrote:

kiteman wrote:

TimV wrote:

I took the Khyam Motordome awning to throw all the usual crap in and all was going well until the last night when gusty winds kicked off around 10pm and I wondered if it was a good idea to have the awning attached to the van. For those unfamiliar with the Khyam product, it's a terrific awning, very straightforward to erect and it attaches to your Bay's gutter via a plastic 8-shaped tube. The base of the awning-to-van tunnel is pegged down at each end but there's no means of locking the centre section down. So if a gust of wind comes up from underneath and pushes the connection tube up, then the whole thing comes off your van and in my case starts to bang against the side of your Bay. Bad times.

Had the same thing happen to my awning as well, luckily it fell down and flapped against the awning instead of the van. I've got a Mobil Camper riviera, bargin at £90 brand new. Had a bit of fun putting it up in the wind but luckily once again the wind died down once it ws up and we had quite a still night. not sure how it would hold up strong winds though. Think I'll look into the awning to caravan tube as well, was thinking about some sort of clap to hold it in place but if the tube works will probably go for that instead.

Ah...what you need is this:

http://www.fishbrain.biz/acatalog/awning-attachments.html

Look at the gutter bulk strip. Very cheap simple solution.

Managed to test the bulk strip out last night.
30+ mph winds. Pulled a guy rope out the ground but the figure 8 strip stayed attached all night.
Used about 2cm at either end of each figure 8.

Cool - good news. Thanks Kiteman.

i use the pole and clamp system with my kyham motordome sleeper....i think it would pull the van over before coming loose in strong winds, a very rigid system, but you do need to put a little padding on the middle three clamps to prevent any chaffing of the material of the connection tunnel (I did get both systems, fig 8 and pole and clamp, with the purchase of the kyham but found the fig 8 was somewhat of a loose fit).

regards,

eddy

hi everyone
i got back last week after doing a tour of the country with my two sons wife and the mum in law all packed in for a 10 day trip!!! we went from kent where we live to birmigham and stayed at a lovely site near a canel with lovely play area,nice and flat and 45 mins from cadbury world!!! after visiting we headed up to lake windermere and took a trip on that and went to the laurel and hardy museum. saw some nice early bays and two splittys on the way. We then went up to hadrians wall and took in the sites an visited one of the forts. After that we headed back down to centre parcs at Penrith for the week and then back down to the peak district camping at ashbourne. all sites were caravan and camping sites. tired fencing as in en garde !!! laser tag,quad biking; footy competition and wildlife walks along the way!! covered 950miles along the way averaging 27 mpgalleon aaverage (not bad) and cheapest petrol was 111 per litre in penrith (why do we pay more down souf!!!!!) and got back last week. we used a pop up awning that lies separate from the van but packs away in minutes -not bad for 50 quid in decathlon and a separte pop up tent. Had a great time and no troubles drivin wise other than moving all over the shop on the motorway at 55 mile an hour and payinmg £9 to use the m6 on the way up-the road was nice though. and we took four bikes on the back!!!

Sounds like a great trip 2007 t2 lhd. Was that Wolverley that you stayed at near Brum? I was there last year. Nice site.