Caravan Capers: Wales or Bust - August 2009 | Caravanning Blog from a Couple of Caravanners as they Holiday around Britain in their Caravan

South West Wales, specifically the Pembrokeshire coast, is the destination of choice for this year's extended caravan caper.

However to get there from our home in West Yorkshire is a bit of a jaunt to say the least; particularly when you're limited to 60 miles an hour max. So we decided to break the journey up into chunks with an initial two night stop over at the Wincombe Club site near Tewkesbury in the Cotswolds on the first Saturday and Sunday nights.

Cotswolds

We've been away to the Cotswolds before, having stayed at the excellent Moreton-in-Marsh Caravan Club site just a few miles down the road from the Winchcombe CCC site we were heading for, so the area was well explored. However this stopover was purely a traveller's rest chosen because of its proximity to the M5 and was deemed to be a midway point to South West Wales and St. David's where we hoped to pitch by Monday afternoon.

Arriving just after two on the Saturday afternoon, the trip took us 4 hours. Incidentally, to those of you reading this post who live on the "dark-side" and are card-carrying members of the Jeremy Clarkson fan club: please note that we would have got there a little quicker if it weren't for the non-caravan pulling drivers dawdling on the motorway or on the A-roads including some bozo in an open-top Mercedes which obviously couldn't go any faster than 45 miles an hour.

If you can't drive, get rid of your car!

On the way down, we'd worked out a routine between us, a process if you like; that would allow us to get parked-up, unit levelled, awning erected (a job in itself), floor down and kettle-on as quickly as possible. Typically this process has taken us up to 2 hours plus! Remember we're new to this!

So we delegated tasks between each and upon arrival and getting unhitched - we set the timer going.

A Personal Best

Well what can I say? Little victories make life worth living.

From brakes on and van unhitched, to awning floor down and the kettle on! We achieved a time of of 51 minutes, just slightly slower than our past personal best of 48 minutes at Kingsbury Water Park. Still, not bad if I do say-so myself!

A Good Stop-Over Site

As a site Winchcombe is a 'good stop over site' we would say. Anything longer and we'd recommend the afore mentioned Caravan Club Site of Moreton-in-Marsh as it's a better located site for exploring the Cotswolds and has everything you need within a short stroll.

The Winchcombe CCC site itself has little going for it locally that doesn't involve negotiating the fast and pathless A-road outside the gate. This means you take your life in your hands should you choose to walk anywhere. Consequently this renders everything, including a trip to the nearby village of Alderton with its pretty thatched cottages, a drive out. Shame! Having said that, if you're into fishing you're on the right site. Pitches surround a central man-made lake which has been stocked with carp. Various fishing platforms are dotted around the edge which meant that campers were never more that a few feet from a fishing point.

The site manager made a point of telling us that there was a thirty-pounder somewhere in the lake and various pictures on his office wall indicated that fish bigger than your average stickleback did indeed exist.

On Sunday morning we drove to Alderton with Lucy, our now 10 month old Staffie-cross pouch. From the village centre, we found a bridle way that ran for miles through fields and woods which was obviously part of the Grouse shoot of some local estate, given the large number of the critters that were running about. Afterwards we had a swift pint and cuppa at the delightful Gardners Arms pub in the centre, before driving back to the site.

Gas Barbecue

Sunday gave us our first opportunity to test out our newly acquired gas barbecue. Only a little thing, not one of these outdoor culinary machines that would make St. Delia jealous. I've had grub off them before, but am mindful that critics of this cooking technology seem to think you don't get the same "smokey" or "cremated" flavour that you get from a normal charcoal barbie!

Well having cooked bacon on it for a Sunday lunch snack and the full-barbie-monty for the evening meal (see pic) - I can tell that not only does it taste the same, it cooks grub better and you don't have to wait the best part of an hour for the thing to heat up.

Gas guzzlers for me every time from now on!

Second Leg

It pissed it down on Sunday night in the wee small hours and given that we had an early start planned for the Monday morning, we had visions of us having to dismantle everything under a brolly on Monday morning.

However, as luck would have it, the British weather being what it is, the sun came out and dried everything out which made the whole job a lot easier. We were all done and dusted and back-on the road to South Wales by 10.00am.