campervan adventures

Just Nessie and a goat

/ embraceyourinnergoat / 2 Comments


Recently I braved my first solo trip with Nessie. I took the opportunity to work out of the office in Basingstoke & afterwards stayed a night camping near Micheldever.


I’d forgotten how long things like checking tyre pressure can take on a new vehicle, but important to be safe. Fortunately the traffic was good & I wasn’t late for work. And I enjoyed showing her off to my colleague at lunchtime!!


The campsite wasn’t as hard to find as the instructions implied and it was a quiet site with just one other camping party. The site overlooked a stream & water meadow, so when I arrived I enjoyed relaxing with an after-work cider while watching the bird life.


I set up the inflatable awning just as the drizzle started and then tried a new recipe for dinner of beef barley. For pudding I attempted a stove top cake. (I’ll share the recipes once they are perfected).


The evening soon disappeared & it was time for bed. My plan had been to sleep in the roof and have the new toilet downstairs …but the new toilet didn’t arrive in time! Fortunately there was a flush toilets on site not too far from my van, so it wasn’t a disaster.


I decided to sleep up top anyway to try out the bed boards and I slept fairly well up there.
In the morning I went for a pretty walk to Stoke Charity past a lake & some former watercress beds.

I had a coffee back at the van before it was time to pack up. I was relieved to discover I could pack down the awning by myself without too much difficulty. Bonus treat, the campsite owner kindly packed me off with some rhubarb from his garden.


Here’s where I stayed Winchester Watermeadow and here’s my review.

L

Nessie’s maiden voyage

/ embraceyourinnergoat / 2 Comments

Well, not really her maiden voyage – we’ve already been enjoying brewing up lots of cups of tea in her and eating choc ices out of her freezer in various locations. But this weekend she had her maiden overnight trip!!

We didn’t venture far, as we needed to call in a Sussex Campervans to collect her bed boards (to enable someone to sleep in the pop up roof). And then we had a very enjoyable, if expensive, look round CampingWorld which is also near Horsham. We treated Nessie to a hook-up wire (so she can use campsite electricity), a fire extinguisher and a collapsible kettle.

We then, finally, made our way to Bonnington Farm campsite near Billingshurst. The forecast had been rain, but we were very grateful for beautiful sunshine to try out the awning for the first time.

We’ll do a seperate post reviewing the awning in detail, but we were pleased with it. With one goat in the awning and one in the van, everyone slept well.

As it was sunny, we opted to cook in the dutch ovens for our evening meal. But we cooked breakfast of bacon and egg sandwiches in the van… as well as many hot drinks from the new kettle!

There is much optimisation of the packing systems to be done yet – but that’s all part of the fun!!

L & R

Introducing Van-nessa

/ embraceyourinnergoat / 3 Comments

We’ve a new addition to our camping family – Van-nessa, or Nessie for short!

She joined us at the weekend and we’re enjoying getting to know her. She is a CamperCar – a converted Nissan NV200. She’s very easy to drive – well once you’ve got used to not being able to see in the rear-view mirror that is! You’re high up so you get a lovely view of the world. She’s also easy to park as she is no longer or wider than many cars (and smaller than some of the large cars on my street!).

Silver campercar with roof poppe up parked in residential street.

So far our adventures have been limited to stopping in nice places on our way home, boiling up cups of tea for friends and last night driving to have fish’n’chips with a view… but we are looking forward to many more. And we’ll be sure to tell you about them!

L & R

This goat has wheels

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You already know that goats like to camp in style, but last week I was super brave and not only tried out campervanning for the first time, but also did my first night of lone camping.

The advantage of a van is that you can lock the doors, so it gives an added feeling of security to camping on your own. Driving this van was actually quite easy and it’s not actually any bigger than a big-ish car. I tried it out in a couple of car parks as well as on country lanes and dual carriageways. It’s an NV200 and hired from Sussex Campervans… I’m very tempted to get my own one!

I tried sleeping in the top bunk the first night and the main bed the second night. Sleeping up top would take some getting used to, but down below I slept very comfortably. I stayed at Riverside Farm Campsite. It was a lovely location by the river, but I felt it was overpriced for what it was.

The first night I tried out a new recipe and cooked it in the van – mushroom risotto. Very tasty. For pudding I had one of those little individual pots of fruit salad. The photo is of the second night when I cooked Rowbury Lamb stew over the fire for dinner – also very tasty!

L