Friday 24th August – Moving on to Derbyshire

I’m saying goodbye to Bron-Y-Wendon this morning and moving on to my next campsite and also meeting up with some of my family there 🙂

As I said in my intro, my family had a long history of camping/caravanning together and we still all try to get together a few times a year now, even though we have all left home and have families/jobs etc that keep us busy.

This time, my older sister, BIL and older Nephew are sunning it up on holiday abroad, so it’s my parents in their van and my little sister, her husband and my little Nephew who will be meeting me.

A painless packing away process this morning, after going to fill up at the petrol station as I forgot last night in my rush to get my chips back before they got cold. I did have to duck in my van a few times when it rained, but it was bursts of rain and then lovely sunshine straight afterwards. I also remembered to pack myself a little packed lunch and drink as the journey was predicted to take about two and a half hours.

It took pretty much three and a half hours all in all.

As you know, journey mapped out ready, and started off well, then the road closures ( 2 in total) and diversions began about 30 minutes into my journey and took me totally off course.

Now this time I was able to pull over into lay-bys as I was on major ‘A’ roads every time the journey took a different route, so I could check where my phone was trying to take me (by this point the written/planned journey wasn’t going to work). This meant that I could avoid all of the ‘B’ roads it was trying to send me down and stick to the bigger roads. This did mean adding a little time on to my journey, but worth it to not stress!

One funny moment on the journey was about an hour in, knowing I still had about two hours of driving left. One of the wonders of caravanning is that on a long journey between sites, you basically have a portable toilet with you. Now I wouldn’t recommend a lot of people using it, for fear of ‘spillage’, but for one careful owner/driver, it’s safer that leaving your car and caravan unattended at a big service station to use their dirty facilities.

I decided a stop was needed (don’t worry I won’t go into too much detail) so pulled into a large lay-by, locked my car and unlocked my caravan. Made my way to the bathroom and suddenly realised how tricky this may be, because every time a lorry or large van went past my van, it swayed rather alarmingly! I also realised that I hadn’t shut my bathroom blind and anyone looking carefully (and they would have to had looked very carefully) could have seen exactly what I was doing! Quickest ‘stop’ I’ve ever made and I felt more seasick after that then on the boat yesterday!

Eventually got to the campsite and was welcomed by my sister and nephew, who for five seconds was very happy to see me, until he noticed a free roaming chicken and that became a lot more interesting!

Booked in at reception and was shown my pitch, right next door to my parents and sisters van (once it arrived, my BIL was on his way and she had come with my parents earlier in the day).

Easy set-up process (getting good at this) and I also had a most wonderful helper with me…

The rest of the afternoon was spent playing with my Nephew at the park and around the vans and chatting with my family – lovely.

Dinner was chicken, potatoes and peas and Mum’s homemade apple pie and custard – delicious.

It was very nice to have so many people to speak with this evening – I’ve missed the company. A pretty long day all in all, so heading to bed now, more tomorrow. Night!