Just a week away is the ABC, our annual AGM, BBQ and Club Camp – are you going?
Get together with members and hear what’s happening in your Club at our short AGM. The Barnstones site has served us really well over the last several years, and is located in Great Bourton, Banbury, Oxfordshire, OX17 1QU, just a couple of miles off the M40.
Scene of our earliest club BBQs, which are free for members, we’re very much looking forward to going back. We will be using a local hall to host the AGM part of proceedings, along with light refreshments. Just bring your membership card with you.
Price per night is £15 for a pitch (van with or without awning), but electric hook-up prices cannot be quoted at the moment, due to uncertainty in the market. I’ll share this information as soon as we have it, but please be reassured, we will be able to power the BBQ food storage safely 😊
I will be making all the bookings, just let me know your dates, how many adults, children and dogs, whether you need electric, and whether you’re bringing an awning. Places are limited so contact me soon to reserve your spot! Please do not book direct as there may be insufficient space on the rally field.
The site itself says, “Barnstones is a very attractive 4 star AA award winning site situated on the edge of the pretty village of Great Bourton. 3 miles from the historic town of Banbury, other attractions nearby are Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick Castle, Oxford, Blenheim Palace and the very beautiful Cotswolds area all within a 20 mile radius of the site. The site is very mature with beautiful landscaped grounds, full serviced pitches and hard standing pitches are available, all pitches have hook-ups provided, the high quality toilet block provides free showers, dishwashing facilities and a full laundry room. Wi-Fi and a children’s play area are available. A local pub serving very good food is 200 yards from the site.”
Father’s Day Weekend – Club Camp and Display at Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway
It’s an extra-special one – bring along your Dad, or Dads, or just join us anyway 😊Ride on a steam train, take afternoon tea, and discover a new obsession! We already have several members signed up to join us at this exciting event, but there are still places, so get in touch to secure yours!
On the very edge of the Yorkshire Dales and within around 50 miles of the Lake District lies this wonderful piece of mechanical Victoriana.
The railway dates to 1888 and there is a mile and a half easy walk to the Priory, which is supposed to be rather gorgeous. We will camp at the station on the Friday and Saturday nights, the loos will be left open overnight, and daytime snacks will be available to purchase from the onsite café. I hope to be able to BBQ on the Saturday night but there are logistics to work around – more on that nearer the time. You are welcome to bring other generations of Fathers with you, there is a pub within a very short walk that offers accommodation – http://thecavendisharmsembsay.co.uk/. We are asking for a minimum £10 donation per van per night to go to help support this volunteer-led piece of history. If you would like to ride on the train and/or enjoy afternoon tea, please pre-book on their website.
Prices seem reasonable – train rides are available from £13.50 for a one-hour adult journey, £20 with breakfast thrown in, or £29 if you include afternoon tea. There’s also a Rail and Sail option plus dining choices – see loads more on their web site!
Display your van and attend this smaller show for free, with an option to camp for just a tenner (advance booking essential). Stay all weekend or just a night, it’s up to you, the price is the same. It costs £7 to attend the show, but if you’re exhibiting your van, it’s free to get in, you just pay for your camping. What a bargain!
Here’s more from our Chairman:
”I was chatting to the organizer of this local car show. We went as an exhibit last year and were one of around 200 cars. The show is one day but it’s on a farm with entertainment barn music on the Saturday night and an adjacent pub with meals. There will be a few stalls with varied items for sale.” Well, thank you, Malcolm, sounds great! Visit vintageandcountryfair.co.uk more details, and email me if you’d like to be part of our Club Camp and display: events@vwt2oc.co.uk
We are all just back from a great week at Petruth Paddocks near Cheddar. Here are some photos of our time there.
Impromptu Sunday evening communal dinnerWarming around the fire pitPaul gives us a “man fire” lessonChef even works SundaysSee the hailstones on the roofWe even took the club to the pubThe club at the breweryBacon buttiesBurger time
It is all systems go for Petruth Paddocks – are you going? Hope to see you there!
Tuesday 11th April – Monday 17th April 2023
End of Easter Camp at Petruth Paddocks, Cheddar
Last year’s April event was such a huge success, we’re going to do it again! Just a bit earlier, again starting at the tail end of the Easter weekend. Come for as many or as few nights as you like.
This well-run site with “the best showers and loos” according to our attendees, sits at the foot of the Mendip hills and within a 20-minute walk into Cheddar, its splendid caves and numerous coffee shops. There are also two supermarkets just over half a mile away, and a Post Office in the village. It’s a level walk into Cheddar, and around half of it is traffic-free, more if you’re just going to Sainsbury’s.
Wookey Hole caves, Wells cathedral, and Glastonbury are within easy reach. Check out www.petruthpaddocks.co.uk to see information about local footpaths, buses, and cycle-ways. On-site facilities include free wi-fi, washing up, and electric hook-ups, as well as those loos and showers.
We’ve secured rally rates again, £15 per unit without electric hook-up instead of £15 per person. Electric will be charged through a pre-payment meter. And we’ll only pay one nightly fee for doggie companions per unit, saving £3 a night for any extra dogs you may have!
In addition to our Club BBQ on the Saturday evening, I hope we’ll be able to offer one or two activities – a coffee catch up on the Sunday morning; a gathering near the Club gazebos and listen to some early evening, easy music from our own Lorna James and/or other members; a belated Easter egg hunt if we have little ones in our group – I’ll work up the details as we get closer to the event, based on numbers. There is also a local pub, so if all else fails we’ll be able at least to wander along there if we fancy a change of scene for a natter. It’s all in the pot at the moment!
The site operates a Behaviour Bond and a nattering-only policy after 11pm, so if you’re after rock n roll, it’s probably not for you. You can read more at www.petruthpaddocks.co.uk/groups/adult-group-booking.html – your Club is covering the bond. Please note if your party breaks the site’s rules, you will be asked you leave and you may be removed from the club. Not that I expect that to be an issue!
Find out more about what’s going on locally, attractions, facilities, pubs, activities etc. and more about the site itself at www.petruthpaddocks.co.uk
We live near Oxford so Calais was not practical as we wanted to hit Bordeaux, so we went Portsmouth to Caen and Le Havre to Portsmouth as the return due to pricing and availability. We got a good rate through the camping and caravanning club discounts that more than paid for this year’s membership fee. We also took out AA European cover, although it was about £80 a week on top of the annual cover charge, expensive but reassuring! In theory every town in France has a mechanic and they are all the older fashioned mechanics who know our simpler engines extremely well, chances are this extra insurance would have been unnecessary. Prior to setting off, we had been having some engine issues and multiple mechanics locally had looked at it, most recently a half day that resulted in a cable tie forcing the air filter to always run with warm air intake not cold. A very expensive cable tie! Our latest tank of petrol showed running figures of just 18mpg which wasn’t good either. We decided that actually the real issue was the carb and since we have a second van and that one has the same original carb, we could swap them over and see what happens. One quick read of the Haynes manual and a bit of Internet research and the swap took around 10 minutes! What a transformation! Poppy had more power, better idling, no cutting out, no holding back and the problem was solved just before the trip. Following the advice from our illustrious President Malcolm at a recent AGM weekend, we also bought a split charge relay and fitted it, total price £7 and that charges the leisure battery when the engine is running, the solar panel keeping it going when parked. Other prep work for a big long trip was to make sure that on board were the bits that we might need. Spares – Rocker cover gaskets, throttle and clutch cables, set of plugs, points, condenser and coil. Some wire and termination plugs, electric tester (even the screw driver with the light bulb from the pound shop), set of bulbs, some fuses and a fan belt. We also took 2 litres of oil, checked it each day and in fact only used about 300ml across the whole trip. Then we packed the tools – Set of sockets, adjustable spanner, screw drivers, feeler gauges and of course a cork screw! Other useful stuff – torch, you need a high-vis jacket per person and they fit under the passenger seat along with a cheapo (we paid £2) plastic triangle also under there as they need to be accessible from the cab area. We didn’t bother with the breathalyser, you are supposed to have two but there is no fine for not having one. If you wear reading glasses, you are supposed to have a spare pair in reach of the driver too. We took the log book, MOT, insurance doc and a photograph of each one just in case and we needed them to get out of the UK as a lot of stolen vans used to get driven out of the country. We also kept our passports with us at all times even when out for a walk, just in case. The Michelin 2017 map of France and a sat-nav for those times when the map just doesn’t do it were essential. We stayed at the camping and caravanning recommended site on the Saturday night in
Caen as the ferry docked around 9.30pm and it was literally half a mile from the ferry port but expensive at £26 per night. The morning was bright, the sky looked promising and the van was running well, our ultimate aim was Bordeaux but given the breakdowns of recent years, we were just going to enjoy what fate brought us. Maybe Sunday would see us stay over in Nantes? Well the motorways are for fast cars and you can pootle along in your van on free roads and they are all deserted, beautiful countryside and clean villages and towns. Nantes came and went before we stopped at the supermarket for bread and cheese and by late afternoon we arrived on the west coast at a village called Jard sur Mer about 200 miles from Caen, Poppy running better than ever, the site found in the Aires book was six euros per night and was right by the sea, a little village for strolling and they had an ice cream shop too. Monday morning waking up hearing the ocean and we still had no plans or sites booked for the rest of the trip. We bought a book from Amazon of the Aires Camping Car Europe version, there are signposts all over too of big camper vans signposting a place to stay – often a car park in town but most are free, pretty, clean and have CDP and fresh water, although some charge for the water. That evening we were in St Emilion, on a vineyard having a BBQ and drinking wine made from the grapes that surrounded us on all sides. We had never done the exciting bit of setting off with no booking for the night and just looked at the map each night for where to head the next day. Sometimes the Aire that we aimed for just didn’t cut the mustard, often we found something better on the way, vineyards being our favourites and along the way we stayed by the Dordogne, the Charantes, on vineyards, distilleries and in pretty villages. Sum total cost apart from the first night was twelve euros site fees and we came back with a lot of wine bought from the people who make it. We visited Bordeaux, Bourg, Cognac, Bergerac, Monbassilac and other places making wines plus cultural places like Oradour sur Glane (a village retained as it looked after a 1944 massacre) and Arromanches les Bains (scene of the Normandy landings) amongst others. Day time exploring towns, villages, medieval chateaux places of interest. As usual, at each fill we log the fuel consumption as we have done since purchase and we managed to get up to 29.7mpg averaging 26mpg across a 1,400 mile round trip which alone saved us £100 on petrol. Since June 15th this year your mobile works in Europe on your UK mobile contract so there are no extra charges which meant we were online and able to make and receive calls without worry. The overnight ferry from Le Havre meant a full day of fun and exploring (and ice cream) before getting on the ferry as it took us home. Docking at 6.30am, we zoomed through the English countryside and were home by 8.30 just before the locals started heading off for their Saturday shopping trips. What would we do differently? Well for sure we loved it so much that we want to go back soon. We would know that on Bastille Day the shops shut at lunchtime making our last afternoon’s trip to the Hypermarket to fill the van before getting on the ferry a fruitless venture! We’d go for longer and spend more time practicing French before heading off. What a fabulous time was had by all. There were a great deal of campers sharing their experiences, one from a Dutch couple who annually drive their modern van down to Italy, take the ferry to Greece and have 3 weeks wild camping on deserted beaches. Maybe once we retire that will be possible! There were no flights involved, no hotels, we did eat out quite a few times but plat du jour gives you great quality food with lovely ingredients for a set price meaning that the whole trip was really very inexpensive and we arrived home with 20 bottles and a whole lot of memories. Anyone know the nearest place I can get moules et frites?
The Club on tour – Three Counties Showground, Malvern, Worcestershire
September 9 to 11 2022
Well, we did it! Over 100 club members and their families were in the club field plus a few elsewhere. Burgers, bacon butties, teas, coffees, biscuits.
Over 40 new members and a lot of renewals down at the membership stand.
6 new people onto the newly renamed Management Team.
Everyone seems to have a fabulous time and we handed out bubbly prizes to the winners of “Best van”, “Best van interior” and “Best van story” to club members as voted by club members.
There were no questions for The Mechanic this issue, but with the weather tuning cold and some members continuing to use their campervan through the seasons, that means heating. There are gas heaters on the market and these are becoming more affordable. Gas is also used for cooking in many campervans, so it’s time to talk gas safety!
Types of Gas Let’s start by looking at the different types of gas available in the UK and beyond. All European countries have their own gas bottle suppliers and each of these have their own regulators and adaptors. Campingaz is available all through Europe in small bottles which is great for quick trips or for solo travellers. We (Editors) use campingaz 907 bottles as they’re fairly readily available in the UK and abroad and they fit nicely in the cupboard under our storage trunk! LPG (or Liquid Petroleum Gas) is the most common kind used in campervans and motor homes and it comes in two types; Propane and Butane. Without going into the differences between them in chemical structure, here are the main differences: Propane Usually used in vehicles where multiple appliances will be running off it. Ideal for cold climates as it operates down to -40°C! It’s much lighter and less dense than Butane. Butane Operates more efficiently than Propane. It’s denser than propane, so a bottle of the same size will hold more gas. Butane can’t be used at temperatures below 0°C (It cools down to a liquid state). Different appliances may need one or the other of the main LPGs to operate effectively, so it’s always worth checking that before you buy. Gas Safety Rules The standard that applies to campervans is BS EN 1949: 2001 + A1:2013. If you ever want more information, it is worth looking that up. There isn’t the same level of regulations for fitting gas and gas appliances to motor homes and campervans as there is to houses, but would still recommend that anyone installing an appliance is registered. If you’re installing gas appliances into your campervan, the British Standard isn’t mandatory, unless you’re going to be hiring that vehicle out. If you are going to be hiring, ensuring that everything is compliant with the law is down to you, just as it would be if you owned a house or flat that you were renting out. You’re allowed to undertake work yourself if you’re not a registered gas engineer, as long as you’re competent. (The definition of competence is vague, but you’ve got to ask yourself whether you’d be happy to undertake the work and have the responsibility on your shoulders). There’s a lot that could potentially go wrong, and the stakes are certainly high, so it may well be worth getting a registered engineer to fit it. Registered gas engineers can charge anywhere between £30 and £100 an hour, but it’s worth looking around in your area if and when you need one.
Top Tips for Gas Safety Ensure the gas is turned off before you travel. If you’re using your vehicle for work purposes and carrying compressed gas, you must show a sticker to alert people. If you’re not using your vehicle for work, but still carry compressed gas, it is advised to have a warning sticker displayed whilst carrying the gas. Unless your campervan or motor home has a rotating rooftop device, you’re limited to carrying two 10 litre bottles of gas in the UK. All flammable gasses must be carried upright at all times. Make sure you’ve got a Carbon Monoxide alarm. They might not be stylish, but they’re potentially lifesaving. Note that LPG gasses are heavier than air, so will form a ‘puddle’ on the ground in the event of a leak. Floor vents must be kept clear. If parked up in snow/mud/etc then ensure that the vents aren’t blocked. Changing the bottle is the most dangerous time, always make sure that you know how to remove and fit the regulator and keep well away from naked flames when changing the bottle. Don’t use a naked flame to look for a leak (sounds obvious!) and check for pipe leaks by using water and washing up liquid solution, bubbles will appear at a leak. Make sure you have a fire blanket and/or fire extinguisher, as well as a fire alarm. If you’ve got an older VW it is recommended to carry an extinguisher any way, in case of a dreaded engine fire. Can you really have too many extinguishers in an old VW? The rules and tips for gas safety aren’t complicated and if you keep to them, the use of gas in your campervan is perfectly safe and an excellent resource.
