As regulars will know Mrs B and I have recently acquired a caravan. The van is an Xplore 304SE (www.elddis.co.uk/xplore/xplore-304/floorplan#tabs ) which we tow with a 115PS Berlingo Multispace XTR. After tentative first steps to Carsington Water and then the New Forest 19 July saw it depart on first full tour to France. The Lad (19) came along too, sleeping in a pup tent except on transit overnights. Miss B flew out to Toulouse and back from Bordeaux spending middle week, including transfer to coast, with us.
First night was on Caravan Club’s Dover site which has early departure ‘ferry area’ from where we took a short trip to board P&O’s 08:25 ferry to Calais. Overnight stops at Chartres and Brive la Gaillarde took us to our first stay, Camping le Montagnu (www.lemontagnou.com/ ) at Trein D’Ustou in the Pyrenees. After a week we moved to Mimizan in the Lande where we stayed on the lakeside municipal site.
Return was via overnights in Poitiers and a clifftop site near Eu in the bay of the Somme. Except for Brive (municipal) the transit sites were all part of the ‘Flower Camping’ chain. Late afternoon ferry back to Dover and after truly appalling weather on the M25/M1 we got home at 22:00 last Friday – 08 Aug.
No disasters or damage but a lot of learning points for newbies.
The outfit itself seems an excellent combo. The ‘van is less than 75% of car’s kerbweight and provided gears are used intelligently it’s no problem keeping up with traffic flow even on curvy D roads. Never more than hint of a wiggle or snake and although you occasionally feel it pull it never shoved the car. . It does kick slightly when overtaking/being overtaken by artics but quite manageable provided you allow space. At under 3.5tonnes all up weight it’s not subject to the 90kph limit applied to those that do. Could theoretically take it to 130kph on the Autoroute though never actually went over 100.
Fuel consumption towing is at best in low thirties (mpg), little better than half what it does unladen, but we gather that’s typical.
We thought when we got the van as it was small we could manage without a motor mover. Err No!!â€. It only needed wet/long grass for three of us to struggle. The first site at Chartres had very tight pitch entrances and we came very close to getting completely stuck. Fortunately we were able to get car to it and drag it off, nearly going through a hedge in process and, the site being pretty well empty, move to a pitch adjacent to that allocated where there was space to easily reverse it on with car’s front wheels on tarmac. Nowhere else was quite so problematic and I’m now a bit more confident at reversing the outfit round corners.
As living accom the van has been brilliant, even without the awning, using the dinette as a bed and having to eat inside due weather. Bit of a problem early on when the leftside support for the double bed broke but ingenious use of the stacker jacks (for corner steadies on rough ground) and books provided a solution. Warranty calim now with Elddis.
Cooker, fridge, water heating and loo, strictly limited to night and wee use only, perform just fine. After years of faffing with frozen bottles, picnic boxes and foil blankets having a domestic sized fridge is luxury. Thought we were going to run out of Calor Propane but in fact it lasted. Camping Gaz 907 and adapter were carried as a back up but not needed or tried. Does anyone have a better solution, ie easy means of adapting French supermarket gas cylinders?
Panic immediately after leaving Chartres where being on a non elec pitch we’d put fridge on gas and forgot to switch off and back to battery (i.e car’s supply) before leaving. Fortunately we soon found a layby and sorted it.
The Bradcot awning, bought without our customary research is a bane/pain. Fine once up but needed The Lad’s help to get there. Might look for another at NEC Caravan Show in October. Fairly narrow choice though as it needs to be full size. Inflatables and similar straddle a window on such a small van. Again suggestions are welcome.
edited links as the closed bracket at the end stopped them from working
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 12 Aug 14 at 01:06
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