Hi all. Just thought I’d blog our first trip away with our caravan as it may be of interest to someone! Also, I must say that this is a brilliant site. I have had 2 threads here and was given advice very quickly. I also used the search engine dozens of times.
Well, I recently purchased a Bailey Ranger 470/4 ’99-2000 and booked our first weekend away at a site no more than 35 mins drive. The things that concerned me most were hitching up, driving with the caravan and unhitching and pitching. I’m sure that’s the case with a lot of newbies!
Hitching up went fine and I triple checked everything, and I do mean everything. It was only a weekend for myself, girlfriend and our 5 year old little boy so we didn’t have much to take with us. I left the awning that came with the van at home as I didn’t want any stressful fall-outs with my other half! So, there wasn’t a whole lot in the van. We packed very light and I think this was my first mistake. Despite reading and re-reading everything I could get my hands on, I misinterpreted the nose weight factor. I was under the impression that it was essential not to exceed the nose weight but anything under it is fine. This is not logical , I know that now but all I could think was ‘don’t exceed the nose weight!’. I placed all heavy items close to the axel. Thus the journey down was a little wobbly front to back, a little jerky. We all got there ok though.
When I got to the site, I assumed the EHU post was to be central to the caravan. This made it impossible to drive the van straight onto the site. So I unhitched and pushed the van in. At this point, as has been documented many times as an almost guarantee, a helpful veteran came and helped. Unfortunately my jokey wheel then collapsed. I had not tightened it properly. We rectified this and I got sited and levelled up no problem. Everything else went fine on the pitch. The only minor niggles I had were the following:
I couldn’t work out the easiest way to fill the toilet flush with the materials I had on me. Will bring a 5L bottle and funnel next time.
The early sun flooded in through the bottoms of the tensioned blinds in the morning. I’ve heard the fly blinds being down may help. Any other ideas?
It was VERY cold on Friday night here and I was freezing in the morning and there was a fair bit of steam and condensation on the windows. The helpful man next to me advised putting the window catches on at the first position to assist with airflow and also to keep the electric heater on low throughout the night.
The bed was a little uncomfy for my girlfriend. The owner before last had reupholstered everything in white leather which looks nice but a little uncomfy. We are considering a memory foam topper. Or perhaps buying a roll of foam that has been cut to size from ebay and making a poor man’s duvalay.
The water pump seemed to be chugging away even when we didn’t have the taps on. This didn’t always happen. Also, a couple of times it did nothing when we needed water. Just moving it slightly outside got it going. Maybe need a new one?
The tap leaked a very small amount of water. It seemed to be coming out of the swivel area. The joins?
That’s about it. Really enjoyed ourselves and looking forward to going away next weekend. Seems like a lot of niggles but not really. These are things that I plan to eliminate for next time. I reckon we will be away maybe twice a month.
Thanks again for all contributors to this site!
Richard
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Topic: First time away!
