Malibu Molly

With a weekend trip away to Suffolk approaching, we got Malibu Molly out of secure storage  again.  We have plenty of LPG in the two bottles in the back locker, but I wanted to ensure we had enough diesel to make the journey up to East Anglia. Our first stop was once again to the White Cliffs and the newly re-imagined motorhome parking. It had been raining for a few days and one storm after another was coming off the Atlantic! It was wet.  The spaces this time were a little full, one with a car, two with a large pile of gravel and tarmac plus a massive puddle, and one with a Belgian registered Adria campervan.  We squeezed in between the car and the gravel pile/puddle. After a walk up to see the cattle that are on the cliffs as part of the nature scheme we settled down in the comfort of the van to look at the view with a flask of coffee. Claire wanted to go to the shop and walked over. It closed at 4pm. It was 4.01pm.... Home via petrol station at Tesco! ...

Our first night away in the new to us Malibu Charming GT 600 DB. We had only picked it up on Tuesday and we were looking forward to a night away. Since dropping Molly, our old van, off at Choose Leisure on Friday, the house and garage have been full of boxes!  The soft goods like bedding in the house. Who knew that there was so much crammed into a 7m motorhome? The destination was  Black Horse Farm, the Caravan and Motorhome Club site at Densole near Folkestone.  It's about 10 miles from home. We didn't want to go too far.  Black Horse Farm With a new van there is so much to learn and to get used to. The tracker we have fitted is pretty much contact free. It works in the background and I have an app to check up on it. The alarm. Nightmare! Despite a handover it's a job to get used to how it operates. Accidentally triggering it on a campsite could get you lynched! On the way from home we dropped into Sainsbury's for snacks and dinner. Then go the site.  The site ...

We picked up Malibu Molly yesterday.  For our first drive out we decided to have a trip to Dover and the White Cliffs. There is a parking area just beyond the visitor centre that has recently been marked up as motorhome parking. There are six marked spaces. They are the same as before, so no wider, but are workable. The signage on the approach is not that clear although all the wooden posts are marked with a motorhome symbol. The drive is so much easier. Being automatic takes much of the strain in traffic away.  More relaxing and more concentration on driving and avoiding all the other road users!!

Just a few pictures of the new to us Malibu van we have called "Malibu Molly".

After 20 months of owning Molly, the 2019 Elddis Autoquest 175, we decided to down size (again) to a 6m Malibu van conversion. The van has the long name of Malibu Charming 600 GT DB.  The DB means it is fitted with a transverse double bed in the rear with storage underneath. We took over ownership on November 12th. We named her Malibu Molly. It does sound like a variant in a range of Barbie dolls!

Today after some shopping in Canterbury we had a little drive to Choose Leisure the motorhome and campervan (RV) dealers. Over the last few weeks, and maybe months since April, we have lost a lot of faith in Marquis, the motorhome dealers, and Elddis, the manufacturers of Molly the Motorhome. The full story will come out later when we have finally resolved the damp and the water ingress to parts of the body work and roof. We had talked about it when we were in Spain. Maybe once the damp had been fixed under the 10 year SOLID warranty we'd look to get rid of Molly and by a campervan rather than a coach built. So for the last week or so we have been looking, off and on, on the internet for local dealers with vans for sale. Should we stay with Elddis and go for a van, or move to a different manufacturer? We saw a few different styles and sizes of vans at the Norfolk Campervan and Motorhome Show in July. There were some layouts that appealed to us, and of course we have quite a few dif...