Malibu Molly

Whilst the idea of going across to France, by Shuttle or Ferry, and then just going wherever the front of the van points to seems marvellous, the urge to plan things is even stronger.... I have the outward joourney booked on Le Shuttle. I did that during a 20% offer that oddly didn't extend to our return journey and so I booked one way. Malibu Molly is a 6m campervan. There are two human adults and one canine adult onboard. It was still £167 for the single journey. The return is booked with Irish Ferries for £132. Le Shuttle return was £207. The new bookings have been done recently. I said in the previous post that Claire would win over me where the destination after the Alsace part of the tour would be, and she did. So Lake Annecy it is. I decided to book at  Camping La Nubliere  at the southern end of the lake. After a few nights off-grid or in aires a nice campsite looked like a good idea. I booked this through ACSI. It's  expensive  at around €26.50 a night inclu...

Another quietish night once the party crowd in the seasonal caravans had piped down and gone to sleep. We still had the drivers to visit the loo almost all night.  It seems that the rules, and there are a few, weren't applicable to the guy that needs the loo at 3am and needs to drive 300 yeards. Anyway we set the alarm from 8am. We didn't want breakfast as I had a trip on the way back planned for breakfast! In the end I was up a few times with Reggie for his pee breaks. A guy across the way decided that 6.15am was the right time to empty the garage at the back of his motorhome with all kinds of crap including a gas BBQ complete with grill, metal wheeled stand and 10kg Calor bottle! Then let his spaniel dog run around all over the place without its lead. Once up we set to work doing the packing and I noticed that the motorhome service point had a car parked close up to it.  There's a square marked out and painted with criss-crosses, but it's hard to back into it with a c...

We were up late, or rather we were up early and then late!  Reggie manages to sleep most of the night at home. I generally go to bed around 11pm and I leave him with his bed on the sofa and some treats to "find" before he settles in for the night.  Often when we go down around 8am (we are retired okay!!) he can be found still asleep. So when in the van in a much smaller space he is up around 5.30am and asking to go out. I end up getting up and turning off the alarm to get the sliding door open and he can get out. Then he comes in and repeats the same whine until I get up again or Claire feeds him his breakfast.  Then he wants to go out again! This morning was no exception.  So after all his visits outside, it was light at 6am BTW, we went back to sleep. It was 10am when we both woke up!  The site was still very quiet as it's March. It's Friday morning and only the retired are on site.  Oh. The workforce are out and about in tractors and other noise making e...

An early weekend? What's that?  Well it's a Thursday to Saturday trip that does have one of the weekend days in it! As usual on a Thursday morning I was at the greyhound rescue foster home a few miles from where I live.  More information on the charity from Kent Greyhound Rescue . I had only seven dogs to feed and exercise and left the last one in the care of another team member to keep an eye on so I could get home before 11am. Pack the van and get away for the 11.30am start. We just about managed that. We couldn't get into the site until 3pm according to the paperwork I had printed off after booking. The paperwork actually gives the pitch number as well. We were going to be pitch 59.   On the way up we made easy progress up the M20 to the M25. Even the hazard and road block that it is the Dartford Crossing, it's a tunnel going north, was relatively easy to navigate. Rather than stop as usual at Thurrock Services we carried on until we were on the A12.  We avoi...

This weekend in the UK has two things happening.  Firstly the clocks go forward an hour in the small hours of Sunday, and secondly, Sunday is "Mothering Sunday" or as it is more widely known as "Mothers' Day". I still have my Thursday morning visit to the Greyhound Rescue  to feed and give the dogs a run before we can set off. I am usually back before 11am and so if we get the van loaded up pretty much on Wednesday afternoon, then we can then leave ASAP.   The destination is to Essex again. Waldegraves at Mersea Island again.  We last stayed there back in May 2023 and I thought it would be another opportunity to get away before the kids Easter holidays. We tend to not do a lot at Easter any more. So two nights on a hardstanding pitch with EHU will cost us £25 a night. In March dogs go free and that saves us £4! Going a bit earlier in the week, THursday, might mean we avoid the influx of two years ago.  It was virtually empty and t...

With the last two cans I simply topped up the AdBlue tank every so often. Bought in 5 litre bottles either from Home Bargains or B&M.  The problem we have been told is that it's not easy to know whether it's started to crystallise or not.  What we have had happen is the warning ⚠️ light coming on to say the AdBlue level was getting low.  Rather than let it get too low we dropped into the Shell station on the westbound A14/A12 heading towards the Orwell Bridge in Suffolk. The station has dedicated pumps. The odometer was showing 8899 miles. I put in 12 litres.  I thought it was a bit early as we had only done 1189 miles since collecting it from the dealers. I would have expected it to be full. Since then we have done another 1100 miles and the light is not on yet. The Shell was an eye watering £1.786 a litre!!

After all the problems last week with the smell of gas and the workshop saying there was a leak that's been fixed, then the smell of gas lingering. I bought one of these. It's a gas sniffer device. My theory at the moment is that the stink "perfume" they add to the gas has permeated the sheets and maybe even the mattresses in the van.   The smell definitely goes away after all the doors and roof vents are left open for a while. I just hope that's the end of this saga and we can get on with enjoying our trips away.  We are only just over two months away from our summer holiday.

This is the very first event for the local centres that we have been to over the three years since we joined the Caravan and Motorhome Club. Technically we are in the East Kent Centre although we haven't been to any locally organised events.  Until today.  Saturday 22nd March. The huge junction on the M25 with the A3 in Surrey and close to the venue, the Brooklands Museum, was going to be closed for some work. The junction work was started so long ago it's lost in the mists of time.  It's been another massive job and like the similarly undertaken task on the M2/A249 in Kent, it's so long ago no one can remember when it all started.  The years of disruption will be forgotten when traffic can move smoothly (again!) and save everyone 20 seconds on their journey through the area. So the plan was to go earlier on Friday and stay locally in a Certificated Location in Hersham.  The journey then on the Saturday morning would only be around 20 minutes. But as previo...

Having to lug the Bluetti AC70 around in its bot isn't that easy. As the box started to fall to pieces it was getting difficult to lug it around. Plus it was huge and took up a lot of unnecessary space. Enter... the Bluetti carry case for the AC70!  Not cheap. Well made and it is padded to protect the investment, plus it's way smaller than the box and foam inserts.  There's enough room for the charger cables inside too.

This is the setup we have inside the gas locker at the rear left of the van.  Because the right side bottle is easier to access, it's the one I use the most.  After the fill up on Wednesday they should both be showing full.  That means the gauges should have the black line right around on the thickest green area.  I took these pictures today after we got back from Choose Leisure. Right bottle - full Left bottle - not full! Very odd.  All I can assume is that it was one of the connections to the left bottle that was leaking gas into the van. It's heavier than air and under the bottles there are vents to allow the gas to drop through and into the open air. I have used the left bottle in the past for the hob but when filling it's supposed to fill both bottles without any manual intervention. As we usually have electric hook-up on sites and aires, we generally only use gas for the hob to cook on.   I couldn't smell gas when I oppened the back doors and the...

Up early and off to Choose Leisure again.  Overnight I had left the front and rear Heki rooflights open, not ideal for insurance purposes. The alarm is set so that might have been useful. Of course. With all that fresh air there was no gas smell.  When we arrived we opened to rear doors where the locker is, we could all smell it.  So off it went to the workshop.   Some two and a half hours later it came back. They couldn't find any problems and they did a gas check all around including the hob.  I couldn't smell it after that. After we have become paranoid I have ordered a gas sniffer from Amazon to arrive tomorrow!   At the moment Brooklands with the Caravan Club is on!

After last weekend away when it was freezing we had the heating on for most of the day and night.  It was on low when Reggie was left on his own, he has a fur coast already, and off when we were away from the van completely. It seems we used up nearly  whole 11kg bottle of LPG!  The gauge goes from thick green around the a thinner green to red to give an idea of how much gas in in the bottle. Ours was deep into the red! So yesterday we went to Dover BP to fill the bottles.  The other bottle was slightly used and still in the green. We filled up with 14.55 litres. According to Gaslow the 11kg bottle should hold 21 litres. When we had finished to fill both bottles they should show were full on the gauges. By the time we had finished there was a pretty horrible smell. They pit a scent into the gas so that you can smell it! It didn't go away.  We have not had this problem before when filling the other vans we used to own. By the time we got home it was worse. I rang...

It's sunny today. It's March 18th so it's not going to be sunburn weather, but still looking to see if it will charge the AC70. It's not easy in our garden to avoid the tree and that shades a bit of the panel but the breeze means it swings back and forth.  The panel on the AC70 shows that it is charging at between 17w and 40w.  I doubt that the panel ever manages to charge at its full potential 100w though. I wonder if this seems okay for this time of year and the quality of the sun's rays? Hopefully, when we get to France in the summer we'll be able to use them linked together. The AC70 also charges from the mains at home and also has a 12v charger as well.

Coming soon! There was an invitation to a meeting of the South-East section of the Caravan Club and we took it. It's a weekend soon. As well as the meeting there is supposed to be free admission to the Brooklands Museum . We'll see! Brooklands has a long history going back to the early days of motor racing. That was almost kiboshed when they built an aero factory onsite in time for WW2! I have located the battery for Claire's Sony DSLR to take with us and see what photos we can get.  A review of the trip to follow.

It's that time of year again. Yes. Insurance time! Once again I did the comparison sites dance and found that my current insurers wouldn't or couldn't come up with a quote for the year commencing April 1st.   I tried several different insurance comparison sites and they all came out that Lexham Insurance were unable to quote.  I have been with them for 2 years on the 31st March! Some of the quotes were around 300% of what I paid last April for this current year. The Caravan Club was in the region of £1550!!!! It was suggested I try Ripe Insurance and on Motorhome Fun there was a link as well as quite a few forum members saying how good they were. I did and it turned out to be the cheapest quote for the same amount of cover. The policy excesses are the same as my current insurance. I am sure they do this to save having to pay out for little dings!   To say I had roughly calculated my Lexham renewal to be about £600 I didn't hurry to sign up to Ripe's £641 quote...

To say I didn't really know what to expect was an understatement. The arrival time at the "site" was supposed to be 6pm.  As it was in a school we had to wait until all the kids and staff were gone for the weekend.   On the way we stopped at the White Cliffs as the route from home was via Dover around the east coast of Kent to Cliftonville. We were lucky with parking at the Cliffs as the new designated motorhome parking area had only two other motorhomes and no cars.  The first time I think. Signposting is still pretty awful though; far too small to be seen unless you look closely. We had a coffee and a short walk with Reggie.  We both like looking at the port of Dover under the cliffs.  As it was a Friday there was a lot of activity and the queue of lorries on the A20 was about halfway back to the Capel turn off. About 2 miles blocking the left lane of the A20. The port itself was full of trucks queuing for the check-ins. Not many cars caugh...

I have allowed three nights on the "Alsace Tour" section of the trip.  This should take us from Bühl in the Black Forest across into France and through Alsace and along the Route des Crêtes to around the north of Mulhouse. I have a few places bookmarked on the France Passion system to overnight. All the places are self-sufficient and so in Bühl we will need to do the housekeeping  jobs and fill the fresh water tank. We do tend to carry a five litre spring water bottle with us for drinking water, although when it's emptied we can fill it with fresh water from the tap on the aire.  I've not booked the Bühl Camping-Car Park aire yet.  They have changed the app and website and it's all bug ridden! Nearer the time.  There are one or two other aires in France that could maybe do the same overnight! So to Annecy.  It's a place we have planned to visit in the past and never have done. Always something else came up and we did that instead.  Usually Spain! Mulho...

Ferry Maybe I should have done this before but I have booked the return crossing for the end of our holiday. I did a price comparison check on the three of the four channel crossing operators from our area.  I discounted DFDS (Calais or Dunkerque) as they don't have anywhere for the dog to go other than in the van for the entire crossing. Further afield is DFDS from Dieppe to Newhaven.  Newhaven is along the A259 almost door to door. One road! That route also doesn't have a dog lounge and the crossing is around 4 hours. So from the three I have booked Irish Ferries. Why?  It's the cheapest.  I paid in euros and it came out at £132.10 when it landed in my Halifax account. This is for the van, us and Reggie with access to the "pet den".   Last year when I returned on the bike from the MotoGP at Assen their ferry "Oscar Wilde" was very clean and was much cheaper than P&O and the Shuttle. By comparison. For ...

I have been mapping out the possible routes to take on the outward journey from the Shuttle arrival point in Coquelles near Calais. The Shuttle is already booked and so is the first night of the trip. That first night is at a campsite in the Ardennes in Belgium.   I am still looking beyond that and have looked at Bühl in the Black Forest for the second night. The idea for that is that it avoids French pay motorways and it takes us to an area we have never been to before.  Bühl looks like a good overnight spot and thee is a Camping-Car Park (CCP) aire on the outskirts of the town. As the first night is on a site we will have fill power etc in the batteries and the power bank.  The CCP aires all have power and clean water and waste facilities anyway. Awaycation 2025 - Map 1 The route that TomTom Camper Max through the online mapping tool has planned is for a campervan with the dimensions of Malibu Molly in programmed in.  It's also set to avoid toll roads. The nex...

Although over the years as a motorcyclist, I have been to many bike rallies across the UK and Europe, I have never been to a campervan rally. Claire on the other hand has been to one particular motorcycle rally in the Czech Republic a couple of times but not for many years. So it will be our first as motor caravanners! It's over the weekend of St Patrick's Day and so we will have to (endure?) take part in the rituals that surround the green festival. We will be suitably attired.  We had hoped the Claire's Irish citizenship would have arrived in time but we are still waiting.  Her Granny came from Cork and passed away soon after we got married.  That alone entitles Claire to become a citizen.  Proving it has been a long wait.... Picture from https://www.twinkl.co.uk/teaching-wiki/leprechauns