Iona goes to a Theme Park

Drayton Manor C&CC, Fazeley.
Trip 21, 24th - 27th October 2017
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This trip was planned because it was on a Camping & Caravan Club Site, The Temporary Holiday Site was run by the Fenland District Association and it was only £11pn including Electric Hook Up. The Sat Nav took us there without any problem although there were a couple of large complicated roundabouts.

When I checked in there seemed to have been some confusion. I booked 4 nights but the planning dept thought I wanted four days and not four nights. They are fully booked because of a grand firework display on Fri/Sat/Sun nights, so we were reduced to three nights.

The site is big with a large number of hard standings, two rally fields and some Ready Camping surrounded by woodland. The site it right next to Drayton Manor theme park so it gets very busy in the summer and with it being half term the coming weekend is very busy. We went for a walk around the outskirts of the campsite and the park that also has a hotel and a separate conference site.

This is a walkway where you are tethered to the beige girders but you can walk anywhere in safety.

Ready Camping

The toilet and shower block is amazing, plenty of toilets and the biggest shower cubicles we have seen. There is also a laundry room which has a washer and dryer and sinks etc all very clean.

We finished the day with a Chinese style curry and rice.

Day2:

After a slow start we left the campsite and headed to the main road. We crossed the road and found a swing bridge across the canal, there was also a footbridge with towers and spiral staircases. We crossed the canal and followed the towpath into Fazeley.

Towers and spiral staircase with the agricultural swing bridge just behind

One of the old Mill warehouses

The canal went under the main road and we came to a marina with another bridge over the canal entrance we continued on towards Fazeley. We passed some old industrial building, a huge disused Mill building right next to the canal with the original wharf still in place. Opposite is a disused Presbyterian Church.

Presbyterian Church.

Then under another bridge to a junction in the canal. This was where the Birmingham and Fazeley canal meets the Coventry Canal.

Birmingham and Fazeley Canal junction with the Coventry Canal.

Here we crossed the canal and walked the towpath towards Birmingham for a short way to see a new development built around the Peels Wharf.

Peels Wharf

We returned to Fazeley junction and walked south along the Coventry canal to where it went under the main road, here we left the towpath and joined the road back into Fazeley and back to Drayton Manor.

Campsite Reception

We had been out for two hours and walked nearly five miles. Lunch and a couple of beers in the Sun was next on the agenda.

Day 3:

The weather is dull and quite cool so we decided to stay inside and read. There was plenty of movement as people left during the morning. After lunch there seemed to be a new motorhome or caravan arriving every half hour. Tomorrow and over the weekend there are three firework displays which why it is getting busy.

Sue tried a new recipe for tea. One pot Fish Stew with some crusty bread. It was really good and it goes onto the menu list for the future.

Trip 21: 144 miles, 26.5 mpg,  36 mph, 4hrs

Iona goes to Great Steeping

The Limes Campsite, Great Steeping
Trip 20, 10th - 13th October 2017

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 We set off for Spilsby and Great Steeping. We got caught up with roadworks and then the maize was being harvested for the local bio-digester. We arrived after just over an hour, via a rather narrow lane taking us past the Heavy Horse Centre. Luckily we did not meet any other vehicles.

We met James the owner who explained everything and allowed us to park on any vacant pitch. At this time of year we were only the second campers so we chose a pitch next to the pond. 

After lunch we went for a circular walk that took us onto an old perimeter track of RAF Spilsby. We came across a memorial for the airfield that has long since been returned to agriculture, the runways ripped up and hardcore was used in the building of the Humber Bridge. The memorial is sited on the original airfield firestation and consists of three columns and a rectangle block of stone. Each of the pillars is dedicated to the brave men who flew from RAF Spilsby but never returned. The blocks also represent morse code, dot dot dot dash, for the letter ‘V’ for victory. 

We left the memorial and continued our circular walk into Great Steeping and back to the campsite. The weather was quite mild and we sat outside on a picnic bench with a cuppa and our books. The wind soon picked up and we went back inside the van. For tea Sue prepared mussels and fries.

Day 2:

It was very windy this morning but fairly mild. The wi-fi was not working this morning so we had to read or watch TV. The kindles won and we read until the owner arrived.

There was a need for a walk after lunch, so with walking boots on off we went, only to find after we turned left at the T junction that we should have turned right. We retraced our steps and headed for the historic All Saints Church that is situated down a lane in the middle of nowhere. The church was built in 1748 and restored in 1908. It is not used for worship these days but the graveyard is still in use. We saw graves dated 1847 - 2009, some ornate for the wealthy of the time and some very basic.

We left the churchyard via a gate to the south and found a public footpath along Lady Wath’s Beck to the river Steeping where a bridge took us to another church, St Andrews in Little Steeping. An old church but in use today with the latest grave dated July 2017. We retraced our steps back along  Lady Wath’s beck and crossed to the other side via a bridge and followed the path back to Great Steeping and then to the campsite.

Day 3:

Still windy but brighter. We went for a walk this morning to see what the other campsite was like. It looks as if it has been taken over because it has new signs and  there was a notice on the entrance saying ‘sorry no tourers’, it is now static homes in the form of log cabins. Once back at the campsite another caravan had arrived and parked very near to where another motorhome had parked, except they had gone out. When they came back they were not very happy and they moved to another pitch.

Trip 20: 80 miles, 26.5 mpg,  29 mph, 2hrs 41m

Refillable gas system fitted

With bottled gas costing between £22-£28 per refill, it was getting quite expensive,  even in the summer we use a bottle every 8 days. The price of autogas is much cheaper at  0.62p per litre compared to £1.90 per litre for the calor gas refills.

We invested in a Gas-it system that came in kit form. It comprised of two refillable 6kg bottles and all the pipes and a couple of adapters so that we can use the existing regulator and pigtail. Each bottle has a gauge to show the gas level. 

I intend to use it with one bottle turned on at a time, that way as soon as one bottle is empty I can switch to the other full bottle and then get to a garage to refill the whole system without relying on the accuracy of the gauges.

The only other decision was where to put the filler. The skirts around the gas locker are very flimsy to put the filler and I did not want to drill a hole in the door because if I sell the van I will take the system out and return it to the standard layout. The decision was made to put the filler in the locker, this is perfectly legal and inline with the current guidelines for the UK.

The big day came to fill the system. We set off for a local garage after 6pm in the hope that the the petrol station was quiet in case there was any problem getting to the autogas pump. When we arrived cars we’re queuing so we joined in and eventually pulled up next to the pump. I undid the locker door and noticed my hands were shaking, I was nervous about using the autogas pump for the first time. I put the leak spray on the joints of the filling pipes, connected the nozzle.

There were some strange noises before I started filling, but this was the compressed air that they test the bottles with escaping. The pump went to zero and I pressed the big black button and gas started to flow into the van. There were no leaks showing and the pump soon stopped automatically when the bottles were full. It took 24.1 Litres which was spot on for the size of bottles. The best bit was paying, £14.94 instead of the normal £43 for two bottles. 

Unbeknown to me Sue had been watching from inside the van, she thought it all looked easy, but she was not shaking as I was. I don’t think I stopped smiling all the way home. I am no longer an Auto-Gas Virgin and we now have cheap gas onboard.