The last leg

On By MashleyIn Camper van, Europe, france, travelLeave a comment

Packing up for the third time we made the 2.5 hour drive north to Camping Acapulco in Saint Jean de Monts which is a 5 star rated campsite.

Compare to our last stop there were very few motorhome / camping pitches, maybe 20 or so I counted, the rest of the park is a mix of residential and park owned luxury caravans, our pitch was nestled in amongst some of the caravans.

To be fair it was a generous sized pitch with our own water tap, our neighbours were a Dutch family who were very friendly and gave the girls an ice pole each, they had two kids as well though they were out a lot so our girls didn’t really get to hang out with them.

The big attraction here if you have kids is the water park, there are a bunch of slides for smaller kids and then some mad ones for slightly larger ones, there is also a wave pool which the girls really enjoyed in their rings, this is the view from the main pool looking at the slides for the younger kids.

Interestingly the water in the pool was really warm so nice and easy to get in. We didn’t really do much here aside from hang about the pool, cook food and drink a few beers.

Most evenings were spent chilling by the van.

We did venture to the beach one day and it was heaving, didn’t bother taking a photo. The sea was quite rough as the tide came in as well, not ideal for younger kids.

Soon enough it was time to pack up again and start the 5.5 hour drive to Dieppe, it was long, hot and uneventful.

We parked up at one of the Aires a short walk (10 mins) from the quayside restaurants, Dieppe is really busy at night which makes a massive change from all the towns and villages we drove through that always look deserted.

We found an awesome restaurant which had some interesting live music, a very mixed age range band with a female singer coving everything from Eurythmics Sweet Dreams to Nirvana Smells like teen spirit!

Our crossing to Newhaven was at 06.30am, the Aire was 5 mins drive from check in which was handy, got up at 04.30 which nobody was a fan of!

As I finish writing this post Lauren and Arielle have gone for some breakfast and Stella has some internet on her iPad so is watching something which to me looks completely pointless, there is a tired kid crying and the boat is swaying gently on it’s way back to the UK.

As it’s so early we were treated to a beautiful sunrise only marred by the digital zoom on my phone!

In terms of the places we’ve seen it’s been a good trip, the kids have been testing with more arguing and fighting than we’d like, probably due to tiredness more than anything, not entirely sure we’d go away with them for this amount of time again, it’s been quite stressful for everyone, the kids said they had a good time however!

We’ll be home for about 11.00 in the morning, enough time to unpack the van, have a shower, put some washing on and then get ready for work Monday AM, 04.30 start, can’t wait!

Hot

On By MashleyIn Europe, france, Self build camper van, travelLeave a comment

That’s the average temperature in the van in Sanguinet, scorchio.

Thankfully we put aircon in which gets it down to about 20 in the evening which is comfortable enough to sleep in.

We stayed at camping Sandaya which is a five star campsite on the shore of the lake, a far cry from when we first stayed here about ten years ago in our old van bumblebee. We stayed at an aire which is about 500 meters from this campsite, took a picture for nostalgia.

Don’t remember it being this hot last time around to be honest.

Our pitch was pretty much in the blazing sun most of the day so I made a sun shade out of a back drop which is actually a bed sheet Lauren tie dyed for her mums 60th.

Looks a bit ghetto but it worked as intended.

The campsite itself is quite nice, reasonable facilities, great waterpark for the kids which is hectic at the best of times, there is access to a pool at the site next door which is far more chilled even when it’s busy.

Our days were spent searching for sun loungers at the waterpark, staying there till about fiveish and then heading to the lake at much protest from the kids only for them to have a whale of time trying to catch small fish.

We stayed for three nights and on the last night ventured out to try and eat at one of the lakeside restaurants or snack bars, they were all closed and the kids were hungry so they weren’t on their best behaviour.

The sunset however was beautiful.

There was also a full moon which I was advised by my mother in law is called the sturgeon moon, it was massive and came out for two nights.

On our last night we packed up most of what we’d got out so we could get an early getaway, mainly to avoid driving about in the heat of the following day, we left on the Monday morning.

We are now at Ideal camping which is near St George de didonne, marginally cooler weather.

This is a two star resort, it’s right by the beach and they pack them in here.

Despite that Lauren and I both prefer this to the last place, you very much feel like you’re in a forest and it’s much less hectic although the pool is pretty mad after lunch. There is a well stocked shop and the facilities are in better condition than the 5 star one aside from none of the toilets having toilet roll, if you’re a bloke it’s pretty obvious what you’re up to first thing in the morning!

The beach is lovely and quiet up until about 3pm, then it gets rammed, below is before it gets rammed.

The kids went rock pooling and found hermit crabs, I made a sandcastle when Arielle came back for a bit and got burnt despite putting my usual all day sunblock on, either it’s losing its potency or the sun was just bloody hot, combination of the both I reckon.

Tonight is our last night here, tomorrow we’re off to another 5 star campsite for two nights and then home, would rather stay here as it’s quite nice but going on to the other pace will knock a couple of hours drive off the final leg home.

Whilst we were here I did get to try out my new acquisition, the latest camping shower from decathlon.

My old one after 7 or 8 years faithful service died, the pump handle snapped. I think this is the third revision of this shower and the improvements include being able to see how much water is actually in it instead of guessing, a secure connection to the tank and it being black. I filled it with cold water and left it out in the sun for a few hours, came back and had a lovely hot shower to wash all the sand off my body before a late lunch, can highly recommend, game changer for camping!

A French house in the boonies

On By MashleyIn Camper van, Europe, france, travelLeave a comment

We spent a week hanging at Ian and Lindi’s place which is a tiny little hamlet called Le Tourondel, there are about three dwellings there and rush hour consists of a couple of cars and maybe a tractor a day.

Our first day was spent mucking in and getting the place ship shape, much strimming, sweeping and bring the murky pool back to life.

There is a lot of wildlife here which kept Stella amused trying to catch lizards which she eventually did.

She caught a few other things as well including a massive cricket

There are all sorts of different lizards, green ones

Little speckled ones

And massive slugs

Then there are the bats that live in the bat house, so cool to see them hanging about

It was a very lazy week but we did manage a few trips out, one to le splash which is the local water park, got a nice photo by the river

There’s also a lake not to far from the house so we chipped there and had a bbq

Most of the adults and all of the kids got in the lake

There was a night market in Argentat selling a mix of Artisan products and cheap Chinese rubbish you’d find on Temu, the kids bought a mix of both with their holiday money.

The rest of the week was spent chilling ahead of a four and half hour drive to Sanguinet where Lauren had booked us into a five star campsite, more on that in the next post.

This pretty much summed up the last few days, chilling under a tree enjoying some music in-between the kids arguing over something completely pointless….

And for the last part of this post some pictures of the scenery, it really is beautiful round these parts

A lovely crossing

On By MashleyIn Europe, france, Self build camper van, travelLeave a comment

The crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe is four hours and for young children it’s a great deal more interesting than sitting in a van in a tunnel or a short plane journey. They can run about and there are plenty of things to do, especially if you have an Uncle Ben with you who loves Lego and inventing dungeons and dragons games, the also do a good kids meal with a bag of colouring thrown in.

As our crossing was at 17.00 UK time we got a lovely sunset out a sea which was magical!

We also took a quick ferry crossing crew picture

Once we hit land we drove about an hour or so south to an aire that Ian and Lindi know, the aire itself was full but there are some car parking spaces you can pull up on as long as you head off at a reasonable time in the morning, ,it’s nice and quiet and there is a river just opposite.

After sone coffee and croissants from the local boulangerie it’s a further 6 hours drive to Argentat, Lauren scoped out a nice lake we could stay at in Chateaurox called Lac de Belle-Isle. There is a nice aire there along with a municipal camp site which also looked pretty decent.

After some car park dining Lauren, Lindi and the kids went to the lake for a splash about.

Ian and Ben had a kip, I fixed the van stereo and did the washing up, very exciting!

Soon again we were in the road, next stop Argentat!

We arrived at about 11 PM, the house hasn’t been opened for a few months so you never know what you might find, thankfully only one dead mouse and no damp!

I parked up the van and after the excitement of arriving and grabbing a well earned beer or three we got our heads down for the night in the van which is parked up just by the bat house, they’ve got more room than we have!

And we’re off!

On By MashleyIn Europe, france, road trip, Self build camper van, travelLeave a comment

For those of you that check in on this blog you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d disappeared of the face of the planet, sold our van and settled down to a life more static. The truth is we spent two years selling our house, didn’t go to France as a family and had a handful of mini adventures.

Thankfully that is all behind us and family holidays have resumed We are heading off from Newhaven en route to Dieppe, an overnight stay in an Aire somewhere south of Rouen and then on to the in-laws in Argentat.

We’ll be hanging around in France for three weeks slowly making our way back up the Atlantic coast and I’ll be recounting our adventures here for those that are interested.

Salut as they say and Bon Voyage!

Solo Stove Ranger 2.0 Review

On By MashleyIn camping, Review, Sprinter Camper Van, travelLeave a comment

If you camp out regularly as we do there is nothing like sitting round a campfire having a beer, a good yarn, cremating marshmallows and ensuring your kids don’t get to close and go up in flames.

I’ve had a few fire pits in my time, the last being one of those fold up mesh ones which for a portable fire pit is surprisingly good. The main gripe with all of them is the smoke, I don’t mind smelling like a bonfire but when the wind changes and you get an eyeful of smoke it kind of ruins the moment and you are forever shifting about the fire to stay out of it’s path.

Whilst perusing social media, adverts started coming up for the Solo Stove smokeless fire pit.

I’ve had my eye on one for a while and this Easter which tied in with my birthday I decided to treat myself and find out if the hype about being smokeless is for real. The advertising campaign is very slick and features happy people without smoke in their eyes sitting around the fire pit having a very nice time.

I read a good number of reviews and all sung the praises of this amazing fire pit, I bought the Ranger 2.0 which for a limited time came with a Mesa table top fire pit.

It arrived and I tested it on two separate occasions.

It was always going to smoke when you first light it and this is stated in the manual, they advise using hardwood and I used well seasoned Oak which is about as hard a wood as you can get, not massive logs either, split logs as recommended.

If like in the picture you have flames coming out the top of the fire pit it is indeed mostly smokeless although you still get invisible smoke in the eye quite a lot, being invisible makes it harder to dodge, as the fire burns down the visible smoke returns and as oak is a slow burning low flame wood there was a lot of smoke again fairly quickly, what I think you need is wood that has a high flame output and a lot of it as you’ll be going through it pretty fast.

Never did I see flames like this which is a picture from their campaign.

It does generate a decent amount of heat in all directions which is a great improvement over traditional fire pits and as the flames are mostly contained there is a lot less chance of setting you or something else on fire

You’ll also note from my first picture of the stove that it is sitting on bricks as it doesn’t come with a stand to keep it off the ground, that’s another £49.99 in addition to the £184.99 the fire pit cost, it’s my opinion for that kind of money the stand should be included or if you are going to throw in a free item, a stand for the fire pit instead of an additional tabletop fire pit would be more suitable.

Cleaning wise there is an ash pan that catches most of the ash but you’ll still need to turn the whole thing upside down to get rid of the rest of it.

If you are not satisfied there is a money back guarantee.

For now I’m going to hold on to it, maybe I have a bit more to learn about it so I’ll have a few more fires with different fuel and see how I get on, if it was down to Lolly she wouldn’t have bought it in the first place.

In summary the unit is very well built and with proper care should last a lifetime, however getting the fire to burn at it’s optimum rate for a smokeless experience takes a bit of practice and it’s price point isn’t attractive for the odd weekend aways use.

The Fiamma Privacy Room From EBay

On By MashleyIn awning, Fiamma, Self build camper van, Volksweald2 Comments

There have been a number of occasions when we’ve been away that it has chucked it down with rain. I used to have a Coleman event shelter that we could all shelter and cook under however attached to the van is an awning, if I added a privacy room to it then I wouldn’t have to run from the van to the event shelter, I could just step out the door into my rain free space.

Fiamma privacy rooms are not cheap, usually upwards of £1000 new, looking on eBay there were a good few available all for F45 awnings, ours is an F65s.

The difference between the two is the F45 awnings mount directly to the side wall of a motorhome whereas the F65 awnings are designed to mount on a roof using brackets, in our van these sit in the roof rail so the awning casing sits back from the side of the van.

I figured this wouldn’t matter too much and was delighted when I picked up a whole privacy room for £150, bargain !

It came with the fast clip 2.0 system which costs more than £150.00 on it’s own.

You have to buy a couple of brackets which fix to your awning casing which were abut £20.00 so the fast clip rafters have something to attach to on the awning, I put those on and offered them up, they fitted, result.

That was in 2022 and I’d not had a chance to put the side and front panels on until the weekend of Volksweald when the good old British weather promised to belt down with rain.

We arrived and I hastily put together the privacy room in about 30 mins before the downpour.

As you can see it’s not the greatest fit!, part of this was due to my hasty assembly.

For starters the front panel should only require the addition of a door panel to fit the length of the awning, it doesn’t, you have put an extra infill panel in which then makes it 10cms too long.

Moving inside you can see why this is designed for an awning that mounts directly to the side of a motorhome and not an awning that is set back from the side of the van.

Moving to the sliding door side, if you have the supporting side bar installed vertically not only does it leave a gap as above, it also fouls the sliding door so you have to put the pole at an angle which then leaves a gap at the top and the bottom.

Despite these gaps when the rain did come it actually kept most of our stuff dry but it’s clearly not a good fit overall.

Fiamma do make a privacy room specifically for a sprinter, from what I can see there is extra material on the side panels to fill that gap at the top and guess what, its over a grand and there aren’t any second hand ones, you don’t seem to be able to buy the side panels on their own either.

I’m still undecided as to whether I’m going to keep it or not, I’ll use it again at Bug Jam and hopefully have a bit more time to play about with it and make it fit, it’s going to rain when we get to BugJam so I’ll need to use it, then make a decision about it’s future when we get home.

Fiamma Awning Rafter

On By MashleyIn awning, Fiamma, Self build camper vanLeave a comment

If you have a wind out awning like we do you might find at night when you are trying to sleep it flaps about.

Not only can the noise keep you awake if you are a light sleeper but it can also have you worrying the whole thing is going to blow away when it probably isn’t.

Instead of supplying one as standard, as an optional extra you can buy a Fiamma awning rafter. If you have a Fiamma awning like our F65s then the hooks this thing attaches to are already installed.

Basically you wind out your awning, stretch the bar across, wind the awning back in to tension the awning fabric and then do up the rafter bar hand screw.

Once this is done the awning fabric flaps no more!

As I mentioned earlier, I think this should come as standard as it really makes a world of difference!

Butane Canister Gas Transfer Adaptor

On By MashleyIn Butane, camping, travelLeave a comment

If you are out and about and use gas canisters for your stove or kettle you’ll most likely have a bunch of half filled canisters kicking about.

Most of the time that’s exactly how the stay, a full one is preferential as you know you’re not going to run out but then you end up with another half full canister…

I can’t remember what I was looking at but a post about this came up.

This marvellous little device lets you transfer gas from one canister to another to make a full cylinder, amazing!

This particular one works for Lindal Valve canisters, the ones I have are Coleman C500’s.

All you do is look up the total canister weight, then transfer gas from one to another till it weighs the same as you when you first bought it.

The instructions are a bit more in depth than that and this device came with a clear guide of the process, I gave it a go and it worked like a charm 🙂

This particular one is made by Campingmoon and was about 18 quid from Amazon., there are others out there, I bought this one as it featured in the guide I watched on YouTube.

So happy days, no more half empty canisters for me and I can safely dispose of my used ones as they are 100% empty.

Le Beach

On By MashleyIn beach, Europe, france, holiday, travelLeave a comment

After a few days at Lac Du Parloup it was time to pack up and head south. Before we came out here I fitted a bike rack so we could bring out bikes and a trailer for Arielle, the idea being that when we got down near the beach we could use the bikes to venture out if we wanted to. Clearly I am not used to how long this additional item makes the van and I managed to snag my rear wheel on a tree.

I’m not going to lie, I did swear and was really annoyed at myself. It transpires that 26” MTB wheels are extremely difficult to come by so that was my bike and the trailer out of action for the rest of the trip.

The drive to where we were staying next, Dunes Et Soleil Marseillan plage took a couple of hours, the kids were well behaved even when we stopped at Lidl, the temperature was noticeably warmer.

Check in was easy and we’d initially booked for a few nights, within no time at all we were setup.

The beach here is lovely, entry to the sea is a very gentle slope and you can wander out a long way and still be only up to your waist which is great for the kids, finally they got an ice cream from the man who walks along the beach with an ice cream trolley, Stella remembered this from the last time we came to France and she was dead set on getting one!

We ended up extending our stay here for another 4 nights at a cost of 70 Euros which is great value. There is an onsite bar that does amazing burgers and Pizzas plus the main drag is well within walking distance as is the local fairground I suppose is the best way to describe it.

There were plenty of rides for the kids and at around 22.00 they’d spent all their tokens and we headed home to be greeted by our first storm.

I wasn’t as prepared as I could have been, the water wasn’t an issue but the wind whipped up pretty quickly, luckily Lolly saw what was going on and came out and held on to the awning while I put some straps in to stop it blowing away, that did the trick and next day everything’s was as it should be, still attached to the van!

We had a great time here and probably would have ended up staying till we went home, we had lovely neighbours from Germany, Belgium and the UK and I even found a working three way fridge someone had chucked which came in well handy for keeping my beer cold!

What we didn’t have was a pool. I don’t mind hanging at the beach but the pool is a nice thing to mix it up for the kids so after seven nights we packed up again and headed to Vias Plage.