Another day out

Following our trip to Cannock Chase we went for a second day trip to Blithfield Reservoir in Staffordshire.

This journey took us along slightly more testing roads then along the top of the dam to the little car park where we found a suitable space to reverse into.

There is pleasant walking by the reservoir and we found the bonus of an ice cream van!

We had taken food for a simple meal and enjoyed our day, which had also given us confidence to venture further afield.

Our next trip would be a couple of nights away to fully test everything.

First outing

     We were not immediately in a position to go away so decided to take Rocci out on a couple of day trips to acclimatise ourselves. Our first outing was to Cannock Chase. We knew that we would find easy parking at the visitor centre and would be able to have a stroll, returning to put the kettle on. As we wouldn't need much water we carried it separately rather tthan filling the onboard tank. We found good free parking on the approach road, avoiding the need to negotiate spaces on the car park.

Manoeuvring the large vehicle on the road was simple but the extra width compared to a car was a little daunting. Those big wing mirrors give a great view but extend a long way. Be sure to give cyclists and pedestrians plenty of clearance. Just as I thought I’d got the hang of it my nearside mirror “kissed” the mirror on a parked van while I was concentrating on oncoming traffic in a busy street. Fortunately there was no damage to either of us.

While on the Chase, I also found a quiet clearing used for parking and practised a bit of reversing.

Trips like this are also a great opportunity to play “Spot the rattle”. All motorhomes generate some noise from furniture and fittings, but certain common irritations can be remedied. The grill pan and oven shelves are common sources, easily fixed by wrapping in a tea towel. We also found that the shower door and bathroom door both rattled. One or two pieces of self-adhesive draught excluder fixed these or we could have used those little stick-on shock absorbers which DIY stores sell for cupboard doors.

Heavy items such as our nesting saucepans had been stored in lower cupboards (for stability and safety) and some of these required wrapping to stop them banging together. We also discovered that putting plastic containers between noisier items, and packing quite tightly, also suppressed unnecessary noise.