Doing the Midnight Flit

Many of us live somewhere not too distant from a huge conurbation like London, Birmingham, or Glasgow. As such, if your journey takes you around or through said conurbation, you have to consider planning your journey to avoid getting stuck in traffic at busy times. Here in the South East of England, that means avoiding the M25 between 6.30am and 10am, and again between 4pm and 7pm.

When faced with a long journey, like my recent trip up to Scotland, I normally aim to travel in the evening when the traffic is, generally, free-flowing. I would break my journey when tired at 'Late Night Arrival Areas' on Caravan Club Sites, but I have now come to the conclusion that that is less than ideal.


On my recent trip, I was aiming to be leaving 'Base Camp' in Kent at 2pm. However, this was the state of play one hour later at 3pm:

Oops. Laundry to dry, still the bike to load, still the kitesurfing kit to tie down on the roof, and one very impatient and frustrated little puppy. So I decided to take it easy and leave after the evening rush, at about 8pm. At least it meant I had time to attend to those REALLY IMPORTANT jobs, like polishing the exhaust pipe on the bike to make sure it looked good when people were overtaking us on the motorway:

Off we sailed, cruising freely through the Dartford Tunnel and enjoying a relaxing tow around a free-flowing M25, and up the M11. As the clock approached 11pm, it was time to stop and rest for the night, so we headed for the Late Night Arrival Area at Ferry Meadows Caravan Club Site in Peterborough.

ARGH! Horror of Horrors! Upon arrival, the gates were locked, as they had been since 10.30pm. 'Murt mhòr!' I cried, my favourite Gaelic saying du moment. It means something like 'Oh heavens above!' I had no option but to overnight on the public road, fretting the night away about my unsecured kit on the car.

Six glorious weeks later, heading back from my hols, the ferry docked at Oban at 11pm and I wanted to get a few miles under my belt before facing the long day of driving South for work the next day, so I managed to keep going to Strathclyde Country Park near Glasgow where I slunk in at 2am, but thanks to the 'Driving Wobbles' I couldn't get to sleep till well after 3am. Which meant I didn't wake up till midday...

...which meant I didn't get to Cambridge until 10pm. So I slunk on to the Late Night Arrival Area, joined by a second caravan at 11pm.

Meanwhile, my antics had been causing consternation among wardens and the Caravan Club. I woke up in Cambridge to discover that this area was for people who had a booking. I didn't. Meanwhile, the people in the caravan next to me *did* have a booking, but as they were on a ferry from Holland until 9pm, they did not have the phone signal to ring ahead and warn the wardens. Which meant that their booking was cancelled and a 'Black Mark' applied to their name, which they then had to ring up and sort out with the Caravan Club and have removed, lest it annulled any future bookings. This, my friends, is the reason I don't normally book in advance. I just don't know how far I'm going to get. I still remember heading up to the Caravan Writers' Guild Event in North Lincolnshire with the kind of migraine that saw me stopping to throw up and lie in the Airstream face-down for an hour every 30 minutes. It took almost 8 hours to cover 120 miles of free-flowing motorway.

The late nights, local arrangements on sites, angst caused to myself and the hard-working and ever-patient Caravan Club wardens are, I have now decided, simply not worth it. In future I think it really is worth missing a day and keeping 'normal' hours. Yes, it will be a faff to unhitch the caravan every evening and hitch it back up again in the morning, but it will give me time to relax and unwind in the evening and a allow a decent night's sleep. There will always be the problem of having to make a booking in peak season then risking not making it if health or traffic conditions dictate, but that's something I'll have to deal with if it happens. But for now, I think setting off at 9.30am, taking a break between 4.30pm and 6.30pm, and aiming to arrive on site at 8pm (with a courtesy call to the wardens to let them know) is definitely the way forward.

Baptism of Snow - February 2012

Once Dougal had finished delighting the staff of the Ibis Gloucester, we went to collect the Airstream from its service at Airstream and Co's Southern Depot.

First port of call at one of my favourite cities in the UK, was Cambridge Cherry Hinton Caravan Club Site.  Why Cambridge? Simply because I really like it. My good friend Mr Perks lives there, so the plan was to spend an evening relaxing in a welcoming hostelry and possibly spend a day or two out and about getting some snaps. Which is exactly what we did!

Ah yes, the snow. It got cold. REALLY cold. But thankfully the Airstream remained toasty warm throughout.

Next stop, a regular haunt of mine, was Commons Wood Caravan Club Site at Welwyn Garden City. Still the snow fell.

This stay was supposed to dovetail into the Caravan Show at Excel in London. But the on-site campsite was cancelled. causing me my first 'doggy responsibility' reality check. Could I have camped on site at the show, I could have left Dougal in the Airstream for a couple of hours at a time and gone back frequently and seen him. But now I had to camp off-site, it meant that I had to stay near someone I could trust to take care of the dog while I spent all day at the show. Therefore we went down to Rye, East Sussex, where my very dear friend T could have Dougal while I went gallivanting off up to London. An added bonus was that Airstreamers D & J were on the same CL.

It's at this point I want to go off a little on a tangent about CLs and CSs. For the uninitiated, they are Certificated Locations (Caravan Club) or Certificated Sites (Camping & Caravan Club), basically the same thing but different acronyms for different clubs. They are informal, part-licenced sites for up to five caravans apiece.

Every other caravanner seems to be able to find the 'Perfect CL.' You know, where they are parked up in a delightful spot with a stunning view and the cheery rosy-cheeked farmer's wife lays on gifts of fresh eggs and home made jam, all for something ridiculous like 25 pence a night.

Me? I am the world's worst CL finder. If there is a rubbish CL in an area, it's pretty much guaranteed that I will find it. So, if you want to be up to your wheel arches in slurry next to an industrial estate on the land of the grumpiest grumpster in the county, come with me.

Or, as was the case this time, wedged in a yard between a tractor and a skip for the princely sum of £15 per night:

Not the best pitch I've ever had. Especially when Commons Wood was a tenner a night the previous week. Hey-ho, such is the price of dog ownership. But I did get to spend time with some lovely people, which of course is priceless.

Cambridge - a total surprise

Late July/early August saw me heading to Ashridge Farm Caravan Club Site in Baldock, which is kind of on the A1 between Stevenage and Peterborough.




It's a wonderfully quiet and relaxing site, almost like being in someone's back garden. Plenty of good walks too, although my favourite aspect was being able to wander into the pretty village of Ashwell.

From there, after a weekend chez Keith and Anne at Commons Wood (out of course, but everywhere else was booked and it's always nice to visit a site where the wardens are so welcoming) it was time to head to Cherry Hinton Caravan Club Site in Cambridge. This site had only just re-opened after some extensive work, and very smart it all looked too.

Cambridge really took me by surprise. Granted, I had a local guide in the form of my friend Mr Perks, but I was taken aback by how agreeable a place I found it.

One of the things that I loved the most about the city and about the site is how accessible everything is by pushbike. I didn't use my car the whole time I was there.

On the first evening, I cycled into town with Mr P to visit some of the traditional and friendly hostelries which was a real treat in itself. Also time for a little night photography:






Another time Mr Perks and his good missus put their kids in their respective trailers and tag-alongs and we all cycled out to The Orchard tearoom at Grantchester to have a cream tea in the dappled shade of the apple trees... a quintessentially English summer's afternoon, and as perfect as it sounds.

Interestingly, my experience of the tourist information people in Cambridge wasn't altogether positive. In fact, it was downright appalling. This is one thing that I find in this job. If you want help and resources on somewhere really popular like Cambridge, forget it. But go somewhere a little quirky like East Lincolnshire or Swanage, and the tourist people will bend over backwards to help and facilitate your trip.

But you only need to step out of the tourist office and into the city to instantly forget a bad experience and not let it put you off such a wonderful, wonderful city. I really, really like it.