So, belatedly, the second and final part of the How Was Our First Campervan Trip series. You can find the first part here. Have a read first if you like. Then come back here!
I feel (despite not being an expert at it) I should take  few minutes to review the VW California camper we had hired. The California is the top dog in VW Campers. This isn’t  camper that has been a van, and had cupboards and a bed bolted to it afterwards. This is the real deal. Straight off the VW production line. As a result, you would expect a decent vehicle.
And you get it!
Our First Campervan Trip. The Camper
The van was well well equipped. In fact better equipped than my BMW Convertible that is sitting on the driveway!
It has Sat nav/gps so you don’t get lost, but if you are on a real campervan road trip, you should turn it off….and get lost. Just once!
Apple car play. Everyone needs a decent playlist on a camper van touring holiday.
Bot the front seats turn around and it has a camping table and 2 chairs tucked away in the side door and boot lid respectively. Handy.
7 speed auto and very comfy to drive. Plenty of room up front in the driver and passenger seats, and about as much storage as you can expect in a camper, so all in all, an extremely nice van. If we ever get to rent or drive one again, I would happily do a better review, but in the meantime, back to the trip itself.
Anyway, part 1 of this series saw us wake up on Day 2 of the trip. After breakfast, and before heading off to our next stop at Beverley Park Holiday Park in Paignton, we decided to fly by a couple of places on the way.
First stop, Chesil Beach. I should say that Max loves to collect stones from our local beach. He must have thought it was Christmas and his Birthday rolled into one here!! We have been before, and knew it was a pebble beach before we went, so it wasn’t a surprise.
After spending a couple of hours here, it was back to the van. We decided to stop off at a place called West Bay. This is where a lot of the UK series Broadchurch was filmed.
We had to take a photo of the cliff side. Made famous by series one of the programme.
We rolled into Beverly park at about 5ish. After a fly by passed reception, we got our pitch number, and was conveniently led to it by a staff member in a golf type buggy thing.
Again, with minutes we had plugged in, roof up and was thinking about tea.
This 2nd spot was not as rural as we’d like.
Yes. Rural. I understand what I said there. After plugging in our van with heating , lighting, cooking, running water and grabbing a beer from the built in fridge! Did I forget to mention the fridge? Yep. Not as rural!!
We had some really nice neighbours here, another campervan family, more than happy to share their tips and experiences with us.
You can see part of their van in this photo, another VW fan.
Again, tea was easy (largely because I didn’t have to cook it Suzanne did). Washing up was easy enough, then it was time to hunker down and enjoy our second night camping.
We woke up to the realisation we only had one night left. This was back in Dorset, nearer our home and where we had to head to drop the van off to its rightful owners.
So day 3 of our first campervan trip was here, and it had the main aim of getting closer to Southampton, from Devon. So we stopped near Wareham, a pretty little town in Dorset. We had already booked a spot at the Durdle Door holiday park, and set up in our little alcove.
One this that we have noticed this trip, is realising how old Max is getting. When he is not eating(!) he is strutting around with his jeans, jumper and attitude. Turning into a right little boy!!
Back to Durdle door. As we are messing around, getting ready for tea etc, a family walk by. They see my guitar propped up against the van and she jokes to her son that we should have a “jam session” (her words). I explain that I have only been playing a couple of months.
Her son’s reply?
It’s great to start learning at your age age!!!
Err..thanks?
One thing to add. Durdle was by far the more disrespectful campsite. At gone 10pm there were still kids running around screaming and playing. The other 2 campsites was peaceful and quiet
So thats it. A very brief and extremely undetailed write up of our first campervan trip. We are going to take our second one in August, so head back over for what I promise will be a better account of what we did!
In the meantime a few (or a load) of photos!!
