Getting Ready for Winter

So it's that time of year again and time to get the caravan ready for winter, if you have not already done so. We use ours all year round normally so this isn't so much of a problem to us. This year, however, we have a few weeks were the 'van isn't going to be used over the winter months. All around us on the storage site caravans are starting to sport the latest fashion accessory and are wrapping up in their green cloaks

Here at Caravan Camping Supplies we follow a list which lets us get ready pretty quickly. We thought you might like it if we shared with you.

Let's start with cleaning down

First beautiful day outside, we give it a scrub not forgetting the roof which always seems to get particularly dirty over the year with tree sap and so on. I was a little ashamed of mine with its pattern of greys building up, so gave it a really good going over to get it back to its "as new" look.

Winter time in the UK can bring all sorts of driving complications from rain and gales to ice and snow. More of your journeys are going to be in darkness and bad weather, and so, as the scouts would say, it's best to be prepared. 

So what should you look out for and what should you do? Read on four our ten tips to safer, more stress-free motoring in winter.

The content for this blog came out of another argument we had in the office about whether camping or caravanning is better. Steve and Pete think caravanning is better and laugh at me for preferring a tent. But before I go off on another of my rants about "towing all that stuff behind you", I will move on to the point, which is the wonderful introduction to outdoor life you can give your children by taking them camping.

There can't be many of us who did not nag our parents to allow us to pitch a tent in the garden when we were little. maybe many of you can also remember the joy of being taken "proper camping" for the first time. In my family's case, this involved driving from the Midlands to West Wales with my father deciding that this was best done overnight to avoid the traffic. This was in the days when you could still put children almost anywhere and I can remember travelling half asleep with my brother and sisters squeezed in all ways around me.

The big thrills were to come. Dawn on the road down towards Aberystwyth, a road that seemed to wind in endless and fascinating loops that were enormously exotic to someone from the flatlands of the near Coventry; the unending nature of the journey - minutes seemed to drag on forever; shivering over a bacon sandwich that my father insisted on cooking by the roadside in the morning; and the thrill of our first glimpse of the sea at the end of the valley.

We have always enjoyed taking bikes with us when we go caravanning. There are hundreds of sites across the UK and abroad, many of them close to cycle tracks and trails. Others are in beautiful parts of the country which it seems a shame not to explore on your bike. Inspired by the boom in bike riding, it's our plan this year to get ourselves fitter and to mix and match our weekends with more cycling.

Cycling gives you that great feeling of being out in the open without having to park the car, and there is something entirely different about the experience of exploring the countryside at a different pace and much more pleasurable than driving.

Depending on the time of year, your inclination and how fit you are, a bike ride can consist of everything from a simple tour of some country lanes with all the children in tow to full-blooded cross country gallops. In every case the caravan or motorhome provides a great temporary base and an even better place to store or carry the bicycle to begin with. We like the mix of activity and relaxation the combination gives us.

Sssssshhhhhhhh dont tell anyone but I used to drive a VW Campervan and well, I didn't like it! I found it noisy, unreliable, dog slow and not really comfortable.

Now I know this is some kind of heresy. My son adores them. He even went to his wedding in one. He and I have many a time sat and argued about them, but I still can't like them.

Now we have that out of the way, we thought we should contribute something to the story of the long-lived "Hippy Bus" which finally came to an end last year for safety reasons.

You either love trailer tents or you hate them.

Falling as they do, somewhere between family tents and, at the high end something that costs as much as a caravan, why would you choose them when you could have one or the other?

The great merit of a trailer tent is that they all have proper beds, and most of them have somewhere to sleep off the ground. So, for the squeamish, or for someone wanting to try camping for the first time, they might provide the ideal halfway house which gives you the camping experience, but keeps you well away from the ground. For children, of course, this makes them about the most exciting thing in the world. What could be more fun than climbing that ladder and imagining you are on the top of Everest!