I took half a day off work finishing at 11am so that we could get a nice early start and get all set up in the daylight as our plan was to set up the infamous “divorce in a bag” or awning to non campers.

We made good time and found the site with no problems. We were greeted by our steward for this THS (Temporary Holiday Site) and paid our sute fees for the 4 nights we are staying, $30.00 for 4 nights is not bad especially when you consider the usual bank holiday charges at most campsites, and the fact that most people seem tohave had trouble finding a pitch.

The site is a gently sloping field which could have done with being mowed prior to the start of this THS, the grass is about 6″ long which makes it quite slippery even though it had not been raining. After a lot of wheel spinning getting onto our pitch we began to set up with some help from the Stewards. This D.A. camping has it’s bennefits. We managed to set up our new awning which has never been out of the bag before and we didn’t fall out once! It was at this point that our next door neighbour informed us that the field is better than last year,”we had to be towed off y a tractor last year, the 4×4’s we’re no use” well that makes us confident that our Citroen C4 Picasso will cope well (NOT!)

Everything set up and working and dinner on the go by 6pm with a Rum & Coke in hand,can’t be bad?

This is our first chance to use our new Solar Panel in earnest. This is Off Grid Camping! There is no Electric supply and no sanitation, so you need to use your own loo and shower. There is a fresh water source to fill the Aquaroll and an ELSAN disposal point to empty the loo. When we arrived we found that there are 2 portaloo’s on site which have been arranged by the D.A.

It’s also the first oppertunity to use the remote controlled LED Strip lights that I made with the idea from Dan Trudgion. I followed his instructions in the most part but adapted things to suit our awning design and the way we thought we would use them. These lights came out at about $40 for 3 including all the parts, connectors and remote control.
It turns out they are very effective 3 x 1m long strip lights light our awning fantastically and as they use 12v power supply it means I can supply the power straight from our Solar Power Charge controller so the mains adaptor is not rquired and they can be used off grid. It also turns out that they are very efficient! draving 0.2amps only for all 3 lights working. At that kind of current draw you could quite comfortably forget to turn them off when you go to bed and not worry about having a dead battery in the morning.

The Rum & Coke flowed and the caravan was warm and dry. The radio kept us company until it was time to retire. So off to bed we went feeling quite pleased with ourselves and looking forward to day 2 of our adventure, maybe a ride to Bala?