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Lessons from Saturday night away

J

JockMacMad

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307
Location
London & Isle of Skye
Stayed at Troutbeck Head in the Lakes on Sat night. Nice site. Horrendous weather.

One in horizontal rain (I parked the van with the rear into the wind but of course the wind changed direction by about 90 degrees to batter one side) water does come through the canvas to the extent it was dripping downstairs. Need to buy a cover which packs small as we had he granddaughter with us and her mother sent her with her whole wardrobe excluding any waterproof stuff taking up the boot space.

Two duvets up top work a treat and soak up a lot of the excess rain around the edges.

Inka covers were a godsend wish I had the full set as we had to take the top mattress out before dropping the roof to keep it dry. Of course Lee got mine for the downstairs :)

Put in the QTM Premium carpet set. Drawer in rear seat will not open unless we take up the carpet. Have others taken the middle roller out as that seems to be the culprit?

When a prat pulls out on you on the motorway just as the whole lane is breaking thus requiring a full emergency stop from 70 (ish) even the most expensive collapsible dog cage slamming into the back of the drivers seat means the frame is bent and now not collapsible anymore making for interesting internal space juggling at bedtime. Unfortunately I was unable to personally insert the dog cage in said prats nether regions thus needing a team of expert surgeons and a week long operation to remove it as the traffic started flowing before I could get out with the cage. No animals were hurt during this procedure.

The missus proved that you can fully move, pack and return the van to it's normal travelling mode (with said dog cage always in the way) without getting out of the van in a howling gale from it's sleeping setup. That's three people and a dog inside including removing the upper mattress to the boot and refitting the centre QTM carpet once the seat was back :). We are sure that made the tin tent brigade confused at what was going on inside.

Our dog can pass her atoms through a fully closed door in order to chase the campsite cat at 10pm thus proving we are aliens and that was a spaceship that landed at 8 to the surrounding caravaners. Or maybe it the fact they had not managed to track us arriving on their satellite dish array and their large 40 inch wall mounted monitors we saw in the vans that had that caused the confusion.

Do not drive so far for one nights camping as all the UK motorways are fubar. It took 9 hours from London to Penrith on the way up and a meagre 7 on the way back.

Even a 180 Cali is slower than an Merc S350 diesel away from the lights but close enough to puzzle the limo driver.
 
Sounds like good fun was had by all :laugh2

We have the premium QTM mats and once fitted the seat/drawer rolled over it ok.
 
I'm hoping this eventful night away didn't stem from me getting my rear cover instead of you Jock .. :smile
It does sound like you had more fun then me even though i was camped out round a a big fire getting drunk ... ;)

My QTM mats at first did hit the drawer slighly ,but after pushing them under and a day or 2 later had flattened out and don't move at all .....(maybe silly question jock you got 3 rails)
 
I spent the weekend in 'that London' without the van. Awful. I'd rather have been in the Lakes in the rain!

Off to the Lakes next week though. Here is hoping for better weather!!
 
According to the forecast icey weather from Iceland coming down this week, first snow of the Winter in Scotland and Nothern England over high ground.
 
Cool (literally!) perfect walking weather then. Lets hope we can get parked up before the weather comes in.
 
We had the same trouble as Jock with the new carpets and the drawer not opening. We found that in the end the roller produces a groove in the carpet and the drawer opens quite smoothly. it takes about 3 months of regular opening though! And we have some small Wilkinson carpets to protect our new carpet (mad eh?) and we have to move them or the drawer won't work.

We had a similar experience with the weather but at Woolacombe in sunny oops rainy Devon. 4 nights of driving rain and we did get a bit of rain in so we slept for one night with the roof down. Bit claustrophobic. Have had better days camping.
 
I had trouble when moving the seat forward with the new mat. It was catching on the tyre pump / sealent box. Fine now tho.
 

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