Words and Images by: Sheila and Michael Oakley W60807

Since we bought our motorhome three years ago, my husband Michael and I have been very happy wandering around our own enormous backyard and have had no desire to travel overseas. But with my motherin- law in the UK approaching her 86th birthday and not in the best of health, we felt it was time for a return trip. This time we decided that after the birthday celebrations, instead of staying with relatives as we have in the past, we would see a bit of England in a motorhome.

This article is not intended to be a travelogue or a definitive account of motorhoming in the UK, but rather an account of how we experienced motorhoming in England. We only spent a month in England, from mid-May to mid-June 2012, and had no wish to rush around the countryside on a whistle-stop tour. Instead, we chose to visit a few places we had always wanted to see and spent several days in each. The only free camping we did was at the bottom of my mother-in-law’s garden; the rest of the time was spent in caravan parks.

We looked into motorhome exchange and decided that we preferred to keep our ‘home’ for ourselves. But booking with a large, reputable company proved more difficult than we had expected. As far as we could tell from our Internet searches, motorhome hire in the UK is done predominantly through small scale  hirers or through companies co-ordinating individuals from all over the country who want to earn money renting out their vans.

Seasonal pitches at Sherwood Forest Caravan Park

We finally settled on a Leicestershire firm called Freeline Motorhomes, which appeared to own a variety of different sized motorhomes. My email and phone contact, Richard (who turned out to be the owner/manager/receptionist and almost  everything else), was unfailingly cheerful, helpful and very efficient. He gave us advice on rail bookings, met us at the station with the motorhome and drove us to the company’s premises to complete the formalities. I must admit to a sinking feeling when we turned into a farmyard in the heart of the Leicestershire countryside, with a few motorhomes stored in what looked like barns. But the handover process was quick and painless. 

Richard was in the process of developing a few powered sites on a field behind the office, but none were ready  so we had to set off straight away to find a campsite. After a long journey and being late in the afternoon, we were very happy to let Richard program the GPS to take us to Market Bosworth where he assured us there was a lovely campground ‘somewhere’. We hit the ground running, following the GPS instructions along narrow, winding country roads with a 60mph (nearly 100kph) speed limit, numerous tiny roundabouts and high hedges. It was hair-raising and by the time we arrived in Market Bosworth, only 20 kilometres away, we were both exhausted from the effort of driving and navigating.

Richard’s rough directions had included a left turn when we reached Market Bosworth. We optimistically took a turn onto a street named Main Street, and finished up at an extremely narrow dead end, with house frontages on both sides of the street. After asking a couple of surprised, but very polite locals for directions to a nearby campground, we turned around very slowly and carefully avoiding a house front on one side and a brick wall on the other, and finally made it to our first stop, Bosworth Water Park, which was indeed a lovely spot. Luckily we had the three pound in coins we needed to get past the Park barrier, and there was a powered site available for the three nights we decided we would need to recover from the trip. Well, actually, there was a pitch with hook-up available, just one of the differences in terminology we encountered on this trip.

When offered a hardstand pitch, we were expecting concrete or bitumen. Instead we found ourselves parked on coarse shingle, which can get rather soggy after heavy rain. When I inquired about availability of a dump point this caused raised eyebrows and I soon had to learn to ask for a ‘chemical toilet disposal point’. After Market Bosworth, our driving,  navigating and camping skills improved dramatically. The size of the sites – sorry, pitches – was also a surprise. They were huge compared to what we were used to in Australia. We soon realised why; British caravanners obviously like a bit of comfort away from home and many attach massive and elaborate annexes to their relatively small vans. The annexes on some semipermanent vans on what they call seasonal pitches are furnished with lounge and dining suites, large plasma TVs, stereos, fancy ornaments and carpets. The size of the annexes and the level of furnishings seem to vary from park to park. A caravan  park close to Sherwood Forest was evidently at the luxury end of the market, while another on Hayling Island attracted a less affluent, or perhaps less ostentatious clientele.

Seasonal pitches can be rented for up to a year at a time. It was our impression that British campers tend to park their caravans in a favourite spot and travel there by car. In the caravan parks we stayed in, seasonal pitches made up the majority of the accommodation, with touring pitches on the sidelines. At a large, busy caravan park in Battle, the tourist section comprised of less than 20 pitches and it was empty apart from a couple of motorhomes. I can’t say I blame them for not wanting to tow their caravans along those tortuous country lanes.

We also noticed that security seems to be a major issue in British caravan parks. Most motorhomes and caravans, temporary as well as semi-permanent, had their wheels encased in rugged wheel clamps. Everything outside the van was securely chained and there were signs everywhere advising campers not to leave their bicycles and other possessions unattended.

Park facilities were another area of significant difference. With the exception of outback areas, we are accustomed to having water on site, even in quite small towns across Australia. However, in the UK we discovered that on site water supply was the exception rather than the rule. There was usually just one water point, although in our Hayling Island caravan park, the fire hydrants doubled as water points so there were quite a few. Water conservation seems to be as much of an issue in the UK as it is in Australia. All but one of the parks we visited had push button or coin operated showers to limit water usage.

Free camping at the bottom of the garden

When it came to grey water disposal, we had to go against everything we had read in The Wanderer. British caravans disgorge their grey water into wheeled containers, which are then transported by hand to a drain point with no vehicle access. We were not given a grey water disposal pipe, so we could not have used the drain, even if we could have reached it. Instead Richard told us to open our grey water valve in a lay-by, keeping it open unless we were in a caravan park. We were not too happy about this, and the first time the grey water had to be emptied, we did try to use a bucket. But the bucket didn’t fit under the van properly and we just made a mess. So the lay-by it had to be. 

Chemical toilet disposal points were readily available and often in a small room which looked just like an outside loo. We had no trouble finding caravan parks with power hook-ups, although there were restrictions on power usage in some parks.

In general, we saw far fewer mature campers than we see in Australia, with its large grey nomad population. Families appeared to make up the majority of caravan park residents, which meant that the parks emptied out noticeably on Sunday evenings, when campers can  stay till 7pm instead of the usual midday. Returning the van was even easier than picking it up. We dropped it off early in the morning because we had to get back to Heathrow for an afternoon flight. We returned the keys to a cheerful lady who told us she cleans the vans. She did not even open the door to check  inside before calling us a taxi to take us to the station.

It was cold, sometimes wet and the roads were a nightmare at times, but at the end of the month we were pitching and hooking up our motorhome with the rest of them. We truly enjoyed our short motorhoming adventure in England.

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Written: Fri 01 Mar 2013
Printed: March, 2013
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