13 May 2016 - The Lodge, Kingsford, near Colchester, Essex

We rose early, woken by the alarm, in readiness to make contact on Skype with our younger son at a prearranged time, which sadly did not happen. After three quarters of an hour I gave up, sent him a message to inform him of our latest plans, packed up the computer and started to pack up camp. 

Our early start meant we were ready to leave soon after nine, but not before Chris put a call through to the dealer we had purchased our caravan from up in Farnham. The chap on the other end of the line was most helpful; he drew our attention to the fact that the glass top of the stove needs to be upright, almost leaning backward, to allow the gas valves to open for action. We checked while he waited, and sure enough, it seemed that this was the simple solution to the problem. He conceded that there could still be a problem with the regulator, a comment made to make us feel a little less foolish, I am sure. Later I dragged the manual out and read the first line on how to operate the stove – “make sure the glass lid is fully open as this will otherwise prevent the gas valves from opening for operation”. Surely we should have remembered the golden rule of problem solving; when all else fails, read the instructions.

And so we set off into the morning traffic of South London, taking three quarters of an hour from the camp entrance to reach the ring road. From there, everything went well, and we found ourselves ahead of time, so much so that we pulled into a Truck stop, soon flanked by massive rigs shutting out the light from either side of our caravan windows. Just as we had done on our southward journey, we filled an hour with puzzles and lunch before driving onto this CL (Certified Location) club camp site here on the south side of Colchester. It took us a full hour to set up because we stuffed around for some time trying to move the caravan onto a level spot using the mover remote. In the end we simply hooked back on and did it in the style we used in those years in Australia. 

Our camp at The Lodge Kingsford

After a welcome cup of coffee, we headed back along the suburban roads to find the Sainsbury supermarket we had spotted on our way in. There we wandered in a relaxed manner about the very large and modern store, filling our trolley with goodies before returning home for a relaxed late afternoon and evening. We also filled with diesel at the slightly lesser price that supermarkets offer as opposed to the exorbitant rates charged by service centres beside motorways, or dual carriageways. Chris has subsequently done some number crunching and advised that our towing rate is 26.4 miles per gallon. He is rather pleased about this.

There are a couple of other parties in here at the camp, two motorhomes who appear to be longer term than us; we have booked only for three nights. Here we are paying £12 a night plus the electricity we use. Tomorrow we will head off into this city which prides itself as England’s oldest town; I look forward to it.