My story starts here.

Astro76

Over the last 10 years, I've wanted a caravan. I knew this as when I bought my car in 2006, I had a towbar fitted suitable to tow a caravan. Since then however, things took a dip, the idea went on the back burner and simmered. This year, the urge resurfaced I have the finances available. So have taken the plunge and have purchased a second hand caravan. Since then, I've been gripped by excitement. At the same time diving in learning all that I can - can you imagine finding watching a video of someone cleaning poo out of a toilet cassette interesting and fun? I must be crazy right? (I am, I admit it)

I'm getting ahead of myself. So let's start with that burning inside, this is how it all really started. One of my hobbies is Astronomy. I've been insterested in this for about 15 years. Have bought and upgraded a fairly decent telescope and have it setup for Astrophotography. But I live under light polluted skies in West Yorkshire. I love the trips out to dark sky sites, but haven't been able to do this often as the places to stay out there tend to be in places with light pollution, or are the cause of that. Stay at a pub in the middle of nowhere and the owner will almost always light it up light a beacon to try and attact passing trade. I get that, but it ruins the possibilities of photography. Add to that the cost of staying at places like that and it can become expensive for a couple of night at a time.

Earlier this year, in march I went to a star party. The urge to buy a caravan back then was great, but common sense prevailed and instead hired a motorhome for the week. This trip out to the star party in hereford proved to be a great success. Staying in the motorhome was good fun, could set the telescope up and managed to get a decent photo of The Great Orion nebula here it is. The cost of the week was cheap, actually I think it's a bargin.

The company was good, lots of friendly people willing to help out and it was very social. I loved it. Actually, I feel that it's much more social than my local neighbourhood. All in all the experience was good. And that burning desire was still there, stronger than before.

It all went quite for a few months. In the middle of settling into a new job. Lots of projects outside work. Banding season (I play trumpet) upon us. Everything went quite on the caravaning front, until about the middle of June. Then I started looking at the second hand caravan market.

I knew what I wanted from a caravan, basically a fixed bed. I had making the bed, so the thought of having to build a bed every night would completely put me off. Not only that, but it's not out of the question that I'd be building up the bed at 3AM. This was perhaps the single more important feature.
Looking at the market, I started looking at the various Caravans that were available. All the caravans that I could afford are roughly 10 years old. I did look at new caravans, but the costs were phohibitive. Also, I'm limited a bit as I cannot afford to change my car and get a caravan. I love my car anyway, so instead of waiting I decided to take the plunge into the caravaning world.

I had a look in the book for my car and found a couple of what I think where the vital numbers. Gross train weight (3349Kg) Unladen weight (1375Kg) abd Gross Trailer weight (1500kg)

Using those figures, I remembered hearing something about not pulling too much weight, but could remember what the figures are exactly, so decided, that I wanted to set my self a maximum wight for the caravan to 1000Kg. That would leave me with plenty of weight for carrying stuff. So off I went to look at caravans and see what the figures they were quoting are. Two figures were quoted, MIRO and MPTLM - I looked up what these figures mean and decided that I was going to set a maximum weight for the caravan to about 1200Kg's This would mean that the car and contents of both could weigh up to 774, and still be legal. That's quite a lot of weight, even for me... I think.

At this point, I need to point out that everything that I new was practically nothing. I figured, that it could be possible to tow a caravan of 1500Kg with my car, but decided from things that I'd picked up over the years that it wasn't wise to do that. That's why I decided to drop 300Kg's from the caravan weight. Actually, I was looking to drop more, but decided that 1200Kg was my absoulte top weight and wouldn't go any higher. I didn't know why this is important, or if it was it a good level, I just knew that I didn't want to tow anything heavier.... until I get a bigger car of course.

My experience so far has been that the cheaper end of the market - where I'm placing myself tends to be a very fast moving area. A caravan will come up for sale, and it'll be snapped up within 24Hrs! Yes, really. I missed out on about 5 caravans by not moving on it instantly, sometimes by as little as 15 mins! Very frustrating. This said, I know that not everything is going to be 100% perfect, but it will be good enough. I found a caravan for sale at a dealer. Found it on a friday night. Next morning, I got up early and headed out drove 150 miles and took a look at the Caravan. Fell in love with the design. poked about under the chairs and bed (looking for leaks) and bought the caravan then and there on the spot. It was a very tense morning in the car for me as I knew these things were selling like hotcakes.

Bought a Sprint 390 Awning and had a motor mover fitted as well then set off home with a happy smile on my face. The phonecall to my girlfriend was nervous. I wasn't sure if she was going to kill me. However, she got very very exicted when I told her. Next year should be great for weekends away together. I'm getting excited already. When I got home (yes, I phoned in the car. Bluetooth car kits + voice dialing is great, won't use the phone with my hand didn't do it when it wasn't illegal) I booked my first week away. Yep. it's the same camp site that I took the motorhome. There's another astronomy event and I just have to be part of it. They're normally once a year, this year there are two so that they can move the date to autum rather than spring. That evening, I relaxed. Looked at the photos of the caravan that I'd bought earlier that day and breathed.

So for those interested here's the details of what I now know is referred to as an outfit - My car, is a Citroen C4 Exclusive. It's a 2 litre deisel from 2006. Caravan - Cristall Sprint 450 TF.

Having bought the caravan, this is when I went for the "I want a caravan" mode, to the "let's get everything ready to be able to go use it mode".

At this point, I knew of the Caravan club. So I joined, that was the first proper thing that I did. After this thought about storage of the caravan when I'm not using it. First thing I did after that was went and looked at caravan insurance. On these sites, they ask lots of questions. which depending on the answer can lower the insurance premium. This is something that I'm keen to do as I'll not have a no claims discount. Besides, there's some useful pointers on things to make the caravan more secure and bring the premiums down.

It's at this poing that I found out about the caravan club outfit matching service. This flags up a warning about the Kerbweight ratio. It's 87% Hoever, all the other boxes are ticked. It does say "Note that a small increase in ratio (to perhaps 90%) is acceptable if all other criteria are passed." I've today checked the figures and if I were to load everything to maximum weight, I'd still be under the gross train weight by about 8%. Basically, I think it'll be ok.

Using that as a guide. I've booked myself on the Practical caravaning course. This will be comming this weekend so I'm getting all excited about that. Found out what a CaSSOA site is (and that they exist), then found my local one and managed to get a spot without going on a waiting list! The site have different sized spots, and all the big spots are full, as my caravan isn't big. it'll fit on a smaller parking spot, of which some were available. Well now there is one less. I'm going out to see it and get the low down on using the site (this is fridays job)

I've been wataching lots of videos online about setting up, hitching up and towing. Lots of stuff on safety. Read though the Essential Guide to touring book that came with with my course booking. And I'm starting to get things together ready to that I can use the caravan.

I needed to make some alterations to my towbar, so decided to almost completely rebuild it. The alteration that I needed to make was to increase the space between the backplate, and the towball. The course has a requirement of 8cm, my car only has about 6cm. I could have made it bigger by removing the backplate and witter cycle carrier bracket. But instead decided to add a spacer. Whilst I was at it, I also figured to do a few upgrades to my towbar. These went as follows. Replaced both the black and white 7pin towing sockets, cleaning up the wiring to ensure good electrics. double up the brackets that the sockets sit on, so that they don't bend - one of mine had bent so I didn't like plugging and unplugging incase it bend more. Added the spacer. Most of this went without any problems. The wiring in the black socket was good (it should have been as I'd cleaned it up last year and rewired it, and tinned the ends of the wired to be sure things were kepts nice.

The cable for the white socket on the other hand had problems. when I say problems I mean firstly that the whole socket was rusted onto the bracket. I carefully cut the cable away pulled out all the slack from the car, and I went to rewire it. It was at this point that I found out that the white sheethed core had turned black, I mean the copper was completely black. I stripped back abut 4 inchs of cable, and completely run out of space cable, it was still black and bad. This wasn't good and it was time to call in the experts. I've just arrived home from the towbar fitters and now have a brand new white socket and cable, tested and working.

Whilst I was at my local caravan shop (it's 10 mins away) picking up the parts for my towbar, I also picked up a set of towing mirrows. I decided on the Milenco Aero3 with flat glass. These fit on the underside of my door mirrors, and the reviews that I saw were good.

Now I'm ready to tow my caravan. Yep. I stil haven't towed it anywhere. It's at the dealer getting a repair to some bodywork damage (it's an insurance job which I'm not paying for)

When do I get my caravan? September 10th is the expected date. Might be a week before if I'm lucky.

The date isn't a concern for me, I'm having a whale of a time. Learning about loading the caravan for safe towing. Deciding on really vital topics like Waterhog V Aquaroll. I looked at both and decided that the Aquaroll has better build quality also I gound loads of reviews of the waterhog where the caps didn't seal properly. (In fairness I did see a few reviews saying they were great as well). To go with my Aquaroll I picked up a WasteMaster as well. They look to me like a well balanced pair, and I like that they have completely different designs. That makes it easy to not mix them up and end up drinking from a barral that's had dirty water.

I've also started kitting out the Caravan. So far I have electric kettle, toaster, George Foreman grill and microwave. The microwave is on order. There won't be a TV initially. I have a laptop with a TV Tuner which should be good enough for now. Besides, I have a hard drive with my film collection on so there's no shortage of entertainment. Might add a TV later if I decide it's worth it. (knowning me, it will happen)

As my Cristall has a european style draw bar, I have space on it to place a bike rack from fiamma. With that I can put on two bikes, only likely to have one bike on it though. My Bike lock will be able to secure the bike not only to the rack but also to around the a-frame as well.

For security, I'll getting a wheel lock and a hitch lock. The wheel lock is an Excalibur one which is sold secure, and the hitch lock in an Al-ko one.
I during my stay on the campsite, I saw someone putting their caravan up on a small ramp. Having watch youtube on this, I found that there's a good reason for leveling the caravan. I've explored the options for this, and have discovered a tool called a "Lock 'n Level" it's basically an air bag that will lift the caravan. I love the idea, as the tyres are basically air bags anyway. It looks to me to be the neatest solution to that problem so I've got one on order should be arriving soon.

That's all the important basics sorted. Before my first trip, I still need to make sure that I have the following...

Cutlery, Dinner set. Cleaning stuff. Bedding. Nose weight scales.

So far, I've been having a huge amount of fun and I've not hooked the caravan up to the car yet.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. Am hoping that the lectures are lots of repetition of things that I've already learned and found out. Then of course, I'm going to be very excited for my first caravan tow.

All in all, I feel like my adventure has already begun and I've not even picked up the van yet. I'm sure that once I've got out on the road there will be a million and one things that I'll learn. Onwards and upwards.

Greenhillsofhome

Well done for doing all the research. Have a great time in the caravan once you've picked it up from the dealer. And good luck!