Our Thirty-First trip was 2 nights at Gibraltar Farm in early December 2012, our last caravan holiday of 2012.
It was very cold with a small amount of snow on the ground on the Saturday morning.
There is a very steep hill at the entrance to the site and I had doubts that we could pull the caravan up it in the frost and snow. It was ok though, we managed to get up with no problems.
Cold
Cold
A bit of snow
Quiet here and cold
A crazy camper in a tent in December - brrrrrrr!!!!
Our Thirtieth trip was to Bowness in October 2012 straight from Knight Stainforth in Settle.
We spent 4 nights on the Camping and Caravan Club site at Bowness and this site was very full and cramped with nothing to do on site. We walked along the shoreline of Lake Windermere one day and went into Bowness several times. There was a geocache at the bandstand that we just couldn't find, even with the help of another geocaching family. It's gone, was our opinion.
We went on the ferry across the lake was a good experience.
On the ferry at Windermere
It's like that scene from Titanic - without the iceberg
Our Twenty-Ninth trip was to yorkshire for 4 nights in October 2012 to a lovely site in Settle called Knight Stainforth. We were caravanning on this site in almost isolation with very few other campers on the site, which made it nice and peaceful apart from the owner choosing early mornings to move lots of residential vans because it was quiet!
The main attraction of this site was the river ribble and the leaping Salmon, which kept us busy every day for a few hours and was very enjoyable.
A games room and shop are onsite but both were limited opening hours due to the lack of people on the site.
Our Twenty-Eighth trip was to Osberton Horse Trials d day event in September 2012 for 2 nights.
This was a Caravan Club rally where we didn't have any electric hook up and had to really on our battery which performed wonderfully. The horse trials were really good and we would recommend going to one if you get a chance.
We met Gary and Ann there who had stayed at a hotel, locally.
A good money making tip - set up a mobile chippy and sell fish and chips for £8.50 a go, the chippy at the Osberton 3 day event was making a fortune.
We had great fun collecting conkers and my kids were able to have an insight into my childhood were conkers were a big thing.
Our Twenty-Seventh trip was to Highburn House in Wooler in Northumberland in Mid August 2012 for 7 nights with Gary and Ann who came in their caravan.
The site was very good and had a small play area that the kids enjoyed.
We had a few trips out to some good places such as Alnwick Castle, Holy Island - Lindisfarne, Cragside house and a lovely walk along the beach near Holy Island.
Lindisfarne castle
Near Holy Island
harry Harry Potter and Hagrid at Alnwick Castle
We met Harry Potter and Hagrid at Alnwick Castle and what a fantastic day we had. The castle is great fun and the dungeons are especially scary, but I still went down there twice. You have to book to go into the Dungeons, so remember to do so on your arrival.
Alnwick castle was so good that we went on 2 different days to make the most of the gardens as well, which has a spectaular waterfall that as built by a famous architect that I can't just remember the name of.
Tickets are a bit pricey for a family but you can return within 1 year for another visit. Just don't lose your ticket and you go next year, that's our plan.
Our Twenty-Sixth trip is once again to our old favourite Gibraltar Farm in July 2012 for 2 nights.
I think we should find a new favourite because the prices have gone up and now they charge £2 for awnings.
Our Twenty-Fifth trip was to Tyn yr ronnen near Caernarfon in North Wales 5 nights in June for Queens Diamond Jubilee extra bank holiday.
Tracey and Pete came as well and they had just bought a trailer tent made by Camplet.
Above you can see a You Tube video of the event of putting it up in time lapse filmed on my iphone 4.
During this holiday we walked up Snowdon and it took all day and was quite hard work and took a few days to recover. My legs hurt and my wifes hips hurt for a few days.
We had a good time with some nice walks and several geocaches.
Our Twenty-fourth trip was back to Gibraltar Farm beginning of May 2012 for 3 nights.
Hey, what can I say? We like it here and it's handy to get to.
It's been a month, it's not like we are coming every weekend like last year.
Our Twenty-third trip was to Gibraltar Farm for 6 nights starting Easter Monday 2012 directly from Cartmel. It was good to get a shower after being without electric for 3 nights.
We've been to Gibraltar farm many times now but this time they had installed a new shower block which look really nice. They told us that they had installed under floor heating but it seems that the builders forgot to install a switch to turn it on, because we have ever felt the floor being heated at all, ever, even our future visits, which I haven't blogged about yet.
We visited the new Indian restaurant in the village of Silverdale and had a good meal. The restaurant is unlicensed but you can go to the co-op next door and buy cans of beer or bottles of wine and drink them at your table and they even bring you glasses to drink from.
Here is a video on You tube which shows various aspects of the site and surrounding area.
Our twenty-second trip was for 3 nights at Cartmel Racecourse at Easter 2012.
This was our first caravan Rally and our first experience without Electric Hook Up (EHU).
Our Leisure Battery didn't last very long before it was showing as flat. We got about 2 hours out of it only using the lights in the caravan and occasional use of the pump that makes the taps work.
We had previously plugged in at home to charge the battery but something must have been wrong because it hadn't charged up at all. Using my time machine I can see that there was a faulty connection in one of our cables.
To get us through the 3 nights we just used torches at night, which was no problem and connected the car back up to the caravan and then we could use the taps for washing up. Not such a big problem.
It rained almost all the time but we had a great time.
We went on an organised walk and ate our sandwiches sat on a log in the rain. Brilliant.
On the Saturday night there was a social in the bar which was great, Scouse bingo, raffles, easter bonnets and beer, the perfect night!
On Easter Sunday, we got involved in easter egg hunts, colouring competitions, horse racing with hobby horses and garish waistcoats, boules, welly throwing and horse shoe throwing.
We watched the duck race where 100 small yellows ducks are bet upon
with a small prize for the first 3 winners. I never realised how
exciting watching plastic ducks can be.
All in all a fabulous weekend.
The route to the racecourse is through the village of cartmel and is very tight for a caravan and it was made extra tricky by the Sticky toffee pudding shop's van parking in the most awkward place in the corner of the tight bend.
Our twenty-first trip was for 2 nights at The Quiet Site in Keswick again.
This time without the kids who stayed at their nannas.
We came up in the spare car and picked up the towcar without any problems this time.
When we arrived at our caravan pitch and we went to connect the electric cable to the hook up spot and we saw that the point was already taken by a camper van that had pitched up earlier before we had arrived and taken our point which was directly behind our van. The next available one was too far away for our cable to reach so I had to go and ask them to unhook and use another because that was ours.
They did so without question. The only trouble was that their cable wasn't long enough to reach the next hook up point so we we lent them our spare cable, which they gave back to us when they left on Sunday morning and thanked us for the loan.
We spent two nights in the Quiet Bar in front of the log fire almost burning our legs and faces which was a lovely warm experience and most welcome because it was very cold outside.
On the morning that we were coming home there was light snow on the ground.
As we were leaving we went to pick up our hitch lock key which we had left with them because we had had to leave our caravan there for the past 2 weeks due to towcar problems. They couldn't find it at first but eventually did after a phonecall to the owner to ask him where he had put it.
The owner was a lovely chap, but the lady who we were dealing with this time questioned whether the owner had really offered us free storage for the 2 weeks that we had to abandon our caravan there and whether we had paid for the 2nd weekend that we had stayed there. (we had of course paid).
Anyway, it's a beautiful site in a fantastic part of the country.
Our twentieth trip was for 2 nights at The Quiet Site Keswick again.
Our Caravan has been left here all week because our car had broken down here last week.
We drove up in our borrowed car and we went to the Ford garage and picked up our towcar and then parked up both cars to have a look at the Caravan Club site in Keswick, because we had originally been booked on here but had been cancelled because the lake had flooded the site. When we had finished looking around that site we came back to the car which at first wouldn't start. Oh no, not again! But then it did start so we went back to the other car and had a wander around Keswick and upon our return the car would not start! We called out the Ford garage who had just supposedly fixed it and they towed it back to their garage.
So we had to leave the caravan again all week at The Quiet Site for free again. We booked to come bck the next weekend.
Our nineteenth trip for 3 nights to the Quiet Site near Keswick our first trip of 2012.
We just got a replacement car for towing our caravan, only picked it up 1 week ago and had the towbar fitted on the day we set off with the caravan to get up to Keswick.
We were meeting up with Gary and Ann and were pitched next to them again.
The site will probably need to change their name after our noisy lot has left here.
There is a really nice pub onsite that has a roaring log fire that every one clammers to get close to.
It's February and very cold and the fire is a lovely respite from the cold.
We had a lovely day at Whinlatter Forest which is a really good place with lots of climbing stuff for the kids and adults alike.
At the end of that day out we came back to our car and it wouldn't start!
We had to get towed off in the dark forest and with mobile phone reception very patchy.
Gary and Ann took my family back to the caravan while I went to the garage who towed my car back.
Saturday night and they can look at my car on Monday morning. So then we are faced with how to get our caravan and family home on Sunday.
I went home with Gary and Ann and got a replacement car from the garage who sold us our faulty car and came back up to Keswick. Of course the replacement doesn't have a towbar so it's only good to get my family home and we have to leave the van behind.
The Quiet Site let us leave the van there free of charge after we booked to stay the next weekend.
