An easy five hour (225 miles) relaxed tow had us on-site at Camping Virgen del Mar, near Santander, by mid-afternoon on Thursday. Weather at the beach was cold and breezy and later in the evening, the heavens opened.
Pitches are tight here, particularly in the section they appear to allocate for us folks waiting for a ferry, but the location is great and there’s a lovely beach bar / restaurant that we have visited in prior years.
In between the periods of heavy rain on Friday, we visited the beach bar at Virgen Del Mar for lunch and then retreated back to the caravan to listen to the rain pounding on the roof all night and into the morning. The pitch was nicely waterlogged by the morning and I was soaked after packing up and hitching the caravan.
A short drive to the ferry and remarkably, a very smooth crossing. No dramas, no feeling ill. We were very lucky whilst boarding the ferry in that all the caravans in front of us were marshalled up the ramp to a higher deck whilst we were routed to the front of the boat just behind the lorries.
We weren’t quite first off the boat as the crew had some issues opening the bow doors but nevertheless we were on our way to the CAMC site at Morn Hill, near Winchester by 20:30.
The ferry pitches at Morn Hill are in a second separate section of the campsite where the facilities block is closed during the winter. There’s fresh water and waste facilities but the washrooms and showers are on the main site which is 100m down the access road. There were about 40 outfits on the site (including the ferry pitches) and only 3 caravans. The demographics are changing rapidly.
The ferry pitches are located on a little cul-de-sac and in my infinite wisdom, I decided to maneuver the caravan hitched up to the car with a view to leaving it hitched all night. Reminder to oneself – just un-hitch and motor-move…
It turns out there wasn’t quite enough room to reverse onto the end pitch so I had to turn the outfit around on the next pitch before reversing onto our chosen one. I then finally realised there wouldn’t be quite enough room to leave it hitched up for the night so off came the caravan… The whole process took about 20 minutes and I really should have made the simple decision to unhitch at the outset.
Still, my reversing and maneuvering floor show was soon forgotten and over-shadowed by the arrival of the last of the ferry pitch clients. And what a beast it was.
A fifth wheel attached to a pickup truck.
Better known in the USA where the roads and campsites are appropriate for such a monster, but on a quaint little site near Winchester, somewhat inappropriate. Now, fair play to the driver, because he could have just parked on an access road – all other ferry pitches were now occupied and it was 10:30pm. Often, having the biggest and most expensive rig on the site engenders a sense of entitlement that you can just park where you want, but this guy and his wife set about trying to get onto his allocated pitch next to us.
Big mistake. The fifth wheel just isn’t responsive enough to get a decent lock in a small space and after about half an hour of attempting to reverse, he gave up. Then spent another half an hour trying to get out of the cul-de-sac and to reverse onto a another pitch. Two go-arounds on the site and finally the cursing stopped and the rig was abandoned, front first, in one of the closed-off pitches.
The only thing which could have made his night worse would have been a visit from a warden “Can’t park there mate…”
Bigger isn’t always better. Honestly I don’t know how he found suitable sites to tour around in Spain because there’s very few sites where this would be accepted and then it would need a double or over-sized pitch. And given how popular the winter opening sites are in Spain…
Anyhow, after 90 minutes of the fifth wheel show, the campsite entered a sense of tranquility around midnight.
I say a sense of tranquility because the ferry pitches are close to a main road and the road noise after 05:00 was intrusive. I think next time we’ll try to find a different campsite…
Our final travels back to East Devon were once again in sharp contrast to Spain. 5.5 hours to travel 100 miles after a road closure on the A303. And not a single hold-up anywhere on the Spanish roads this time. Listen to Google when it suggests a 50 mile detour up to the M4…