Gadding About

After moving into our new motorhome we’ve been spending our time between campsites close to London to see family and friends, doing adaptations to the camper, a bunch of boring chores and heading off for mini-breaks further away to figure out what works for us and what needs changing before heading further afield.

The UK is not the easiest country to travel around in motorhomes. With its parking restrictions and height barriers, it makes it difficult to park to visit local attractions or stay anywhere other than dedicated campsites – although some savvy pub landlords are starting to see the value in opening up their carparks to campers, the quid pro quo being that you buy a drink or meal whilst there.

As a result, we have been staying in campsites in the UK which can be quite expensive, although the price varies significantly depending on location and the facilities available – which range from massive sites with marked up pitches and all the mod cons to very undeveloped sites which are basically just a field.

We have spent some time in the New Forest and have really enjoyed a basic campsite run by Forestry England called Ocknell. There are no specific pitches and you can setup wherever you like as long as you are 6m from other campers. We found a large clearing which was fairly flat. The great thing about this campsite is the sheer volume of wildlife that comes through.

We had deer, Shetland ponies, new forest ponies and donkeys eating the grass around our camper. At one stage we were surrounded by tiny ponies including a mother with a new born foal which we think we saw suckle for the first time – it took a while before it worked out how to do it, but it was great to see it grow in strength and become more steady on its feet as the day went on.

We also saw New Forest pigs foraging by the roads and plenty of free roaming cows.

Believe it or not we also saw the Northern lights while we were in the New Forest – albeit only as a purple glow in the sky.

We have also had a couple of trips to Wales and the West of England, staying near Monmouth, Hereford and the Forest of Dean.

Whilst in Monmouth we did a tour of nearby castles including Raglan Castle, White Castle, Grosmont Castle and Monmouth Castle. Raglan castle is definitely the pick of the bunch and is quite impressive while Monmouth castle only has a couple of walls still standing.

When staying at a farm near Hereford we enjoyed the first proper sunshine of the year and visited an owl centre with over 30 different species of owl and also a small breeds farm attached where you can feed the sheep and goats – which were really cute.

In Hereford we also visited Beefy Boys – one of the best burger restaurants we’ve visited. Every time we go to the Hereford area it’s a must stop off for us. Their burgers are amazing.

Forestry England have campsites all over. Having loved the one in the New Forest we decided to visit another in the Forest of Dean, called Bracelands. This is in a big clearing in the woods but is more expensive than the New Forest (to be fair it has full facilities) but the grass, no electric pitches are not very flat. We would visit again (during the week as the weekends were very busy) but would stump up the cash to stay on a hard standing pitch as these were in the prime positions with great views.

After our trips around the south and south west, we have got used to living in the Beastlet and prepared as best we can for our trip to Europe. Having applied for and now received our 6 month visa for France, we are leaving shortly and hope we haven’t forgotten anything that we’ll need!