The Camper Van Cook Book

I was given a brilliant book for my Birthday given to me by my good friend Becca (the author of ‘Does Becca Love?’ blog and the same person to inspire me to do the Day Zero project 101 list!), so thank you Becca even though you shouldn’t have! :) Despite feeling under the weather herself she is always doing things for other people which is why we love her so!

The book is The Camper Van Cookbook and is an excellent read, it’s actually so much more than a recipe book and actually gives you tips on owning and servicing a camper as well as places to stay and things to do! It’s really aimed at VW camper owners but then the same principles apply to any vehicle, and we sympathise with the issues of owing a ‘classic’ camper as Waki is now 27 years old herself!

The book shows you games to play and songs to sing when bored on the journey or if the weather is bad, it lists the authors (and friends’) favourite camp sites, ‘pick your own’ farms, tips for attending festivals or going surfing amongst so many other topics! Oh and of course there are some great looking recipes designed for easily cooking in a camper or outside.

Another Weekend Away

Ryan got us free weekend tickets to see the Phoenix Derby Championships at Cadwell Park courtesy of Comma Oils' promotion, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable trip away!

We stopped at the same camp site as my parents near Skegness again on Friday night, I managed to forget to pack some towels (oops!) so we stopped at a Tesco on route and I bought us a pair of black bath towels. We needed some nicer towels anyway so it just prompted the purchase!

We spent a nice Saturday morning wandering the discount stores and markets in nearby Ingoldmells where we bought a lovely new stainless steel stove top whistling kettle (we'd so far still been using the small aluminium one from my camping set!) and also an excellent shagpile rug for the living area. No more cold feet in the mornings from stepping on the bare floor! :)



We also come across a stall selling some funny signs and my Mum bought this one for us, with the state that Waki is still unfortunately in it was too suitable to pass by! 



Cadwell park is fairly close to Skegness so we only had a little way to go to reach Cadwell Park, though we didn't quite expect the amount of really steep hills we'd have to struggle up to get there! Poor old Waki really got pushed on that journey, and there was only one hill where we got down to a rather embarrassing 25 mph! Sorry to the drivers behind us, luckily it wasn't too busy! :S

We had a minor issue on the journey in the form of a leak from our water tank where the pipe had come off, which was actually a relief as in the side mirror Ryan said it looked like smoke billowing out and our hearts sank for a moment! But we were soon back on our way though low on water, but we had plenty of bottled water on board and there were taps at Cadwell for the washing up water.

We were surprised to find on arrival that you are allowed to camp anywhere you like around the track, though I can imagine that it’s a lot more restricted during bigger events like British Superbikes.

We initially checked out the facilities in the main paddock area and took a wander down to Club Corner just in time to see the start of a race and some wheelie action over The Mountain. We then took a drive around the track and found a good level spot by the tree line with a good view of the track, it’s such a bizarre feeling looking out of your home window with such a view! We spent a little while on the roof as it gave us a better view of the track, though the wind was pretty cold so we retreated before too long.

Waki parked and level. The front of the over-cab section looks much neater
now without the leaky front window but she still needs a paint job!

The view from the cab window when we arrived

A very happy Ryan and the roof view. Motorbikes, cider & bacon
sandwiches - what more could a guy want?!

The new generator got a good run and worked a dream (a post will follow on this but it means persuading Ryan to write about something!), having that running outside was actually quieter than the gas heater is currently. It can handle running a surprising amount of electrical gadgets at once, although this time we just had the batteries charging and run the laptop and TV.

We watched the film ‘Closer to the Edge’ following Guy Martin and some of the other main riders for the Isle of Mann TT road race which seemed a fitting way to spend an evening next to a race track. I'd say I also had the most peaceful nights sleep I've had in a long while as we was so far away from the roads (or any other campers! :D), though I did wake up the the commentator 'testing-testing' the speaker system around the track but it meant we didn't miss anything!

The hardest part of the trip was making ourselves go home, (especially as we knew we had enough tinned food on board to last a week and plenty of fuel!) but I had to be back at work so we had to go.

The scenery around Louth is quite spectacular farmland, and for our journey the beautiful rolling hills were set off nicely by the setting sun. I managed to get some photos on my phone but the phone can never do a scene like that real justice so I allowed myself to purely enjoy the views instead. Sometimes you just need to look around and smile at what you see :)


By being out and about we've come up with more ideas and of course found more things that need attention – like the knackered battery that was in charge of running the thermostat for our gas heater which needed swapping with the lighting one halfway through the night when we woke up cold! And we now also have the supplies to begin installing our wiring system (an early birthday present for Ryan from my Stepdad!) which will allow us to actually use mains hook-up when on site in future.

Road Trip!

It was my Mums birthday at the weekend (Happy Birthday Mum!) and we decided we would join them in their caravan up Skegness to celebrate, and thought it would be a good road test for Waki. Also with a deadline to work to it helped make us push extra hard to get lots done so we could enjoy at least a degree of comfort on the trip. So when we decided with only a couple of weeks to go we cracked on and somehow managed to achieve in only a handful of spare days what had taken us many weeks before!

The floor panels under the sofa

We have completely replaced the battens and plywood for the drivers side wall, got it lined with the foil blanket and foam sandwich, filled the rough edges and even wallpapered AND painted! We also done the kitchen wall and window, didn't have the time to get it papered and painted like the rest but it does look a lot better than it did! Ryan mended the blinds and got them back up so we have some privacy in the living room again, and has replaced the plywood on the floor under the sofa area where the water tank had previously leaked and ruined it.

We also bought ourselves a gas powered blown air heater, but Ryan can explain that gadget in full detail in it's own post once it's properly fitted!

The bedroom area with our taped up front window!

Whilst Ryan was at work on Saturday I got to clearing out all of the stuff that we didn't need for the trip, and I got the ceiling in the bed area clad with the pine tongue and groove so we now have a lovely clean new ceiling to look at. It also means that we don't keep getting gritty bits of foam in the bed which feel as nice as the notorious bed toast crumbs and were just as difficult to brush out!


The sofa is now repaired and back in place too which took us until nearly midnight on Saturday night and some of Sunday morning, but with a good clean up Waki was as presentable as she's been in a long while and ship shape for the journey.

So on we went via the A1, on which she made excellent speed (so much so that Ryan had to keep backing off to a comfortable 60mph!) and then headed on up to the flat expanse of Lincolnshire farming country. After previous bad experiences in the Clio with accidentally ending up in the centre of Peterborough we figured it would be awkward at the very least with Waki so chose the Spalding route instead. The trouble is all road signs literally disappeared as soon as we turned into the place, (which I think is a ploy to try and get people lost so they stop for directions and cream teas!) and we ended up causing a little bit of mayhem in the old stone-cobbled town centre! It's great though how because of our size everyone sees us coming a mile away and suddenly becomes super polite and flashes us through all of the tight gaps, perhaps that will change once we get the paintwork done!

We stayed at Cottage Farm campsite in Addlethorpe which was a in pleasant and and quite peaceful area outside of Skegness. At least it was peaceful whilst we were there, there's a Banger Racing and Stock Car track just up the road and it can sometimes be heard from the site or the racers parties can be noisy but there was nothing on whilst we were there. We had some rain showers overnight but I slept better than I had to date and there were no leaks by morning either so the night was a success!

It was nice to be able to just wake up feeling good and put the kettle on like home. We hadn't had time to get the water tank cleaned out and re-fitted, and we need to fix the water heater yet too, so we just used bottled water for drinking. We also used Ryans 'camel pack' water carrier, which has a drinking tube and a stopper like a tap, suspended over a bowl in the sink for washing up. The trip to the toilet blocks and showering on a freezing tile floor for 20p wasn't particularly fun though, so can't wait for our own toilet and hot water!

We went home via Peterborough as my Stepdad assured us that the previous bad part of the road that messed us up last time had been fixed, and it was a much smoother journey though we met the rain again nearer home. We had taken out AA breakdown cover for the journey just in case, as none of our mechanic friends would be able to tow something of our size, but thankfully it wasn't needed. Not wanting to give up the holiday feeling we ate Fish & Chips for dinner in Waki and I then had a normal busy evening at St John Ambulance to attend. Better get back to work then... :)

Riding out the Storm

Ryan is so proud of his finished bed platform, I came home to find that he had made up the bed with duvet and everything - which is something I know he HATES doing so he must have been excited!

Like a kid wanting to camp in the back garden he kept suggesting sleeping out there so I finally agreed that we would on a Saturday night as neither of us needed to be up for work the next morning to mess up routine etc.

Ryan got the blinds fitted where the walls had been finished and covered up the rest for some privacy - it was just parked on our driveway still after all!

Typically on that night a relative storm rolled in and buffeted Waki with wind and rain for the entire night! 

I had the corner side of the bed as I figured I wouldn't be worried about falling out over there, but it was difficult to ignore the sound of lashing rain right next to my face. Don't get me wrong I like the sound of gentle rain on a window to relax to but this really wasn't a comforting kind of rain! We stuck with it though and (once I had gotten over my nagging fear that we was going to tip over in the wind!) I finally got a little sleep but couldn't have been more than a couple of hours in total! :( Ryan slept fine of course!

Never mind, it's just something else I need to get used to and I'm sure I'll get on fine on those sorts of nights in the future once I'm familiar with the movement and sounds. We do also still have the roof layer of wood to go on and curtains to be made yet which will help block a little more noise. We also need to try positioning Waki differently in windy weather if we have the room to, at the house we can only park on the driveway one way which means that the wind will always hit us from the side but if we can get her rear to the wind then that should mean less movement and noise!

**update**
Since beginning to write this post we have since slept in there again with better weather and I'm pleased to say I had a MUCH better nights sleep so there is hope for me yet! :)