School was out for the summer and we had an epic summer holiday planned. once the kids had broken up for their summer holidays we had a week to get everything prepped and packed before we set off on our 285 mile trip down to Dover to catch our Ferry, as usual for us we was still packing up until the last few seconds but once we had finally finished (or just resigned ourselves to buy anything we forgot at this point) we hooked up the caravan, with iPads fully charged, bladders empty and our route set in the SatNav, we set off.

It wasn’t long before our first stop…

But this one was a good one because every holiday we have a bit of a tradition in our family that we stop at Lidl on route to stock up on the obligatory driving sweets, snacks and drinks and get a few pizzas and doughnuts from the bakery section for everyone. And of course, everyone used the loo after only 40 minutes on the road.

On the Road again…

With doughnuts in hand we hit the road for the remaining 5 hour drive down to Dover, across the famous Humber Bridge, we set off down the A1 to London, round the M25 then A2 for the final stretch down to Dover.

Stop 2…

We arrived in Dover without a plan for the night, hopefully we would find somewhere using the Park4Night app, after checking a few places out we decided on staying as close to the Port as possible so we could have a bit of a lay in, Marine Parade seems to be the place to be, it was lined with Motorhomes and Caravans all hoping for a good night sleep before their respective ferrys.

We initially couldn’t find a space but a couple of friendly motorhomers shuffled up so that we could get our car and caravan in, we paid our £12 for overnight parking and settled in for the night.

Why is that light Red?

We cleared some space in the caravan and looking forward to a bit of food while we watched some TV we got sat down while Laura prepared dinner for us all, then… we noticed a red light on the control panel, after 285 miles, and a week on charge prior to setting off, we had a dead battery! this has never happened before and we had planned a few ‘Wild’ camps on the way so we really needed the caravan electrics to work, without any tools (did I mention we was packing until the last second) we settled for a quick bite to eat and getting the kids to bed while Kevin tried to figure out what was wrong.

Is it fixed?

As there had never been an issue before, we were fairly confidant that the issue was either with the battery or the connection between the car and caravan, and as we couldn’t really do much about the battery at that point Kevin spend some time checking all the sockets and cables outside, one of the wires had come loose from behind the 13 pin plug on the caravan, once it was reattached there wasn’t much we could do but try to get some sleep, hoping that it was fixed and we would get a full charge on the next leg of our journey ready for the next park up.

I’m not sure if it was the excitement of being on holiday, the stress of the potentially broken caravan electrics, or the vast amount of small hatchbacks with very large speakers that had decided to call our parkup home until the early hours, but for some reason we didnt get much sleep that night.

7am Ferry

At this point I’d love to say we had a peaceful sleep and we all managed to have a lie in, but we got up, everyone still tired from yesterdays drive and the lack of sleep, but we didnt let it get us down, we had a ferry to catch, and we was planning on a Full English breakfast on the ferry so stomachs rumbling, we headed round the corner to the ferry terminal to catch our ferry.

We’ve got a ticket to Ride…

Check in done! we was guided to our lanes and before long embarked on our Ferry, handbrake on, we very calmly (honest) made our way to the restaurant to get ‘the good seats’.

As the ferry set off we sat patiently waiting for the queue for food to go down ran to get to the front of the queue, 5 Breakfasts, some cold drinks for the kids and 2 Teas please, hang on! why am I leaning over so much while trying to pour this Tea? While Laura watched the kids, Kevin tried with his best Jack Sparrow impression to walk the food and drinks over to the table.

Breakfast Anyone?

We attempted to eat our full English’s while the waves battered and bashed the ferry, clinging to our Tea while Kevin’s face turned green, we were hoping for the ferry to dock soon, although the kids did incredibly well, sitting nicely, eating and drinking as if they were back home at the dining table, as the boat rocked from side to side its amazing to see how little if affected all of the kids on the ferry.

After what can only be described as the ferry from hell, we got straight on the road and headed down the east of France towards Lyon. With three kids in the car, lack of sleep and all hopped up on sweets, there was plenty of opportunity for in car wrestling to take place. Luckily, we thought ahead and had plenty for them to do. The Nintendo Switch was the greatest hit for this trip!

It rained most of the way down on our first traveling day, which was disappointing. We could only hope that the weather would improve as we got closer south to Spain.

We made plenty of toilet stops and eventually stopped for lunch at Aire de L’espérance, a motorway Aire, where there were toilet facilities, a small play park and picnic benches. We ate sandwiches and crisps, and tried the Lidl fizzy orange cans. And by this point the rain had stopped so the kids could stretch their legs and enjoy the park.

As our final stop for the day approached we had a sudden realisation that we hadn’t checked the electrics at any of the other stops, we could only hope that it was fixed, after all, we found the problem… didn’t we?

Well, did it work?

We pulled in to the Motorway Aire near Tournus, it was fairly quiet so we managed to park up right next to a picnic bench, Laura went off to check out the park with the kids while Kevin checked the electrics.

Well?

It didn’t work, I actually think the light is redder than it was before, we have another night of no electric and even less of a clue of what the problem is, at this point all we can do is pray that the electrics work when plugged in to the campsites electricity.

We tried our best to not let it get to us, and we didn’t mention anything to the kids as we didn’t want them thinking anything was wrong, luckily for us the sun was beating down so we was able to take advantage of the picnic bench to eat our BBQ Chicken and Rice and then off to the park to stretch our legs and burn of any remaining energy, while the kids played at the park we was able to get a quick look around the Aire, last year we hadn’t got a clue what an Aire was, this year they keep getting better and better!

This one had a lovely big grassed picnic area with concrete tables, a larger play park, coffee hut with toilets and showers, yes, showers! and specific caravan parking with a clean drinking water tap, what more could you need? (I know, I know, Electric lol).

The sun started to set around 9.30pm which was a perfect time to get the gas kettle out and make some hot chocolates before bed.

Its finally here!

We started the morning feeling great, we all had a brilliant nights sleep and today was the day we go to Spain!

3 days of travel and everyone was doing great, maybe we can do this touring lark after all, we continued south through Lyon where Laura was able to take in the beautiful views, especially where the river Saône meets the river Rhône, Kevin meanwhile enjoyed his view of the many French lorries, especially the one full of Hay that kept dumping chunks all over the windscreen, ‘don’t worry, you enjoy the relaxing ride while I try to navigate around this lorry while towing a caravan on the wrong side of the road…’

Motor what now?

As the drive continued Kevin was feeling a little let down by the lack of intense heat as we got closer to Spain, you know that kind of heat that hits your windscreen and immediately relaxes you all over, right on queue as if we’d just entered some kind of oven, it was baking! Perfect time for another toilet break, with all these toilet stops we’ve been doing we started to talk about how much easier it would be to be in a motorhome, not having to pull over every 30 miles would certainly make the journey quicker, maybe not legal but certainly quicker… either way it was just a pipe dream as we pulled into the next available Aire for everyone to cycle through the toilet.

Cheers Dave!

As we left the Aire and our motorhome dreams forgotten about discussions turned again to the possible issues with the caravan and how Kevin was saying that he had been given some advice buy his Father-in-Law about protecting the battery, Laura’s parents Jo & Dave had purchased a brand new caravan a few years back and Dave was meticulous in keeping it in the best condition possible. I’m sure you all listen intensely when people give you advise about things, especially when its your parents, well this time i wish I’d listened, he used to tell us how he would turn the battery charger off when he put it in storage for the winter to prevent it doing any damage. Our winterisation process went a bit like this, Park it on the driveway and plug it in so we didn’t need to clean the fridge, oh and maybe put the heating on every now and then when it got really cold.

Have we made the wrong decision?

We travelled further South and the heat really started to affect us, it was no longer that warm relaxing heat, it was like a furnace! stressing over the fact the newly refilled air-con wasn’t able to keep up with the current heat our minds turned to trying to work out how we was going to cope in a caravan for 2 weeks during a predicted heat wave, persevering and trying all the possible combinations of open windows and fans Laura noticed one of the windows open on the front of the caravan, initially minds raced to a potential break in at the previous Aire, but we quickly realised that in the time we was there it wouldn’t have been possible, maybe it was the heat playing tricks on us, its possibly the heat waves reflecting off the window on the front of the caravan then reflecting though the wing mirror and some other science’y stuff according to Kevin, just keep an eye on it and see if it moves.

Another unexpected stop

Nope! its flapping around like a penguin in a hula hoop competition, quick stop at the next Aire, this one was the busiest one we had seen so far, we pulled into a space and went to investigate, the window had delaminated in the heat, a roll of Clear Gorilla tape and a few expletives later and the window was secure. What more could go wrong before we get to Spain.

Its all coming together

Just as we was getting back in the car and still quite annoyed at the whole situation, and just generally having a moan, what a stupid idea to turn off the battery charger, why not just remove the battery? I’m gonna tell Dave next time I see hi…………

My Bad

Before we could even pull off, a lightbulb moment struck, Why are we stopping again? asked everyone, I just need to check something.

Running back to the caravan Kevin jumped in and started to move everything front the front seats, opening the cupboard, yep! the battery charger was turned off,

Locking up and excitedly running back to the car, Kevin explained that he had actually listened to the advice and turned off the charger, and thats why the battery was dead for the past 2 nights after all these years we still don’t know why, but at least things are on the up, window fixed (for now) battery sorted, now we just need to survive the drive in the sweltering heat.

Laura, have a play with the aircon to see if you can get it colder before we hit Spain “Colder? I don’t think it needs to be colder! I’ve got frostbite in my toes! Your joking right? the aircon has been working fine the whole time, it was just all directed at Laura feet, a quick adjustment of the vents and the car started to get cold, perfect timing as we just started to see the Pyrenees in the distance.

Hola Espana

With the aircon now set to a pleasing 18°C we headed across the Pyrenees, and into Spain, the car erupted with cheers as we crossed the boarder, very quickly followed by, ‘How long till we get there?’

With Only 50 miles left the last hour seemed to take forever, we were all tired and hungry and couldn’t wait to get out of the car to stretch our legs.

As we followed our trusty satnav into l’escala we found ourself again thinking how much easier navigating these roads would be if we was in a motorhome, rather than towing a 20ft twin axle caravan, the roads (at least the ones we took, thanks Google!) where very narrow and we struggled in parts to get through, dont let that put you off though because as we pulled up to reception we knew we was in for a good holiday, besides, if you follow the signs instead of Google Maps the roads are very straight and wide all the way down to the entrance.

Once we had checked in collected our welcome pack it was finally time to find our home for the next 2 weeks and get set up.

We’d just spent the last 2 or more hours in 18°C so it was a bit of a shock when we opened the door to what could only be described as hotter than a dragon’s breath, I’m sure with some acclimatisation we would all be fine, but that doesn’t help when you need to put an awning up and setup a caravan before dinner.

Kevin setup as much as possible while Laura got dinner on and I’m not sure if it was the heat, pure exhaustion, or just the elation of finally being there, but it was one of the best meals we’d had since being in Spain 😉

We have made it!

Watch our video to see what else we got up to in Spain