van and CampoingWe (my wife Julie, son Cameron and myself) were travelling down to North Devon for a week and a bit camping with our Holiday 400SE trailer tent. We left Martlesham Heath (nr Ipswich) at 4:30 in the morning of Friday 24th July - the idea of travelling on the Friday was to avoid the usual holiday traffic of a Saturday.
The first part of the journey was very good, making our way along the A12 to the M25 in a little over an hour. The M25 was slow due to roadworks, but at no point was there any hold-up, and before we knew it we were on the M4. We stopped off at the Reading services for breakfast about 7:10am - Full English.
We were on our way again about 8:30am. We drove through a couple of very heavy showers, and soon, we reached the M5 - so far with no hold-ups. We stopped again at the Bridgewater Services - remind me never to stop there again - it was a nightmare getting parked with a trailer - bad signage, imbeciles directing you, etc. We grabbed a quick coffee to go and were on our way again.
Our luck changed, and there was an accident between jct 21 and 22 of the M5, so we quickly redirected our Tom Tom and took a diversion via Weston Super Mare. It added about 20 minutes to the journey - but better than sitting in a long queue of traffic.
At 1:00pm, we arrived at Hidden Valley Camping and Caravan Park, nr West Down in North Devon. It was voted Caravan Site of the Year 2009 - and so it should be as it was the most expensive campsite we had ever booked at about £41 per night. We checked in and were taken to our pitch by the warden.
They were very large pitches, close to water, with electric hook-up and TV point. We set about pitching the tent - in case we were in for another downpour. Before too long, we had the tent up and we were dry. Julie took Cameron to explore the campsite, and more importantly the play areas while I set about getting everything else set up.
By 5pm, we were ship shape and Bristol fashion. All set for the week. We had ourselves spaghetti bolognase we had defrosted on the way, and then went exploring some more.
The site is very pleasant, although we were a bit disappointed with the children's play areas - located out of the way in dark and dingy areas of the site and somewhat old and tired. They are in desperate need of rejuvenation, and moving to a sunny open part of the site. We also visited the shop with a few questions and to place our bread and paper order. We asked about freezing our freezer packs and also about the TV point. Freezer packs cost 20p per pack per day to freeze - a service just about every other campsite we have stayed on has offered for free, and the TV line is 50p per day - which, when you pay £41 per night for a pitch with TV point, you would expect it to be included.
To be quite honest, we are yet to understand why Hidden Valley was voted Campsite of the year 2009 - we have stayed in far better sites and can only assume the judges stay but a single night, do not use many of the facilities and do not judge on the extras that are charged.
Anyway, enough for the first post. Tomorrow is another (sunny apparently) day - we best make the most of it as rain is the forecast thereafter.
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