Parking the caravan. The downside.

We need to approach the parking of our caravan, in a more organised and methodical manner.  Either that or ask for another parking spot   

We have no problems hitching or unhitching the caravan, and it travels beautifully behind us when out on the road.   So easy to tow.  But back at the storage area, that is a different matter altogether.

  

 Admittedly the cold wet weather has not helped us.   All we want to do, is get home, where it is lovely and warm.  And I will be the first to admit, that at this point we tend to rush things a bit.    

 The storage area for our van is well protected by buildings and the hedge at the back, and when we parked our motorhome there, we were very happy with this spot.   All we had to do was reverse the motorhome in, and raise the front up so that the water ran off the back, instead of collecting on the roof.   Easy.

But getting a caravan into this same spot requires much manoeuvring, and organisation.   There is not enough room on the narrow track to reverse the caravan in, or at least not by a couple of amateurs like us.    So we unhitch the caravan and use the electric mover to reverse it back into its spot.

Well, this is the general idea, anyway.   But in reality we seem to get it wrong, too often.   But the last time nearly finished us off.   As we had left all the electrical switches on in the caravan, accidently, we had flattened the leisure battery overnight, and did not check this was so in the morning.    We always hitch up by reversing the car to the caravan, so were unaware that the leisure battery was flat. We set off on a very short journey to fill the gas bottles, and to get a new jockey wheel for the front, but alas it was not long enough to charge the battery fully again.

When we returned the obvious happened, the mover worked for about two minutes and then went dead, and after checking the small batteries in the handheld device, we realised that we needed to check the power switch.   Which registered as red.   Flustered by then, I released the mover, without checking the caravan brake was on, and the back of the caravan clipped the corner of the shed, as the caravan made a lunge for the deep potholes in the track.

These are mean potholes, deep, and filled with water.  There was no way we could push the caravan out of the potholes, let alone up the slight slope, which by this stage looked very steep.   We could not leave it on the track either, and the depth of the potholes meant that we could not hitch up again.

So Walter, being enterprising, went off in search of the owner of the site, who then found another man, and the four of us pushed the caravan out of the potholes, up over the ever rising slope, and into its position in front of the hedge.

    

The owner has said that he will fill the potholes for us.   I hope so.  But we also must make sure we always switch off the electrics in the caravan, no matter how cold and tired we are.  Even better, we will take the battery home with us, to be placed on a charger, until our next outing.  And we must check before we leave on a trip that we have plenty of battery life in the leisure battery.    

We have now re-read the caravan manual, and read everything online that is related to the electrical system, the leisure battery and the electric mover.  We understand.  The electric mover absolutely and totally needs and uses a great amount of battery power.  We also realise that we are currently stuck if we cannot use the mover.

Mind you, it would help if we learned how to reverse the caravan around tight corners when on a narrow track.  Just in case.    

And we now need to remove a small dent from the corner of the caravan.  Our perfect and dent free caravan is no more.