Time to catch up

Saturday 1 September

A doing day

We were quite glad to leave the Caravan Club site at Tintagel, Friday evening brought the nutters out for the weekend. Firstly, there were some German campers opposite throwing one of those whistling bombs all evening (a bit of irony there we thought). Next we had a family next to us who arrived in a battered van and car which developed into a camping area that dominated the area. They also had a St Bernard type dog the size of a horse that barked all night. They had some family on the site with a German Shepherd dog, that also barked. Next, the campers opposite (British) decided tonight would be a good time to light the floating Chinese lantern. It was obvious to me and probably every camper on the site that there was too much wind to fly it and the wind direction was blowing over the campsite in the direction of all those expensive awnings. Anyway the thing floated about 6ft in the air and than summersaulted several times and travelled at great knots towards god knows what. It crashed to the ground and one more attempt saw its demise. Finally, I was walking back from the toilet block when I saw an idiot using a portable BBQ directly on the neatly cut grass. Mind numbing really.

So we set off PDQ. Today we are going on holiday to Padstow. Now I do realise that this may seem rather daft but we are staying on a private site and paying big money for the privilege £20 per night (off season) Premier pitch. Before we go to Padstow though we have a few jobs to do. The last site was very muddy and poor Campy really got mucky. Too muddy to cope with a bucket and sponge so we found en route to Tesco a power washer place in a BP Garage. It was fantastic, foam everywhere and Campy had all her private parts power washed underneath. 

After a Tesco shop, we then went to a vacuum cleaner at another garage and got two tokens. We emptied the interior of the van and vacuumed it from front to back. We were starting to feel pleased with ourselves. 

12.15 we arrived at the campsite, Padstow Touring Park and booked in. Our pitch is No 47 a hard standing pitch with its own electric and water pod, a real luxury. After lunch we set to on cleaning the van properly. Petra cleaned all the inside of the van’s cupboards with the Milton whilst Kevin cleaned the alloy wheels and the wheel arches then polished the van and buffed up the S/S side bar. This took us most of the rest of the day and by 4pm we were both knackerd but feeling very satisfied. 

Friday 31 August

Up bright and early this morning for our epic day at Tintagel. The shower facilities are great  and really impressive. After breakfast and sorting out Campy we walked to the bus stop which is a short but steep climb to the main road. 10.05 the bus arrived £4.50 return and we shot off like a rat up a drainpipe. These drivers really know how to put the willies up you but when all is said and done we were in Tintagel in no time.

Now I know I said in yesterdays blog that we were going to walk into Tintagel but the site was further away than we thought..... those hills.....! It turned out to be a good decision, especially when we saw how much climbing there was to do to get to the castle.

Tintagel can be described in very much the same way Glastonbury. It is steeped in myth and legend and has more than its share of mystics and witch shops. Nevertheless, if replica swords, armour, pottery, honey and cornish pasty’s are your thing then you will love Tintagel. 

To start with we went into the visitors centre which was really very good. Very modern, high-tech and informative. We then took a leisurely walk down the main road and soon came to the ‘Old Post Office’ (National Trust of course) we whipped out our cards and we were in. 

The Old Post Office is a delightful building dating back to the 13th century and has been extended over the century’s to its present form. A crooked stone built dwelling with very deep walls. It really was a fascinating building to look around we particularly liked a small room designated for single women who are separated from the men. From the floor to roof living room you could see the room was suspended above it. Apparently, this is where the saying ‘She has been left on the shelf’ comes from.

There is a posh hotel in Tintagel called (what else!) ‘Camelot’ it looks like a castle from afar and dominates the skyline from all directions. We can see it from the camp site. So we walked down to have a look and to take advantage of the views of Tintagel Castle from across the bay. It was worth the walk and the views were great. As for ‘Camelot’ clearly things have moved on since King Arthur’s day as the groom was power washing the Bentley and the Aston....

Before we went to Tintagel we stopped for a nice cup of coffee in a restaurant back in the town.  It was great coffee made all the better by sitting outside in the sun watching all the goings on around us. We didn’t really want to move on as we had seen what was to come, but move on we did.

Tintagel Castle is managed by the English Heritage so we had to pay.....yes I know it’s about time but at £4.50 each we felt it represented good value for money. The walk down to the visitors center is very steep indeed and not recommended for wheel chair users. They offer a shuttle service in a long wheelbase Landrover for £2 each, each way but there was no way we would pay that yet. 

At the bottom we paid our dues and started the climb. The castle is split into two; the first is on the mainland and the second on the island. I say island because that’s what they call it. In reality the island is attached to the mainland but is only accessible by a bridge spanning the gap. The climb to the top of the mainland side is arduous, steep and the steps quite high. By the time you get to the top you know you have done it as your heart is racing and the tops of your legs are complaining bitterly. The views from here are amazing and it really is worth the effort to go up. Not much of the castle remains but there are very helpful signs with information and pictures of how it must have looked. This part of the Castle was basically the entrance gate and security accommodation.

Having recovered we set off back down the climb and on to the bridge stopping only to admire the skills of the soaring seagulls. This years crop was still a bit green but they were amazing to watch as they practiced coming into land on the cliff face. Over the bridge and we were back on the climb up steep sided path pulling ourselves up by the side rails. It’s amazing how high you climb in a short time we were on the next plateaux. This has the bulk of the ruins and more breath taking views. 

You can walk around the island and at the furthest point we decided this was where we would eat our lunch. We shared the spot with a seagull who was quite happy sitting within a few feet of us. The view speaks for itself.

After lunch we continued our walk around the island and made our way back down the steps to the visitor centre. The climb back up the hill to the town is not for the faint hearted and almost worth the £2 shuttle. When you finally reach the crown of the hill and the first thing you see is a pub with this sign.

There is a lot to see and explore at Tintagel including Merlin’s cave and the craggy cliff walks. The views of the coast breath taking. You can take as long as you like to soak up the sights and relax. We were lucky with the weather and it was a calm sunny warm day. Had it been yesterday with the heavy winds we had it would have been a different matter. We had a really fantastic day.

Thursday 30 August

Many thanks to Carol and Warwick for putting us up last night it was really great to see you again. Great meal and good fun watching a TV again and especially the downloads on YouTube of the magician Dynamo. How does he do that stuff....

Poor Carol was off to work bright and early so Warwick made us breakfast and we set off for Tintagel at about 9 o’clock. We filled up with fuel again and shopped at Tesco’s on the way. We arrived at the site at 12 noon.

This is the first time in all our days so far that we have decided to stay on a fully blown Caravan Club official camp site. We really wanted to go to Tintagel and this was the nearest we could find within walking distance. However, we have not gone the full monty on the pitch and have opted for the economy pitch at £17.00 per night as opposed to the all singing and dancing pitch at £22.40 per night. Even so £17 is a lot for us and to be honest we are not getting much more here than on a normal CL. The water is the furthest we have had to walk for it 150m and the toilets are probably twice as far again. To be fair they do have really nice toilet blocks and a laundry. The latter we took full advantage of as soon as we got here using their tumble dryers. (thanks for doing the washing Carol)The views are fantastic from the site so all in all we are very pleased with the spot we have despite being the only ones in the economy end of the site. We console ourselves with the fact that most of the other campers are probably still paying for their van’s and have got to go back to work on Monday. We on the other hand don’t...

I thought I would mention here how the new solar panel is mustering up. Well, I have to say it is fantastic. The one we chose is a 80w flexible type that is stuck to the roof of Campy. It is wired directly into the power supply unit that controls all the charging of the two batteries. We were advised and it has certainly proved to be the case that with no additional input to the leisure battery we would need to plug into the mains electricity every 3 days. That’s fine if you are on a jolly for the weekend but if you are serious longterm campers like us and on a budget you really need a reliable source of renewable power. There is nothing worse than not being sure if you have enough power in the battery to last the night.

Campy is not hungry on power, the main drain on the battery is the fridge. The only other thing that uses the power is the van lights. Most camper vans have fridges that run on gas, electric and/or battery but Campy has battery only. The fridge is however, very efficient and it only switches itself on when the temperature drops and tops itself up. Watching the electronics panel it is obvious when the fridge is working as the volts drop quite substantially. I have learnt not to worry too much about this as as soon as it reaches temperature and turns off it returns quite quickly to a true reading.

As you may know we had a 45w Briefcase type solar panel before. We found it did give us a bit of extra power/time off the electric hook up but there was no way we could be classed as ‘self sufficient’. The new panel has changed all that and we now have ample charge to stay away as long as we like. I think we even have enough spare to charge the miriad of other chargeable electrical devices we have. We have not had access to a power hook up for a whole week now in fact, since the device was installed by Bilbo but, we are showing a steady 13v on the panel. Now that’s brilliant for us and we can safely book cheap CL’s knowing we can stay as long as we like.

I said earlier that we have filled the van up again! We have done quite a few miles of late so I thought I would put on record the mileage of Campy for the month of August. When we first had Campy we were getting about 30 miles to the gallon, thankfully things have improved since then. It would appear that all those little bits inside the engine are starting to loosen up and consumption is definitely on the up. Anyway here are the stats for August those who are interested.

DATE QUANTITY MILES COST MPG

17 August 5.08 gal 200 £40.00 34.48
19 August 4.80 gal 173 £35.50 36.04
22 August 5.54 gal 205 £38.50 37.00
25 August 7.38 gal 296 £51.01 40.10
29 August 6.76 gal 243 £46.35 35.94  

Totals 29.56 gal 1117 £211.36 37.78 MPG AVERAGE

It could always be better of course but it is moving in the right direction and a quick blast down to Spain should do the fuel consumption wonders.

Enough nerdy stuff for now and we are looking forward to our day in Tintagel tomorrow.