After what seemed an eternity, we were finally on our way for another weekend away, this time to Staindrop near Barnard Castle.
I had found a nice CS site called Bevanstead, a small but spacious grassy site. We arrived following a pleasant journey and pulled into the site. We were immediately greeted by the owner who we ended up having quite a chat with! He had himself just returned from a 3 week holiday in France in his motorhome, so the conversation was in full swing as we discussed the methods of English Channel crossing, areas of France and the joy of their road system and camping sites. Following this discussion we decided to pitch up on number 7, paid our dues and left to set up.
The site is level with bumps! We ran close to grounding as I reversed onto the pitch but following a bit of levelling on the nearside, our clearance soon improved! Our new ‘feet’ were soon deployed following a bit of fiddling (the knack will come soon I’m sure).
Weather was glorious so out came the tables and chairs and for the first weekend outing this year we were able to sit outside and enjoy the outdoors! The site is very well maintained, grass nice and short and tidy. The toilets are excellent. They were situated inside a dedicated building which housed two toilet cubicles complete with sink and also a third cubicle which had a shower and sink, very clean. You couldn’t expect any better, excellent.
Sunday and a walk was in order. I had printed our usual Ordnance Survey map of the area and had identified a 4 mile round trip we could do that took us into Staindrop itself and back. The route took us through an abundance of farmers fields, complete with hay stacks, sheep and horses. Cath still a bit wary of the latter! Once we reached Staindrop ‘High Street’ we stopped by a little cafe to have a drink. A strange experience this was.
First as we entered we were asked whether we had booked? Didn’t realise you had to book a cup of tea in Staindrop! Then we sat and waited 10 minutes before we were given a menu. We duly placed our orders for our drinks. The first of which arrived another 10 minutes later, followed by my pot of tea a further 10 minutes later! Haven’t seen service as bad for quite a long time now. Never mind, we left that experience behind us and continued along the street and finally made our way back to camp.
Arriving back at the caravan we decided that we wouldn’t go to Raby Castle as it was too nice weather wise and that we would simply relax outside the ‘van following our little trek. Being the time of year it was, we were soon pestered by all manner of flying insects from the fields and had to eventually retire from the outdoors to the comfort of the indoors and made Sunday lunch! The rest of the night came and went as it does and before we knew it again, Monday morning was upon us.
We packed up in the good weather. Makes such a difference to packing up in the rain! We had help from the house cat at this stage. This cat liked to back scratch anything in site and at one stage managed to get into the boot of the car! Working hard to keep it out of the caravan itself, we eventually managed to distract it and were left in piece. We used the mover to put us in a better position for hitching up without grounding and off we went, back to storage. The good news, it’s only two weeks away to our next long October trip!
- Date: 27th September 2014
- Nights: 2
- Pitch #: 7
- GPS: 54.564470, -1.806793
