Christmas on the horizon, just time to get the last outing of 2014 under way! At this time of year and needing to work on Sunday, it had to be a site open all year that was close by, the only one fitting this bill was Finchale Abbey. We first went there in 2011, so time for a return journey!
We arrived at the site, through the automatic barriers and headed for reception. Here we booked in and were given the freedom to select our own pitch. After a quick positioning on a couple of pitches in the ‘C’ section, we finally decided to plumb for an ‘F’ pitch. This was quite large and fairly level. Soon we were pitched up and waiting for the heat! The ‘van to say the least was a little ‘chilly’! Alde heating on and the convector heater, we waited for signs of warmth. The standard pitches as we were to find out, only had a 10A supply, whereas the serviced pitches had 16A. Therefore we had to finely balance the electric load in the caravan whilst keeping the heating going. This we did after tripping it about 3 times!
We had purchased new mats for outside, ones without holes in! These worked very well and made entering/exiting the ‘van a lot easier with more surface area to stand on. The newish toilet block has a swipe card entering system. This you have to leave a £10 deposit for, but works well and the toilet block is of a very high standard. Just missing the piped music that some offer!
We soon relaxed for the evening, watching the usual TV culprits at this time of year, namely ‘X Factor’ and ‘I’m a Celebrity’. The night went by and Sunday morning came. On playing duties today, so we had our breakfast and headed off. Upon returning we took a short walk around the site, too cold for anything longer! Time for a movie, more TV, reading, relaxing – just what the caravan was bought for!
Monday morning, time to head back home, caravan packed all ready and went to start the tug – flat battery! Found a warden who tried to help jump start the car, but the tug wanted more juice and wouldn’t budge an inch. I rang the RAC who luckily were only going to be half an hour away. In the meantime, the site owners appear with a pick-up truck to try jump starting again. A little more life appeared but not enough to fire her up. RAC arrives and both truck and RAC van are wired up! That did the trick and the tug roared to life. After a bit of testing of the battery, it was decided to scrap it and replace it with a new one. This the RAC did very quickly and the tug was running like new again. Managed to get off the site at 12.15pm – the latest departure we’ve ever had!
One to remember we think! We’ll be back, probably next Christmas!
- Date: 6th December 2014
- Nights: 2
- Pitch #: F5
- GPS: 54.817486, -1.540929
