Another weekend escape with the caravan and this time we chose Hargill House, a quick drive down the A1 and easy access off the A66, perfect for a stress free break in the gorgeous land of North Yorkshire!
The site is fairly small, but very popular as a convenient stop-off for North-South tourers. With the weather being very typical British summer time, the site had experienced a lot of rainfall, producing some problematic manoeuvers on-site, therefore we directed to only one of a few grass pitches which were easy access, drive on-off. The one we chose was at the North end of the site, near the A66 so produced some road noise, but provided excellent views of the countryside. The pitch wasn’t exactly level, but with some careful manoeuvering we got the ‘van fairly level. We were going to deploy the Milenco aluminium leveller for the first time, but with the wet grass, we couldn’t get the leveller under the wheel! We weren’t far off level, so we decided to live with it and save the leveller for another day The service point was right next to our pitch, so that made life easy for the water management! Indeed, the toilet block was also near to us, so to sum up, it was a good pitch albeit being on a slope.
Reception sold a few basic items, which would have been handy as we needed some more ‘pink’ – but made a detour to a caravan store prior to collect, if only we knew! The toilet block is of the usual standards for the CC, not keys or codes required which is nice.
The village of Gilling West is only a short walk from the site, albeit down hill, so a bit more effort required on the return journey! There’s not much there apart from a couple of pubs, post office and a village hall.
Richmond is further away but provides a lovely day out. Plenty of small shops along with a larger Co-op if you run short on food supplies. Lots of good walking along the river Swale, a visit to the castle, the cobbled streets of the market square, the Friary Gardens. Plenty to do and see, well worth a trip.
The weather turned nasty following our outing to Richmond, and gale force winds prevailed. So in came the satellite dish and we battened down the Heki’s to sit the storm out. A session on the Playstation, a good movie coupled with some refreshments and snacks brought the Sunday to a close. We were up bright and early the next morning, well the A66 traffic had begun! Our preparations to head home were well under way. The weather had settled, so an easy drive back up the A1 so us conclude our weekend outing yet again. Phone reports of the daughter not feeling well, vomiting etc had been received. Still, I expect it’s early days for us to escape with no daughter mishaps!
- Date: 12th May 2012
- Nights: 2
- Pitch #: 17
- GPS: 54.452736, -1.705019
