The South Coast Chronicles in an Autosleeper Broadway EB – day 3 heading for Charmouth

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 The South Coast Chronicles in an Autosleeper Broadway EB – day 3 heading for Charmouth

Before breakfast and our departure from Manor Farm at Seaton, one of us has been moved to tears. On BBC Breakfast, an orchestra comes together from their homes via zoom, to perform the ‘4 notes’ musical piece, originally composed by an 80-year-old retired music teacher who has dementia. It isn’t the music that elicits a tear or two, as moving as it is; no, it’s the gentleman’s reaction to watching a message played to him on his laptop from his musical hero, Stephen Sondheim.

A good news story that brings a tear, a smile and some laughter. A reminder that there is good still out there even though we face a global pandemic and times are hard for so many people across our planet.

 

We think we have the ‘packing-up’ rigamarole sussed now. If one of us can be prised away from her addiction to reading the various news and newspaper websites on her mobile phone before she gets out of bed, then we can be up, bed packed away, breakfast done, waste water tank drained and toilet cassette emptied and refreshed and on the move in under 40 minutes. We have actually packed up, and been off for a short journey in under ten minutes!

Today we do the short hop from Seaton to Charmouth via the A3052 and A35, but not before we have called in at Tesco’s to stock up on food and diesel. Two take away coffees, two pecan slices and a read of the newspapers later and we finally arrive onsite at Newlands Holiday Park for just after midday, leaving us the afternoon to go explore the shoreline.

(We gloomily concede that the  ‘coffee and newspaper stops’ may have to be abandoned. They are costing us a fortune and slowing down our travels!)

 

Newlands is an ‘interesting’ site. Not finding any places with spaces available for the nights we wanted to be in the area, we end up here, where we wait in the car park for a person to come and show us on to the site. Twenty minutes later we go back to reception to be just given the pitch number and told to drive on ourselves. Reception is busy and they are trying to implement covid safety procedures. Staff are rushed off their feet.

Newland’s touring pitches are on terraces, a series of well looked after, individually gravelled pitches with EHU’s. Beyond the terraces, higher up the slopes are permanent mobile homes, whilst below are some terraces for what appear to be seasonally booked touring caravans.

The majority of water points seem difficult to access for a motorhome. The central one halfway up a road is the easiest to get to but necessitates blocking the access road around the pitches for the duration of time it takes to fill your water tank. Not wishing to be inconsiderate, by blocking the road, we go onto our pitch and then opt to fill the tank using our 10Lt jerry can.  It’s a long process!

Perhaps it is us as newbies, unfamiliar with Bryony, but the terraces feel difficult to access. The ‘ring road’ is steep in places with very sharp corners and descents and it feels like being on the front seat of a roller coaster as we turn the upper corner and drop down into first gear for the steep downward descent. With the access road barely wider than the motorhome itself, getting onto the terraces requires careful driving. Thank heavens we come in under 6.5m, for anything longer would struggle. We marvel at how the touring caravans seem to manage it with their extra length.

Care with driving proves to be the case when reversing onto the individual pitches from the access road along each terrace. Again, just a bit wider than a motorhome, caution has to be exercised when reversing as swinging around the front of the motorhome could lead to the driver side front wheel slipping off the road and down the steep bank to the next terrace below. We feel better about our efforts after watching later arrivals struggle with the same difficulties. Perhaps it isn’t our inexperience after all!

Once on the pitch, it proves to be nice and level, with lovely views across to the fields on the opposite valley. The only distraction is the traffic noise from the A35, around 50ms away. Facilities are clean (although we don’t know what to make of the blackboard at the entrance to each toilet which starts with the phrase “Enter at your own peril” before going on to list the covid entry rules).

 

An afternoon stroll down to the beach area soothes slightly frayed nerves. Unsurprisingly we find it busy, after all it is half-term. There is little evidence of social distancing in the queues outside the little museum and fossil shop or in the vicinity of the car parks and so we beat a hasty retreat up Stonebarrow Hill to the east. Its muddy, slippery and very wet under foot but the views along the coastline in each direction are striking, even though they are periodically obscured by a salty haze. The onshore strong wind drives the sea onto the beach below in high dumpy destructive waves, the growl of moving shingle echoing along the sea front. To the east, the setting sun once again casts its golden hues across the sandstone cliffs, casting their slips and slumps into lengthening shadows. It is a refreshing walk made challenging by the muddy conditions.

Back at Bryony, we work out how to cope with soggy cagoules and over-trousers, muddy walking boots and wet socks. The pull-out bed frame is immediately used as a drying rack. We open the roof top skylight a little to vent the damp air and turn up the heating, hoping to eliminate any potential condensation later. Agreeing that the shower should become the defacto drying area for wet clothing, we add ‘extending tensioning pole’ to our shopping list of other things to get for Bryony.

This evening, before we go to bed, we drain off some of the waste water tank using our collapsible 10 Lt bucket. There is no MoHo service point as such at Newlands. It is the same as the arrangement for filling the water tank – use the middle area where the chemical disposal point is – draw up alongside and discharge in to the waste drain there. It will necessitate blocking the road for some time and also using extension hoses below the motorhome to run from the drain taps to the drain, something we have failed to bring. It seems easier to just periodically empty the water tank as we go along with the bucket!

 

Stay safe, take care out there and have fun motorhoming. 

Steve and Maggie.

If you would like to know more about who we are then visit these blog posts at 

https://wherenexthun.blogspot.com/2020/10/welcome-to-our-blog.html

https://wherenexthun.blogspot.com/2020/11/who-are-main-characters-in-our-blog.html