Our grand tour of southern Spain 17th January 2023 Day Two

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Tuesday 17^th January Day 2

How good is the Autosleeper’s Broadway ‘winter’ accessories pack?

Last night was really cold and the heating kept on kicking in throughout the night. I’d set it to kick in when the internal temperature fell to 11C. The ‘noisy’ boiler woke me several times and when I wasn’t woken by that, I was by Mag rolling onto me. Apparently, I’m a very good ‘hot water bottle replacement’. I’m on the downhill side and so became squashed between her and the sink unit. To cap it all, a tawny owl in the tree directly above us, decided to start screeching at 3am! I’m a great fan of tawny owls. We have a nesting box in our garden. But 3am -nope! Not a great fan!

I’m tired. Not grumpy, just tired. And, the waste water tap dripped overnight and formed a frozen icicle down to the tarmac! The freshwater tank has frozen as well – so much for the tank heater mat working. Another one to take up with our dealer when we return!  Our water pump runs but no cold  water is forthcoming! Fortunately, the tank is only 50% full so plenty of ice expansion room! 

There is a great hoar frost on the field behind us and it turns out road chaos everywhere! We leave at 0845 to drive an hour to Montisfont House, a National Trust property just north of Romsey. We don’t get there. All roads to Romsey are closed due to black ice and accidents. Utter traffic chaos and queues everywhere around the A36. We stop at some services just off a roundabout and grab a MacDonald's breakfast, sure that in an hour’s time the roads will have cleared and been reopened.

Nope, not a chance. We won’t be reaching Romsey any time today! We head back onto the M27 and stop at Rowntree services to come up with a plan B! Outside the temperature is -2C. Plan B, an alternative route to Romsey fails. The town is cut off although that doesn't stop the owner of a large 4 X 4 pickup truck (advertising a dog walking business) removing some of the ‘road closed’ signs and driving up over the kerb and onto the closed road. 

We opt for Portsmouth - Port Solent. We will wait there and explore that area instead. It is going to be a long day since the ferry doesn’t depart until 2245 tonight!

Port Solent has plenty of free parking and we park across two bays and hang the bike rack over a grass verge in front of some security cameras. We wander the shops, stroll the marina, come back and read books. We complete the newspaper crossword, we go for a wander, we come back where we try to account for my 90/180-day miscalculation booboo! I’m wondering whether I have actually started us off on the holiday two weeks too early!

After some intense discussion during which Maggie shows how truly saintly, patient, laid back and forgiving she is, we agree that leaving just one day spare as an ‘emergency day’ is not sensible.  

A phone call to Brittany Ferries and a pleasant chat with helpful Carl and we’ve moved the return booking to 18th Feb instead of 20^th, thus giving us four ‘spare’ days before our 90 days are up. That feels a much better safety margin. I'm mentally castigating myself badly. I just don't know how I could make such a stupid error. Mag, as always, is sanguine, relaxed and calm about the matter. 

This problem solved; we retreat to the ‘Harvester’ for a meal. It cheers me up eventually and then we return to sit another couple of hours in the van reading. It is bitterly cold, around 0C and the heating is on running off the gas. It’s set to 18C and is slowly getting there but Mag is still buried beneath blankets, under one LED light. It still feels distinctly chilly in the Moho despite the heating’s best efforts.

So, how good is the Autosleeper’s Broadway winter accessories pack?

First, what’s in the winter pack?

·        Fresh and Waste Water Tank-Heater Blankets;

·        Concertina Cab Blinds in lieu of cab curtains;

·        Truma Combi 6kw heater upgrade;

·        Wheel arch insulation blankets.

Ok, so how good have we found all this to be?

The hot water tank works well – ‘Eco’ or ‘Hot’ settings soon gets you hot water for washing up and showering. Gas or electric – the boiler works well. It does through hissy fits now and then via the Truma (or trauma as we’ve named it) panel above the door. You have to make sure you close things down or open things up in the correct sequences otherwise you are plagued with error codes which take 15 minutes to reset themselves. Gas usage wise – seems very efficient.

The concertina blinds are great. However, if you don’t put on an external silver windscreen cover during the colder nights, you will get condensation on the interior of the cab window in the morning. Other than that, the blinds are great – simple and quick to use. Be clear though, they do very little to retain warmth in the motorhome, in our opinion.

Wheel arch insulation blankets? Well, the cab area always seems cold even with the heating full on. The area under the dashboard always seems to have a slight breeze blowing through irrespective of however hot the heating is.

The tank heaters? Jury out on these! They didn’t work this time. Our freshwater tank froze! But it is the first time we have used them and I may have made mistakes switching them on in the panel etc.

And, finally, the actual hot air heating ducts themselves. They are found under one of our side sofas in the main lounge area. There is also one under the bathroom draw set. This latter one struggles. The bathroom rarely warms up during cold weather even if you put them to maximum fan setting on the panel. One duct just isn’t sufficient and the air coming out whilst warm, isn’t as warm as the air coming out in the lounge; so there is heat loss somewhere.  The lounge ones are very efficient at heating up the main habitation area but the further into the cab you go, the less effective they are. Set to 22C, I get really hot and want them turned off for a while. Mag will still be under a blanket! I think that is more to do with her physiology than it is to do with the heating!

My overall assessment? Great on hot water, great on heating main habitation area between side benches, less effective in getting heat to build up in the cab area (because there seem to be too many gaps where cold air can get in or to be physics correct, our warm air can escape through) and ineffective in the bathroom. Despite having the original carpets down and some thickly woven textile mats on top of them, padding around in socked feet during cold weather is unpleasant. My feet get cold quickly – so insulation in the floor area needs improving!

 

Back to other matters. A quick perusal of the met office forecasts for Valencia and southern Spain ... sunny around 14C. Last week it was 22C. Ah well, hey ho, that's the way the cookie crumbles. At least the nights are cloudless so I might get some stargazing in.

We arrive at the ferry terminal at around 7.50pm and within fifty minutes we are waived through. Port Solent has only a few delights and we grew bored of the place pretty quickly! Lucky us; we are first on just behind two lorries which are parked on a slight upslope on the car deck. Our worries that they might roll back onto poor Bryony are allayed when two giant bulkhead doors suddenly close between us and the lorries! Phew, another sleepless night averted!

Our cabin is small and hot but we adjust the airflow on the ceiling vent. We slip quietly past two decommissioned frigates and then alongside the gargantuan Prince of Wales aircraft carrier. You know the one. It broke! Not that this matters! It didn’t apparently have any planes on it anyway!

Useful information:

Route: A31 – M27 – M275

Distance: 50 miles

Costs: none

Useful websites: https://www.searchforsites.co.uk/marker.php?id=22568