Motorhoming Lessons - Episode One

The following article has been written by guest blogger - "Mrs Snail":

Last year, having decided on a week’s holiday in our motorhome in the Lake District, we consulted our saved library of magazine articles. An Out and About magazine article on cycling in the Grizedale Forest took our fancy. The recommended site was Bowkerstead Farm, located on the south of the Forest, with hard standing, showers and toilets and the location was good enough for us to forego hook-up for a couple of nights.

Having stayed at Low Wood Caravan Club Site, near Kendal, and done the walking part of the holiday in depressing rain, we set out in anticipation and high hopes for the cycling part. Surely the weather HAD to improve?

My husband is a HGV driver so a little (!) motorhome presents no problem to him. He decided (bless him) to take me along the scenic country roads to show me Esthwaite Water. I really don’t know how my nerves stood the narrow roads and oncoming traffic, but we survived. However, worse, much worse, was still to come.

Firstly, we missed the right turn to Grizedale Forest. Well, that’s not strictly true. As the navigator, I had dismissed it as far too narrow for a motorhome. But after stopping and consulting the map, yep, there was no doubt, that was where we had to go. Fortunately, that made it an easier left turn than a right would have been. Then it got very steep, very narrow and for me very VERY scary. Eventually, we came upon the the Grizedale ForestVisitors Centre, and after an embarrassing trauma that I won’t go into (if you go there, park in the coach bays), we collected our cycling map in readiness for the next day’s activities. Carrying on driving, we located Bowkerstead Farm easily enough thanks to a large Forestry Commission sign announcing the location – so far so good.

The entrance was over an extremely narrow bridge which wasn’t so good. Husband decided that our ‘van would not fit over that bridge and we must turn around and find some where else to stay. Wimp. I negotiated with him to continue and see if there was another entrance to the farm. There was, however it was along a very bumpy unmade road. We persevered and eventually got there with the sides of our ‘van still intact. Phew.

On arrival, there were no humans to be seen, just lots of cats, so now we had to find the hardstanding – where was it? All we could see was a tent area accessed through a narrow gap in a wall. Eventually we located a human being who told us that motorhomes usually went on the bottom field. Unfortunately, that was currently too wet for motorhomes therefore there were no hardstanding pitches available.

Have you guessed where this is leading yet....................? To be continued in the next blog.