To Wales and Back

Thursday was the day for getting the long running saga of the fridge sorted. We’d booked in the previous week with Auto-masters in Pontyclun, who were the only Dometic service engineers between Milton Keynes and the Bristol Channel prepared to sort out the potentially lethal problem of the fridge going up in flames and us along with it. So we were up early with the lark and off we drove in the RV, leaving the trailer and Toad behind at Home Farm.

We completed the journey in just over one hour twenty minutes driving up the M5 onto the M49 and M4 and over the Severn Bridge. The drive was a breeze, but getting through the toll booths at the bridge was a bit of tight squeeze and the grin on the cashier’s face was a picture when we only had to pay £5.70, the same price as a car!!!

The drive through Pontyclun was a bit hairy with cars parked each side of the road. The Auto-masters garage was just outside of Brynsadler down the end of a very narrow lane and the even narrower gate between two workshops; the RV barely had a clearance of 1” either side.

It took the service engineer two and half hours to complete the work so while he got to work Kay and I walked back into Ponty for a quick lunch at a delightful little café & ceramic studio called Porcellinis www.porcellinis.com .

Modified  Fridge

Impossibly tight fit for an RV

Stu reversing out of the workshops

After the work was completed we headed back onto the M4 and drove to Bridgend where at the local Countrywide store we filled up the RV with LPG for the return journey. Would you believe it the gas problem re-occurred, the LPG turned itself off just as we were back on the M4 and it wouldn’t switch back. So we stopped at Cardiff-gate services and when we re started the engine it all went back to normal (don’t ask I’ve no idea what’s going on).

Kay’s getting used to the suicide seat and even had a chance to take some photos of our return journey.

Stu in the driving seat

Severn Bridge

Toll Booths

Kay's view

Today we nipped off to visit the next site where we were intending to stay for three weeks which is on the Polden hills not far down the M5. We were a bit disappointed with the standard of the pitches and the toilets at that site, so have decided to stay at this site for an extra fortnight and have a look for another site to fill the final week, before we call back here at Home farm again before heading back north.

The weather has turned wet and miserable so for the rest of today we have hunkered down in the RV watching new arrivals turn up on site, so far there are now three American RV’s and several Euro-vans.

More Anon