23rd September 2017

Sep 232017
 

We all slept much better on the second night in our new motorhomes, even still we were all up early. We had planned to leave at about 11am but in the end we were all packed up and ready to go by 10am. We headed off in convoy along the N340 and rather than following the sat nav route onto the A7 motorway we stayed on the N340 all the way into Elche. There were several roundabouts to negotiate and one slight wrong turn later we arrived at Caravanas Cruz in Elche. I completed the paperwork for the warranty work on our motorhome we joined Mike and Sue in theirs for the trip back home. We had an uneventful journey and I continued to play with Mikes sat nav to try and get it working in English rather than Spanish but I failed and even though I had chosen the English voice it still spoke in Spanish. Mike will have to take it back to Gandia to get it looked at when he has the support legs fitted to his motorhome. We dropped Sue off at home and Mike kindly brought Ingrid and me home in his car in time for lunch.

Hopefully I will be able to collect the repaired Adria on Tuesday afternoon so that we can head off on a longer trip next weekend. Thanks to Mike & Sue for bringing us home, otherwise we would have been stuck or had to come home collect the car and then return all the way to Elche.

motorhome

22nd September 2017

Sep 222017
 
Day 2 at Crevillente.

After breakfast we decided to have a walk up into the town to explore the shops and buy a few bits and pieces. I found a bricolage and bought a new gas regulator hoping that this would fix the problem with connection to the gas bottle. The girls had a look round a couple of the Moroccan shops but didn’t find anything to buy. After coffee we headed back to the campsite stopping at another couple of shops and finally at the supermarket. There was only one checkout open and we bought our few bits for lunch and were waiting for Mike and Sue. An elderly Spanish lady had a trolley full and was in front of them, at the checkout she decided that she wanted some additional items and so not once but twice the till assistant went off to get the additional items for her. Only in Spain would this happen good customer service for her but frustrating for the queue of five people behind her.

After lunch I fitted the new gas regulator and it slotted straight onto the bottle with and the hot water promptly fired up and so at least we had some of that. During the afternoon I took the radio / sat nav out of the dashboard to see if the fuse had blown but it was OK and still would not work. Did a few other little jobs and then settled down and read and chatted. I also emailed Peter & Mary and got a reply back that he had exactly the same issue with his new Hymer and the hot water when he bought it last year and the fault was found to be that the mains plug had not been connected to the boiler unit. I checked and ther was too much disassembly to be done to check the mains connection to our boiler. I will leave that for the dealer to resolve.

After a couple of pre-dinner drinks we all adjourned to the hotel restaurant and had an even better meal than the previous night and tonight as we already had wine left over from yesterday it was only 48€ for the four of us. Definitely a restaurant and campsite to be recommended. We had post dinner drinks in the warm evening outside the motorhomes and the girls suddenly smelt burning. We checked and there was no problem with either van and after discussion with some other visitors it was decided that the smell was blowing in from outside the site. Shortly afterwards we heard the sound of fire engine sirens and the smell soon disappeared. As the temperature dropped we went to bed.

21st September 2017

Sep 212017
 

As Mike and Sue had also collected their new Carado T447 motorhome this week, we decided to take a short trip together to make sure everything was working properly and we knew how to work everything. Yesterday I rang Kiko Park in Oliva to book us in but they only had one pitch available so we decided to go to Las Palmeras in Crevillente where Mike and Sue had been before. It was a good job that we did, more on this later.

We loaded the Adria first thing this morning and found that the fridge was not cold even though it had been plugged in to 220v since 10am yesterday.We left home just before 11am and met Mike and Sue at the petrol station at the Ondara shopping centre having found that the Parrot Asteroid radio / sat nav / reversing camera display was not working. It was a good job that I had put the untrustworthy Garmin Camper 760 in the van as I wanted to compare the two. We set off down the motorway towards Alicante and hadn’t gone far before the door to the cupboard above the fridge sprung open. We stopped at the service area at Benidorm for coffee and I tried to ring Caravanas Cruz to let them know that we were stopping on the way to Crevillente to get them to check out the problems. It was a good job we went south rather than north otherwise it would have been a special trip to Elche to get the problems with the van sorted.

Two motorhomes

Girls posing with the new vans

After coffee we continued on to Elche and Caravanas Cruz arriving there just before 1pm. They had a quick look at the problems and decided that they would need the motorhome for a day to sort them all out. We have therefore booked it in for service and will drop it off on Saturday on our way home and collect it next week when they have corrected the faults. We continued to Las Palmeras at Crevillente. On arrival we were told to choose a pitch and then let them know in reception later which ones we had chosen. We parked up and connected to electricity and got the ground sheet out and table and chairs and then adjourned to the hotel bar for a boccadillo and cold drink for late lunch.

After lunch we checked in and confirmed our pitches and were charged 30€ for two nights to be paid when we leave, it does help having an ACSI card. Back in the Adria I found that the gas bottle regulator would not connect to the gas bottle and also the Truma hot water / heating system was stuck on gas as the fuel source and would not change to electricity so no hot water. All this little issues are annoying to say the least.

We cracked a bottle of cava to celebrate the new motorhomes. At 8pm we adjourned to the hotel restaurant for dinner and had an excellent menu del dia for 12€ a head and including the extra wine and coffees it ended up costing us 13.50€ a head and we still had 3 half bottles of wine to finish with dinner tomorrow. After dinner we went back to the vans and settled down for the night.

17th September 2017

Sep 172017
 

Well Friday the 15th finally arrived and this was the day to collect our new Adria Sonic+ 700SC from Caravanas Cruz in Elche. Unfortunately Ingrid wasn’t feeling very well and so a friend came with me to drive the car back. We left at 9am and arrived in Elche at 10.15am but as we were a bit early they weren’t quite ready for us. As a result we spent about half an hour browsing in the accessories shop and spending some money on accessories for the new motorhome. We then had a comprehensive run through of all the equipment on the motorhome. Unfortunately one additional mains socket and one additional usb socket had not been fitted in the places I wanted and so they offered to change move them when I bring it back for service, I think whilst not being the ideal locations I will leave them where they are.

We left at about 12.15pm to head home in brilliant sunshine. We followed the Elche ring road back to the A7 motorway and stopped at the service area near Alicante airport for a coffee and a snack.

Adria 700SC

Parked in the service area

Back onto the motorway and then onto the AP7 toll road heading north. Once we passed through the Altea tunnel it became cloudy but it was still warm enough to have the cab air conditioning on. We left the motorway as usual at Ondara and looking inland towards Orba it was very grey. As we approached Benedoleig it started spitting with rain and then by the time we passed Orba Garden Centre there was heavy rain. As a result I just parked the motorhome outside and jumped in the car to take Mike home. Later in the afternoon there was a brief respite in the rain and so I parked the Adria on my next door neighbours drive, luckily they are away on holiday for a month.

Parked on the drive

Over the weekend we have slowly but surely been loading our bits and pieces from the caravan on board. We have used this as an excuse to downsize exactly what we carry as some of the items we had on board had never been used. I now have a shopping list for tomorrow for a few minor bits and bobs and then we can go away later in the week to make sure everything works and we know how to work it.

Some interior photos