Motorhome & Caravan holiday Blog

Thursday 19th October

I was busy with a genealogy meeting in the afternoon so we could not set off as early as we would have liked. I got home just after 4pm and picked Ingrid up and we loaded the van and were on our way by 4.20pm. Rather than following either of the sat navs for the route to the campsite I decided to follow the Google Maps route that I printed out for my navigator to read to me. Several people in the online forums recommend Google Maps routes over sat nav’s to this was the reason for this decision. We drove to the AP7 at Ondara and joined the motorway and had an uneventful journey all the way down to Alicante, the route kept us on the AP7 past Alicante. This section of the motorway was subject to some gusty crosswinds which were noticeable in the motorhome. We left the AP7 where it joined the A7 south of Alicante, the road surface on this section of road was poor and necessitated a speed reduction. We continued past the AP7 near Crevillente as suggested by Google Maps and joined the CV904 south, this road ran parallel to the AP7 all the way to Catral where we turned off into the entrance to Marjal Camping followed by a Guardia Civil car, luckily I hadn’t done anything wrong so no issues with them. We checked in at reception at 5.50pm and initially they put us on pitch B079 which was a long way from Mike & Sue and Peter & Mary. We changed to B003 which was much closer to them. We set up the bare minimum and then decided to eat in the restaurant. Unfortunately it was closed and so we had to eat in the bar and had an indifferent meal.

Friday 20th October

We completed setting up the van, Ingrid and Sue went off for coffee in the bar after lunch we met up for a drink with some of the MCC as we will be joining them on a rally in November to see if we want to join the group. During the late afternoon and early evening the mainly Spanish owners of the permanent caravans started to arrive and the site became noticeably noisier and busier with this influx of people. We had a nice barbecue and then went and joined some of the MCC members for coffee on the terrace after their evening meal in the restaurant which was open as it was Friday evening.

Saturday 21st October

We were going to take a taxi into Catral and have lunch there but unfortunately Ingrid wasn’t feeling great and so we didn’t bother. We explored the supermarket and bought a few bits including a long TV lead as there was some UK channels available free of charge by plugging a lead into the connector on the pitch, they weren’t expensive and so I bought one. We then joined Mike and Peter & Mary for coffee on the terrace. We took a short walk around the terrace area and took some photos of the many carved wooden statues and water features around the site.

We decided that we would try the restaurant for dinner as we had not made it into Catral earlier, only to find that it was closed on a Saturday night for a private function. What the management were thinking of allowing that to happen I don’t know. So we had to settle for another meal from the bar which was even worse than on Thursday night.

Sunday 22nd October

We had a lazy morning and then went to the terrace bar for a coffee. We said goodbye to some of the MCC members who were heading home. We then explored the car boot sale in the car park, we didn’t buy anything as it was mainly pretty tatty. We needed a bit more water in the motorhome so as usual I used a hose and put the nozzle as usual in the filler tube. Unfortunately, the quick release hose nozzle became detached and went down the filler tube and blocked it. I then spent the next 45 minutes taking the cupboard underneath the bed apart to get at the filler tube and remove the hose from it. I was successful but found how well put together the Adria is, it all went back together without issue. After a late barbecue lunch we had a quiet afternoon reading. During the course of the afternoon the site started to quieten down as the weekend visitors started to head home and by about 7pm the site was almost dead. As dusk started to fall we went for a walk around the campsite to see what we had missed. The top half of the site had larger pitches and there were a lot of very large motorhomes in this area including this one drawn by an artic drawing unit

This maybe one for George and Maria in the UK. We found the second swimming pool at the far side of the site which was closed but looked like it was a tropical beach with tiki huts and palm trees. We went back to the van and settled for the evening and watched TV and read.

Monday 23rd October

Whilst packing up on Monday morning I heard an unusual noise and looked up and saw this, they had just taken off from the campsite car park.

As there was virtually no wind they drifted around the locality for some time. We set off home at about 11.15am after a coffee in the campsite terrace bar. We headed up the CV904 again rather than the motorway and then onto the A7 for a short distance and then turned off onto the N340 to head for Caravanas Cruz. We found that they had a 10% sale on and we got them to exchange the broken awning strap as we had only used them twice before one broke. I also bought a water cap adapter to allow me to connect the hose permanently to the van when on site so that I have no more problems with the nozzle going down the filler tube. We left Cruz and rejoined the A7 and then onto the AP7 to Ondara and then home in time for late lunch.

A nice few days away but the campsite was large (over 1200 pitches) and impersonal with poor food in the bar and a closed restaurant on a Saturday night so it is one we are unlikely to visit again.

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.

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.

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.