On Friday 23rd November we went across the water (Thames!) to Essex. First off was a stop at Ikea to have a browse and pick up a few bits, then on to Mersea Island for the weekend. It was mainly a nice sunny day, but on arrival at the Waldegraves Holiday Park we found almost a lake. The pitches were very soggy and muddy and we had to be extra careful where we parked up. Luckily, as our van is quite small, we managed to get on the edge of our pitch without too much trouble, but a few of the larger vans after us had to be either pushed out of the mud or call the tractor. In the evening the organisers had set up barbecues under a roofed washing-up area and a lot of the motorhomers provided food to cook as well as mulled wine. As we were newbies at this we had not realised this was going to happen so had taken our dinner and eaten it at the normal time. We socialised with the mulled wine until about 10.00pm and then took ourselves back in to the warmth of our van.
Saturday morning was fairly nice in the beginning so we went for a brief walk down to the beach and sussed out the path along the shore for a later walk when we had our boots on. Then the weather set in - it rained, it blew, it was cold and certainly not walking weather. Once the barbecue was lit in the afternnon we went and cooked some hot-dogs and joined a few hardy souls who were out and about. We were invited to go to the clubhouse in the evening, apparently there was some entertainment, but as 500 people were expected to turn up and drinking expensive drinks is not quite our cup of tea, we decided to stay put in the van and play cards and read our books instead.
Sunday, we got up late and had a leisurely breakfast then watched the various units struggling to get off their pitches. The tractor came in to play a lot. We packed ourselves up and just before lunch we gingerly pulled off our pitch and drove slowly round to the car park which was gravelled and where about 7 motorhomes had stayed over the weekend rather than trying to pitch up. We had got Sunday lunch reserved for 35 of us, so bowled over to the restaurant and had a rather nice roast dinner. There was birthday cake to follow as there had been 2 birthdays over the weekend. We eventually left about 2.30 and got home just after 4.00pm.
This was our first rally with Motorhome Fun and although their website has been really useful and most of the people helpful and friendly we are not sure that we will repeat the exercise. We are not ones to sit around drinking most of the day, we would rather be out and about seeing and doing something. Also if we are going to drive 80 miles we would prefer to make a longer stay of it. We shall see what is on offer next year in our area.
We have now unloaded most of the stuff from the van and brought it indoors to keep warm and dry until the spring and emptied our water and waste tanks As we use the van for our everyday vehicle we would rather not drive around with everything on board getting cold, damp or frozen.
We have not yet got any ideas for next year, or first priority is to get our house sorted out and back in to shape before we go travelling off anywhere. We'll keep you posted. In the meantime we would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
