my caravan of love

[ethandron]

it's that time again, packing up for an extended trip away and wondering what to take and what to take out. trouble is, a caravan is like a huge suitcase and the temptation is to take everything....until we weigh it and have to remove half!
if you were going away for up to 2 months, what would you consider a necessity and what would you leave behind.

[Maydup]

Just as long as you're warm and dry, you can always buy what you've left behind.

Have a fantastic time - where you off to?

[ethandron]

thanks maidup, i'm sure we will. la belle france, many locations.
i didn't believe my other half when he asked me to fetch the bathroom scales (a few years ago) so he could weigh it. turns out you can weigh a caravan on a set of bathroom scales, who'd have thought it..

[joggerjayne]

How ?

[boxtops]

How do you get it up the stairs ;-)

[joggerjayne]

Do you have to step on the scales, and then pick it up to see the difference ...

... like with a suitcase?

[ethandron]

:) with great difficulty boxy, specially round the corners.
it's very technical. you need bathroom scales and a length of wood like a broom handle.
place length of wood under towing bit (i'm sure there's a proper name for it but i don't know it), on top of bathroom scales. apparently gives a very good indication of noseweight (whatever that is).
when that's done, it's a matter of moving stuff around so that it's not front or back heavy.
so, how many pairs of shoes/sandals do you think?

[seadogg]

For non caravanners the noseweight is the weight "felt"at the car towbar and is important to avoid the dreaded "snaking" and the way the 'van tows generally. The scales and stick method is a way of measuring it against the figure given in the handbook. You didn't really want to know that, did you?

[joggerjayne]

That was interesting.

No, seriously.

I'm not taking the p!ss.

[ethandron]

seadog, you a secret caravanner?
jayne, i care not one bit whether you take the whatsit or not. i always enjoy your posts, they strike me as somewhat 'off the wall' but always very amusing :)
no doubt some abers have been educated about noseweights and these things can be important in the scheme of things.
we have an electric hotplate instead of a bbq (no smoke, mess or waiting for coals to turn white)for cooking outside, and a proper cooker with 4 hobs for inside cooking along with a microwave, a fully sprung mattress on our heavenly fixed bed, a full size shower and loo (ok, so he has to go and empty it occasionally, it has wheels and is totally sealed from leakage) a drop down, flat screen tv with built in dvd, .. in effect, all mod cons.
contrary to the popular image of caravanners (matching fleeces, white ankle socks, sandals, etc) i take a whole range of linen clothes, smart bikinis and jewellery. camping? forget it. caravanning in 2011 is like nothing you could ever imagine.