Yorkshire Tour days 8-10 – Lulu takes a breather! With a long 2 ½ hour drive today to our next, and last, site we want a fairly early start.
All packed away, breakfasted and emptied by around 10.30, we eventually find Vicky and pay her the princely sum of £14 for our overnight pitch, then, after offering our thanks, say our goodbyes and hit the road.
We have a fairly pleasant, if un-picturesque run down the M6 for about 80 miles (I know – we went on a Motorway!!) and find ourselves pulling on to Beaconsfield Holiday Park www.beaconsfieldholidaypark.co.uk shortly after 2PM.
Is This The Perfect Site?
Turning off the road through the large gates and past the BHPA sign, the AA 5 Pennant sign, the Premier Parks sign and the English Tourist Board 5-star sign, it feels that this site is going to live up to its reputation and its own hype.
The grounds and approach roads are immaculately kept (think billiard table!) and there is hardly anything out of place. With the sky painted a perfect shade of blue, the grass a perfect shade of green, the magnificent oaks and beech trees just starting to put their autumn coats on, the setting is glorious.
We drive past ‘The Croft’, the parks new off-site bar and restaurant, and through more gates to the park itself and draw up at reception.
After we check in and pay the balance of our fees for our fully serviced hard standing pitch, we’re given a key to the shower blocks and told to pitch anywhere other than on the grass of on the lakeside. We find a lovely corner pitch with hedgerows on two sides and an empty pitch on the other. This gives us a natural windbreak and a degree of privacy. Essential for our raucous, all night Ludo sessions!
Beaconsfield is an adults only park with a middle aged onwards clientele in the main. There were some serious caravans and motorhomes on this site worth a lot of money – could be why old Lulu was hiding in the corner!
Lulu Settles in for A Breather
Lulu’s awning goes out along with her fairy lights and, as the sun was just slipping towards the yard-arm, we saunter up to ‘The Croft’ to partake in a beer or five before dinner. Kev isn’t going to drive for two days and is well overdue a little drinkie!
As tempting as it is to stay for food, we have fresh (from Helmsley) Pork & Apple, and Lamb & Stilton Burgers in the van that are calling. We also have a fridge still half full of beer, cider and other temptations of a liquid variety.
Kev fires up the Cadac to cook the burgers and I rustled up some salad. We have dinner, play some more Ludo and finish watching Young Wallander before hitting the sack.
Day 9 Shrewsbury- Lulu has a day off!
Waking early, Kev has not slept well at all and can barely turn his neck. After breakfast, and a shower we walk the mile or so up to the main road to catch the bus into Shrewsbury. Two single fares are £5.00 and twenty minutes later the bus deposits us at a shabby 1980’s bus station at the arse-end of town. It’s a fairly grim first impression of a town that neither of us had visited before but were both keen to do so.
We needn’t have worried. After a short walk up hill, we turn a corner and are thrown out into the main thoroughfare. Shrewsbury is a lovely town with a huge variety of national and local independent retailers, and some really quirky businesses tucked into every nook and cranny. There are plenty of pavement bars and cafes and the central outdoor market is bustling with street food stalls, local producers, antique dealers, and artisanal craft sellers.
We walk and mooch for a couple of hours, stopping for coffee and cake at The Gallery Tearooms, one of the many tea shops in the town. Wandering the old back lanes and alleyways, passing the old churches and graveyards, we find some interesting medieval buildings with one proudly proclaiming that ‘Henry Tudor lodged here in 1485, on his way to the battle of Bosworth Field’.
Back to Lulu
Unfortunately, time has run on and we hurry to the bus station to find that we have missed the bus by 10 minutes and there isn’t another for 90 minutes. So, we pop over to the taxi rank, hail a cab and 10 minutes later it drops us back at the park gates. Strolling back up the driveway, we pause to watch the farmer bailing hay in the next field while his son races around and around the outside of the field in his dune-buggy.
We soon find ourselves trying, and failing, to avoid nipping into ‘The Croft’ for a cold one before coming back up for our pre-booked dinner at 7PM.
Our evening dinner is excellent, if a little pricey at £93 and on settling our final bill, on our final evening, we retire to bed for hopefully a better nights sleep.
Day 10- Lulu heads for Home 🙁
Sunday morning dawns with a hazy start to the much forecasted mini heatwave – bloody typical! After a quick visit to the shower blocks, we begin to pack up Lulu for our journey home. Leaving the site, Lulu pulls us into ‘The Croft’ car park for one last breakfast – which was so big that Kev could not finish his!
The journey home is a fairly solemn and sedate drive south through Mid Wales, along its twisty and bendy ‘A’ roads. Kev’s absolute favourite drive – NOT! He hates this road! It seems to take forever to drive the 90 miles or so down through Newtown, Builth Wells, Llandovery and finally through Llandeilo and home.
We unpack Lulu, put the laundry on and make a cup of tea, drive over to Pawsawylle to collect an excited Marley, and sit for the evening reflecting on our first trip.
Both of us have work tomorrow. Our adventure is over, or at least paused while we evaluate what we want and where we want to be.
Future Plans
Until we reach that decision, we have a couple of jobs to do on Lulu. Her Webasto heater needs to be repaired / serviced. It refuses to fire up and is something I feel that we will need sooner rather than later.
Lulu’s waste water outlet needs extending out to the side of the van, as having to drive over a manhole or grill to empty our waste is a pain. We also want to insulate Lulu’s sliding side door and there are other bits and pieces to do which are mainly cosmetic.
We have a few trips planned in Lulu for some short, crispy autumnal adventures.
In October we are off to Salisbury to meet up with another darling daughter and her beau.
There is another weekend trip planned to Minehead in November, and we are away for 5 nights over New Year to Cromer on the Norfolk coast.
Plus, I’m sure that I will be able to persuade Kev and Marley that we need to get out in Lulu on other exciting mini adventures inbetween,
Until then, happy and safe travels all!
Mags, Kev, & Marley
X