Our first Trailer Tent experience at Buckfastleigh

Our Raclet Solena 

Do you remember that photo I posted a few weeks ago of the little orange trailer we took possession of on my birthday? Well it's now pitched up on a beautiful Camping And Caravanning Club CS site, The Crib, just outside Buckfastleigh. We are booked in here for four nights to get the hang of camping in a Raclet Solena and so far everything has gone pretty well! It's beautifully green here and, although traffic noise from the main road is pretty constant, it's not too intrusive and we can't see the cars for trees. Our nearest neighbours for the first night were bees and a trio of chickens! We can walk into Buckfastleigh and might go to see the steam railway there on Sunday.

Bee hives and a chicken house 

Obviously we expected that actually getting the tent set up for the first time would be considerably slower for us than it had been for the demo guy at Highbridge Caravans and it certainly was! Raclet Solenas like flat ground and the field at The Crib is sloping so we needed to borrow a plank to level it out! Once we got that sorted though, the rest was fairly straightforward and even hammering in all the awning pegs is much easier with Devon earth than it was with Spanish. I'm very happy with our Solena! The bed, with our mattress topper, is comfortable and there is a surprising amount of room in the folded-out trailer, even before we doubled the space with the awning. I love the large circular windows. They have three layers so can be dark canvas, mesh netting, clear plastic, and combinations of all three. You can see the view from the bedroom window at the end of this post. The trailer floor has a little carpet which looks much more practical than the ones that used to be in our Bailey caravan. There is also a zip-in groundsheet for the awning, but as this field is lush grass we decided not to use it here.

Our new 'toys' are great too! I'm sitting in my HiGear Delaware chair to type this post. It's good as a leisure or dining chair and I love the sturdy flip-up side table. We got one each to go with our folding Quest table. I like the efficient small gas jets on our Kampa Cucina double hob and it sits neatly on our old Outwell cupboard. Also Outwell, but a new acquisition, is our 24 litre EcoCool coolbox. It can run off mains or 12v and has a low power eco setting that actually works well. Apparently it can also be set to provide warmth - keeping cooked food hot - but we haven't tried that yet. Finally we've got our own little portable flushing toilet too! There is a shed bathroom onsite at The Crib, but the portable toilet is ideal  for the middle of the night.

So we're all set for a superb Bank Holiday Weekend and have fingers crossed that the glorious weather lasts until Monday.

The view from the bedroom!