For our third weekend away in our new motorhome, we really needed to take our dog too, so we could get to know the triumphs and pitfalls of camping with a dog! Up until that point every time we had taken a weekend trip, it had been a heatwave and we couldn’t justify taking our elderly and very fluffy dog with us. He had been hot even in our own home, with an iced collar pack round his neck. So we left him in the cool with our family, and had braved the heat as a foursome up til now.
This time though, we really wanted to take him with us. Firstly, as aforementioned, we wanted to get some experience of actually sleeping and living in a motorhome with another hairy body in the mix. And secondly, he is very sweet (mostly) and we enjoy his company and his cute face.
We blitzed up to Box End Park after school and work on a Friday and it took us around an hour or so to get there. The weather was scheduled to be warm again, but luckily not a heatwave. Once we’d checked in we set ourselves up on our pitch, with our front facing the amazing view of the manmade lake. We had our own water tap and electric hook up, but we decided to stay unhooked this time, to get some experience of how long our leisure battery would last on solar power and the existing charge (spoiler: our battery went up with the solar charging in the sunshine!).
It would also be a test for me in particular, to see how I would manage drying my unruly hair without a hairdryer or straighteners (spoiler number 2: I was desperate enough after swimming in the lake and a hair wash to put my head under the hand dryer!).
After setting up, we made a quick dinner, walked around the site, popped to the brilliant restaurant on site to have beers and lemonades in the evening sun (we didn’t eat there, but the food gets good reviews), and cool our dog off in the fresher evening air.
We always love sleeping in the motorhome as everything seems cosy, quiet and relaxing. It has helped that we haven’t stayed at noisy sites just yet, or experienced a French aide. But at the moment we’re just trying to build up our experience and resilience. For our first and only full day at Box End Park, we had booked in to do the inflatable course on one of the manmade lakes. It was pretty hot by the time it got to our afternoon slot, and we had done a good walk in the morning, so were ready to get cold and wet!
The inflatables are really good fun, although you have to swim out to the them from the bank which involves stepping onto slimy reeds and then swimming through them. It can feel a bit like the tentacle of a squid and you wait to see if one is going to wrap round your leg and pull you under! Once on the inflatables it is non-stop giggles. You watch each other desperately try to stay on their feet and inevitably cackle when they slip, trip or fall into the water or onto their bottoms. In the end, I spent quite a bit of time crawling around on my hands and knees, a very obvious sign to the lifeguards that you are do not have a centre of gravity!
The giant slides were amazing and the kids could have stayed out there for much longer than the hour you get with the booking. After we finished on the inflatables, we all had hot showers and I attempted to blow dry my hair under the hand dryer – not very elegant and I was really glad no one walked into the shower block to catch me doing it!
By this point we were in need of food and drink, so we made our way as a family to the outdoor seating at the restaurant again but this time ordered two gigantic portions of chips from the food stall nearby and washed them down with cold beers and soft drinks for the kids. Much needed after a great day.
Perhaps one of our favourite things to do at Box End Park is to watch the wakeboarders swoosh past. There are many different ramps and jumps for them to try and there is a real variety of experience out there, so you never quite know when you’ll see someone splash and sink beneath their own waves or complete an awesome 360 with a hand grab! We really enjoyed this part of the weekend, and as it’s totally free and a great thing to do in the warm sun, we did it a lot! Others had made picnics and sat on the bank watching too.
Overall, we really liked Box End Park and would definitely come back again for the views, wakeboard watching and chips. There were what looked like quite a few long termers here, despite the booking information stating you can only stay for up to one month. They tend to be closer to the toilet and shower block.
And it was a brilliant first time motorhome trip with our dog! We have learnt a few things about motorhome with a dog on this trip to use in the future….
- We really need to drive the dog spike way into the ground, even with our dog only being a medium sized cockapoo. He started to wander off on the first day and pretty much pulled the spike out of the ground! So we know to really stick it in there now
- We could do with smaller and foldable dog food and water bowls, to help reduce the chance of me stepping on them at night time, when we’re all inside the motorhome (which I did…)
- We need more towels and dog blankets than we have, even in the gorgeous weather
- He could do with a bed that we can easily move inside and out, so he is always comfortable and settles down
- Shut the blinds well in the lighter months, otherwise our dog will wake up extra early asking for his breakfast!
- Other people let their dogs off the leads on a lot of sites, even when the regs say you are not supposed to. We had to pop our dog inside a few times as other smaller dogs ran over to give him a good barking – I think they may have belonged to the long termers and were probably letting our dog know that he was in their territory! So I would feel uncomfortable about leaving him tethered outside alone if I went to the toilet block and left him there.
A great weekend all in all though! Now to get the motorhome prepped to put to bed over the autumn and winter….
