guru
6th September 2011, 23:28
I meant to get round to posting this last week but after having a couple of weeks away I had a lot to catch up on!
After hiring villa's in the south of France for the last couple of years we thought this year it would make a change to stay in good ol Blightly so decided on a camping holiday. Originally we had planned to take the Sterling and I'd even bought roof bars for it but the ever increasing cost of fuel meant that the premium for taking a V6 petrol over the diesel 75 was just too much so the 75 won out. To be fair its also a lot more comfortable for long journeys then the 800.
Anyway despite the weather forecast not looking brilliant we loaded up the car and set off. The 75 was only just back from having it's oil cooler replaced so I was a little worried but we took it anyway. Our plan was to go up to Derbyshire for a few days, then down through Wales before heading to Cornwall however as usual the Great British weather had an impact on that.
We got to our campsite near Castleton in Derbyshire and set up in what was just a farmers field.
http://www.reedham.org/images/camping1.jpg
The campsite was very nice however it just rained almost constantly :(
It was too wet to break camp to head for Wales and we were beginning to think we were stuck there but one morning we woke up to a very brief patch of sun with black clouds surrounding it so we decided to lob everything in the car and head for the comfort of my Grandmothers house near Bath.
We spent a few days there drying out. We even decided to have a BBQ one evening. I wasn't going to let the fact that my Grandmother has never owned a BBQ, or BBQ tools or even the fact it was raining put me off so I improvised!
http://www.reedham.org/images/campingbbq.jpg
In the second week we headed off down to Cornwall and found a very nice campsite near St Agnes where we enjoyed some more rain for a change however occasionally the sun did manage to win through.
http://www.reedham.org/images/camping2.jpg
http://www.reedham.org/images/camping3.jpg
I would love to say that we had no problems with the car but..............
http://www.reedham.org/images/campingaa.jpg
Following having the oil cooler done I was watching the coolant levels like a hawk. On the trip down to Cornwall I noticed that we lost almost a litre of coolant so I topped it up however it kept going down until it started to pour out. I could see it was a hose that was leaking near the connection and had we been at home I could have fixed it in 5 mins however armed with only my trusty pen knife I was ill-equipped for the task so bravely I gave up and phoned the AA who came out and fixed it within about 20 mins.
I'm glad to say other then that car did perform very well. On our truncated tour we managed 1250 miles and despite the fuel computer being pessamistic and reporting 32.5mpg a brim-to-brim check revealed 40.4mpg which I don't think is too bad for such a heavily loaded car with me at the helm :D
I was very impressed by how easily the 75 soaks up the miles. At one point my wife was driving and I was on my laptop and you could barely even tell the car was moving it was so smooth.
Despite the poor weather we are planning more camping next year however I may well need to get an estate before then as the 75 was bulging at the seams!
After hiring villa's in the south of France for the last couple of years we thought this year it would make a change to stay in good ol Blightly so decided on a camping holiday. Originally we had planned to take the Sterling and I'd even bought roof bars for it but the ever increasing cost of fuel meant that the premium for taking a V6 petrol over the diesel 75 was just too much so the 75 won out. To be fair its also a lot more comfortable for long journeys then the 800.
Anyway despite the weather forecast not looking brilliant we loaded up the car and set off. The 75 was only just back from having it's oil cooler replaced so I was a little worried but we took it anyway. Our plan was to go up to Derbyshire for a few days, then down through Wales before heading to Cornwall however as usual the Great British weather had an impact on that.
We got to our campsite near Castleton in Derbyshire and set up in what was just a farmers field.
http://www.reedham.org/images/camping1.jpg
The campsite was very nice however it just rained almost constantly :(
It was too wet to break camp to head for Wales and we were beginning to think we were stuck there but one morning we woke up to a very brief patch of sun with black clouds surrounding it so we decided to lob everything in the car and head for the comfort of my Grandmothers house near Bath.
We spent a few days there drying out. We even decided to have a BBQ one evening. I wasn't going to let the fact that my Grandmother has never owned a BBQ, or BBQ tools or even the fact it was raining put me off so I improvised!
http://www.reedham.org/images/campingbbq.jpg
In the second week we headed off down to Cornwall and found a very nice campsite near St Agnes where we enjoyed some more rain for a change however occasionally the sun did manage to win through.
http://www.reedham.org/images/camping2.jpg
http://www.reedham.org/images/camping3.jpg
I would love to say that we had no problems with the car but..............
http://www.reedham.org/images/campingaa.jpg
Following having the oil cooler done I was watching the coolant levels like a hawk. On the trip down to Cornwall I noticed that we lost almost a litre of coolant so I topped it up however it kept going down until it started to pour out. I could see it was a hose that was leaking near the connection and had we been at home I could have fixed it in 5 mins however armed with only my trusty pen knife I was ill-equipped for the task so bravely I gave up and phoned the AA who came out and fixed it within about 20 mins.
I'm glad to say other then that car did perform very well. On our truncated tour we managed 1250 miles and despite the fuel computer being pessamistic and reporting 32.5mpg a brim-to-brim check revealed 40.4mpg which I don't think is too bad for such a heavily loaded car with me at the helm :D
I was very impressed by how easily the 75 soaks up the miles. At one point my wife was driving and I was on my laptop and you could barely even tell the car was moving it was so smooth.
Despite the poor weather we are planning more camping next year however I may well need to get an estate before then as the 75 was bulging at the seams!