Arriving on a Caravan Site
When we started caravanning we really had no idea what to expect. We had a neighbour who was a keen caravanner, but we'd never had a caravan and never been on a caravan holiday. Well, not a touring one anyway, plenty of static caravan holidays. So, when we bought our first caravan we didn't really know what to do. We'd done some research, caravanning YouTube hadn't even been invented (it was that long ago)
The internet hadn't been invented though! So, I was on there seeing what I needed to do and what I needed to buy. I've told the story previously of getting our first caravan. Needless to say the dealer had a shop and when I collected it, they gave me 20% off anything I needed to purchase and I needed to purchase A LOT! You'll know this if you caravan yourself.
What You Need
If you think of a caravan as being a house, a caravan needs much of the stuff your house needs although it's not (usually) "plumbed" into things. I don't just mean electric. So, like a house your caravan needs electric, water and a place to get rid of waste water. Oh and of course a toilet. You're going to need "consumables" too. But let's keep it simple.
Electricity
To get electricity, you'll need an electric cable to plug it in. It's sometimes called and electric hook up cable, it's usually bright orange. This connects your caravan to an Electric Hookup Point (EHU)
We've always had a 25 meter cable, but they are available in different sizes.
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Water and Waste
Your caravan won't be plumbed in to mains water (not always true if you're on a fully serviced pitch) so you'll have to find some way of getting it into your caravan. Luckily people have already thought of this. We use something called an "Aquaroll" (there are other makes). This is a round drum like thing that you can roll to the water tap, fill it up and roll it back to your caravan.
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Once you've washed up, the water will need to go somewhere. A waste container, commonly called a waste master, due to a name of a brand, is connected to your caravan and the waste water pours into it. Of course when it's full it needs emptying. More on that later
The Dreaded Toilet
It isn't too bad. You'll need to use the loo when you're on site and you can generally use the on site facilities, but if you need to, you'll have a toilet. It's basically a toilet that sits above a cassette. Your waste goes into this cassette, which, when full also needs emptying, again more on this later. Most use chemicals to make the toilet cassette smell nice, well, really to mask the undesirable pongs. There are lots to choose from. I personally use Thetford. Instructions are on the bottle and it's dead easy.
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So that's the bulk of the gear you'll need, at least to start with and for the purposes of this article.
What To Do When Arriving At A Caravan Site
Blimey, that's some title.
When you arrive, you'll need to park up before entering the site. There's usually a big arrow telling you where to stop to book in and pay. Once you've gone into the office and paid, you'll go to your pitch, unhook the car and get the caravan nicely positioned (or maybe the other way around!) where you want it and where you're not breaking any specific rules the site might have.
Once the car is disconnected, the stays are down and the handbrake is on, it's time to get connecting all the bits you've purchased from our affiliate links of course :-)
We generally do things together. It doesn't matter what order you do things in. But you'll need to connect the caravan to the EHU (which is the place where you plug the electric cable into. It's probably best practice to plug into your caravan first and don't have the cable tightly coiled up.)
You may then need to switch the electric on from inside your caravan.
Decide who's brave enough to roll the aquaroll to the service area. Don't worry you get a handle to help you drag it. I always pull it, but I see some push. Roll it under the tap and fill it up. Once you've managed to man handle the rather unexpectedly heavy water back to your caravan connect it to the caravan using the pipe provided.
The only thing left now is to connect the waste water container, so that when you empty the sink, or use the shower the water has somewhere to go, except the pitch. Remember to keep checking how full this container is getting, as there's no warning light on a caravan to tell you.
The water container connects to the caravan using something like what is detailed below. There are usually 2 water outlets, one for the sink and the other for the bathroom. You can get a 2 in 1 connector which allows you to use just one waste pipe.
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When something is full, head back to the service point where you filled the water up from and there will be drains for you to empty the waste water. There will also be a seperate area to empty your toilet down. Now this is exceptionally unpleasant when there's someone waiting behind you in the queue to empty there's and you've had something that disagreed with you, it doesn't matter how much chemical fluid you've poured down there, it is going to stink!
Finally. The best advice is to take your time, everyone was a beginner at some point, people are in the main very helpful and understanding and help is always at hand. Of course there's more to caravanning than this, so be sure to check out of other articles.
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