An Interesting Start to our Holiday
We’d been preparing the motorhome ready for the trip for a few days with no issues. We had one problem to overcome on the day we left home as our 13.5 year old dog, Holly needed acupuncture (which frees up her back and joints) at the vet in Burley, which was in the opposite direction to our route north. So I was going to travel onto the M27 and meet up with Vanessa at the Rownhams services. Meanwhile I finalised a few checks before leaving including a fuel level check – unfortunately I couldn’t start the engine.
I tried to jump start it with Vanessa’s hybrid car (using some dumbbells to keep the accelerator depressed), but this didn’t work so I had to call out the Driver Guardian service. They would get to me by about 11:50 (a 90 minute wait), so I contacted Vanessa to return home.
Well the recovery truck was delayed eventually getting to us at 13:20. He had to use the large set of jump leads from his lorry to get me going. The alternator was working and charging the battery and he was sure it would now be OK with the 4.5 hour journey sufficient to fully charge the battery.
So I set off with Vanessa following, just in case of any issues and the plan to couple up with the car at Rownhams Services. I was still sceptical about the battery health, so left the engine running while we connected up the car. The journey took about 5 hours with 2 short comfort break stops (leaving the engine running each time). We eventually arrived at our campsite around 7pm and reversed the van onto the pitch. I stopped the engine to use the keys to get the levelling ramps out and restarted the engine!!! Oh no it didn’t, the battery was still dead so clearly not holding any charge.
To cut a long story short, I tried to source a battery in Stoke-on-Trent (20 minutes away) but the one they requested for delivery later that day was wrongly listed in stock. My son is travelling up to see us on Tuesday, so I rang Adams Morey in Southampton – yes we have one; great I thought…. They phoned back this morning – sorry their stock listing was wrong, we don’t have that battery! Aaaagggghh. So our search for a battery continues, at least we don’t travel home for another week.
We did finally get out for our first day….
Whilst awaiting news of the battery, we visited an old friend who used to live in Southampton and we went out for the day. First plan was to try and find a water course where 2 streams meet, which is the point where Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire meet. Well in an area of no phone reception I failed to find the correct path to the ‘Three Shires Head’ viewpoint. So we returned to the car and headed off for lunch at the Rudyard Hotel. Afterwards we walked down the the nearby lake and I tried out a few infrared shots with a converted camera that I had borrowed.
A month ago we traded in all of our Canon cameras and lenses as the weight was getting too much for our elderly frames to carry. We have purchased OM-System cameras and lenses (previously Olympus) which have a sensor of half the area, but same pixel resolution. Thus all lenses with a similar focal length to Canon are half the size and weight (and much cheaper). We’ve been trying them out for a few weeks now, but this is the first time using them on a photographic holiday.
Our campsite is quite close to the Roaches, so we tried to find a hilltop location to take a picture of them in the warm evening light.
Tomorrow I’m going to find the Three Shires Head, so watch this space.
Bateson's Travel log 