Stiffkey in a VW California - having changed our minds again.

I was sitting in our lovely "hire before you buy" Jerba Tiree campervan, parked right on the shore at Seal Shore campsite on the Isle of Arran.  I was in the passenger seat, swivelled around facing rearwards and noticed another VW campervan draw up behind us.  It was a VW California and the occupants proceeded to set themselves up for the evening, including wrapping one of the big thermal wraps around the now elevated roof.  Off they skipped down to the shore with bags of camera gear and spent the next hour or so pointing lenses at rock-pools.  I meanwhile maintained my feet up, hand holding beer, relaxed posture befitting the last day of a holiday, whilst contemplating our van purchase options once again.

Having made our decision that the only VW campervan variant for us now was the one we were camped in, I duly poured scorn on our neighbour's choice of van and I believe accused them under my breath of being typical California owners - lacking in imagination.  Their lack of adventure, I speculated, was evidenced by the thermal roof wrap.  Who needs one of those in March!

Having to eat my words - our nearly new California Ocean

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I was stood in a VW Vans showroom taking a look around a nearly new California Ocean and realising that for a number of reasons I was going to have to eat my words.  The fit and finish of the factory built product was a massive step up from any of the converters that I had seen before (we had visited a show at the NEC in Birmingham and viewed plenty in the previous Autumn).  I had seen many "magazine" reviews on Youtube and had heard motoring journalists say that the California was a cut above, but it is so much more evident when you are physically sat in one.  I knew that Mrs B would love it and also knew that she factored in the decision in another way.  I thought that after experiencing a few more trips in a small van, she may eventually tire of the lack of a separate toilet and shower.  I figured that if that happened then my chances for resale in the buoyant California used market were likely to be better than a converted van that many potential buyers may not have even heard of.  If I am honest the other reason was impatience.  There was a plentiful supply of used California vans in the UK and I assumed it wouldn't take long to find the right one for us.

A second trip to the dealer with Mrs B confirmed my suspicions - she loved it.  So I searched for a few days before finding one at Marshall Volkswagen South Oxford (which in reality is a long way from Oxford, being south of Abingdon) - https://www.marshall.co.uk/volkswagen-commercials/contact-us/marshall-volkswagen-south-oxford-vans/.  I had been keen to find a dealer with a Volvo franchise it its group as in order to fund at least part of this expensive machine I intended to trade in our family car.  Marshalls were great and if he is still there then you should ask for Jake Weatherall.  He was knowledgeable, friendly and despite the site's internet service being down, he was able to get through the registration and documentation process by using his mobile phone's hot-spot option.  Quite resourceful and seemingly unfazed by the challenge.  I like Marshall Volvo in Welwyn too where I bought our V70. Potentially the group are doing something right, because I couldn't say the same of experiences at other VW or Volvo dealers.

So I returned at the weekend for key handover and drove our beautiful nearly-new toy home with a massive smile on my face.  What a delight to drive, a wonderful cab to sit in, a quiet ride and a feeling of it all being so solid.  I'll come to comparisons between the factory finished California and our only experience of a VW converter option in a later post, but at that moment it felt like absolutely the right decision.  Apologies to the couple at the campsite in Kildonan a few weeks earlier - who knew these things were so good!

One of us celebrating the purchase of our new van in style

I had another plan in my head, a small promise that could now be kept.  I have explained in a previous post that I was less than popular with my family for letting go of a static caravan that we had owned and enjoyed for many years.  Our visits to the caravan at Stiffkey on the North Norfolk coast diminished as our family grew older and in the end it was costing a silly amount for an occasional weekend trip.  Having sold it and relinquished the pitch, I had promised Mrs B that we would always be able to return to High Sands Creek campsite in the future.  So as a fulfilment of that promise and because we love the place, the van's first trip was to Stiffkey on a foggy weekend in early April 2019.

The weather remained gloomy for most of the weekend, but that didn't detract from the dual enjoyment of being back in a place we are very fond of and in a campervan that was now ours to enjoy whenever we wanted.  We did little other than discover how everything worked interspersed by the occasional walk and the site was really quiet this early in the year, so any rookie mistakes we made were likely to have gone unnoticed by our fellow campers.  First impressions are that over years of building campervans, the folk at Volkswagen have gained a good idea about what works. There seemed to be a logic behind every aspect of the configuration and layout.  It is compromised by the fact that VW don't change the layout for Right Hand Drive vehicles, but as that is a hotly debated topic, I'll cover that in another post.

What about Stiffkey?  We had been back to North Norfolk many times since we sold the caravan, but this was the first time back at the campsite.  All was mostly as remembered.  The site is well run, clean and friendly and with miles of open marshland and flat sand to explore, it is easy to experience a wide open landscape and the absence of sound save for the call of curlew, geese or skylark.  There were some changes.  Several massive windfarms have been built along this coast and in the main they are so far out to sea that they are fairly inconspicuous.  At night though, their red warning lights flash synchronously so the horizon for miles reveals the industrial nature of the installation.  It just made the place seem a little less wild.

Misty Stiffkey morning and the new van

The other change is the local pub.  It is still the Red Lion and still serves a great pint of Woodforde's Wherry, but the roaring open fire in the front bar had gone, the menu limited and both food and service more like a mass pub chain than what was once a warm local pub with well cooked food.  Here's hoping I caught them on an off day early in the season, as it has always been great to be able to take an evening walk from the campsite to a good local pub.

Stiffkey and our new van were fantastic and now our shopping list was not about the attributes of a newly built VW conversion, but a long list of "accessories".  Now the process of working out what type of bedding works best, what cooking utensils are really needed, whether we should invest in a tent awning and so-on began in earnest.  I guess folk who have owned these vans for years will tell you that this is a never-ending conversation.  There are certainly plenty of ways that you can spend more money if you scan the campervan accessory web-sites.  I wonder how many are actually worth buying?