Eddie and Bonnie go to Cropredy

This summer, for the first time, we took our caravan to a festival (Fairport’s Cropredy Convention). We have camped in a tent at festivals previously but the march of time brings creaking joints and night time loo trips, and sleeping on the ground has lost its appeal; caravanning seems a great way to carry on ‘festivalling’.

We had also never been off hookup before on our caravan trips and were interested to see how we would manage for three nights.

Having decided much earlier in the year to return to Cropredy festival (Steeleye Span and Fairport on the same bill!) and bought our tickets, we planned a four week touring holiday itinerary around this event.

The two nights before the festival we spent at a small, family-run, commercial site about a mile away to get a final shower and fully charge our caravan leisure battery. We also wanted to visit Bletchley Park, which we did, and fascinating it was too. (Note to self: now must watch ‘The Imitation Game’). The night before we filled the aquaroll and put it in the car and packed up ready to set off early. The site was full of fellow ‘Croppers’ and we did hear some horror stories about having to set off at four in the morning and caravans queuing back to the M40. We knew the camping fields opened at 7:00 am and decided that worrying about these things was not in the spirit of festival attendance so we just got up at 6:30 as planned and trundled on our way at around 6:45. We weren’t the first to leave, nor the last.

We had a very straightforward journey to the festival site, we didn’t encounter any traffic or queues until the last bit of the lane, and we were waved straight on to Field 7A, which was where we were planning to pitch all along. The marshalls directed us across the extremely tufty, bumpy, uneven grass field to the front row by the canal, very nice. We did lose two of our carafeet going across the grass; top tip: remove carafeet before entering festival site. We had brought several wooden blocks and were able to get our caravan nice and level and use our roll-out awning.

Once set up, we had a little nap until mid-morning, then had a chat with our neighbours and went to get our wristbands and festival programme. We decorated our pitch with bunting, windmills and fairy lights (helpful for finding our van in the dark). We had a lovely time, heard some great bands, ate some delicious food and got a good night’s sleep each night. The weather was amazing as well; I highly recommend festival caravanning!

One thing we found interesting was the last time we were at Cropredy, a few years ago, we were in a tent, pitched in a sea of tents. This year there seemed to be far more caravans than previously. Perhaps you notice things similar to your own things (like cars on the road), or perhaps we’re all aging together...

A note about the spirit of Cropredy Festival: on the Saturday evening my husband lost his phone, he was quite potted about it as you can imagine. The next morning he went to lost property and there it was, handed in along with four other smartphones. We love Cropredy because it’s small (relatively) and friendly, everything happens on one stage so you don’t miss anything and there’s always something new to discover.

And being off hookup? Our leisure battery easily lasted for the four days, and we got to find out which bits of the caravan worked on 12V. We used power for the lights and the water pump / loo flush, we had the fridge running on gas and used a stove top kettle, and it felt like real luxury.

Now we just need to choose which festival to go to next year...

Image captions:
1: Bonnie pulls Eddie on to the camping field
2: Festival-ready Eddie in his finery
3: Lovely Cropredy Canal
4: From the top of the festival field towards the stage
5: Red and Gold sunset