When the Night Wind Howls!!

Just returned form a weekend at the Chatsworth CC site and endured a very stormy night with heavy rain and in paticular strong winds buffeting the caravan for most of the night in what is quite a sheltered site.

As usual in these cases my wife finds it hard to sleep and in the lyrics of a famous Gilbert & Sullivan song whilst we listened to "When the Night Wind Howls" we  followed our normal pattern on went the the kettle and we sat down to to a good cup of tea with ginger nuts.

Whilst we sat drinking our cup of tea and the wind "rattled" around the van it reminded us of our first trip to the Northumbrian coast in September 2010. We stayed at a lovely commercial site at Seahouses and had enjoyed a fantastic week exploring castles, deserted beaches going to the Farne Isles & Holy Island.

The weather although cold had been superb all week and on Friday our penultimate day we got back to the caravan tired after a great day walking the Northumbria coast and decided not to take the awning down as we would have plenty of time to do it the following morning before we departed.

What a mistake that turned out to be!! We missed the weather forecast for the night and following day and awoke at 1.30 in the morning to the the strongest winds I have every encountered. The van felt as if it was about to become Dorothy's house in the Wizard of Oz as be picked and transported to another time and place - and the awning - arghhh!! We had no choice but to try and get it down before it was ripped from the awning channel probably taking it with it from the side of the van. The next ten fifteen minutes were horrendous whilst we fought the elements - of course it also started to rain (horizontally!!!) - and my wife tried to hold the awning down whislt I took the pegs out. We finally managed to get it down and pushed into the boot of the car for us to worry about in the morning.

returning to the comforts of the van - you guessed it - we had a hard earned cup of tea and ginger buscuit whilst drying off and returning to bed. regardless to say we had very little sleep as the caravan did feel at times that it would take flight!!!

The following day the wind and rain persisted and the initial part of the journey home saw the caravan swaying behind us as the wind did its best to turn it over.

Of all the things we caravanners have to be cautious of it is the sheer force of the wind at times that worries me the most when towing and on even when pitched.

We wouldnt let the weather put us of though and we plan to return to Nirthumbria as soon as we can for another week to enjoy all the great natural attractions it has to offer. if you have never been give it a try it has something to suit everybody.

Just remember to keep an eye on that wind off the North Sea.