We’ve been out over the weekend taking our first outing in Trevor the Van. We set off for Shell Island Llanbedr on Friday, for there end of season celebration. It was a month early this year on account of them ending the season on the 4th October instead of the end of October. If you have never been to Shell Island, I have to say I absolutely love the vast area it covers and that you can literally park up anywhere and also have an open fire. You have huge fields, sea views, wooded areas for more secluded camping and sand dunes. There is a small supermarket, gift shop, games room and camping shop. It has a cafe if you don’t feel like cooking and a bar if you prefer a pub to campfire drinking.

We arrived and although we had already tried to get to grips with the working of everything, it was great to use it for neccesity and really get used to how everything worked on the van. The solar works amazing recharging the leasure battery, especially having kids coming and going charging their phones.

There were four groups of us that went, Tony and myself and the kids (although it was my son’s 18th while were away so not a kid anymore), my two sisters and there families and friends in their new van that they are starting to convert. We all parked up together and I can tell you now after camping in a tent the last two times we have been, the van was the lap of luxery!

On the Friday night we headed off to the halloween party. They had a great band on called Thunder Chunky, who were fantastic. We had an amazing night dancing and yes a couple of (or more) drinks. That night was the first night sleeping in the van, and it was so comfy, and I was suprised how well I slept.

The next day was my son’s 18th birthday so we had cake and just had a nice chilled day before the fire works later on. I shall say Shell Island, those fireworks were the best I have ever seen in my life! The theme was top gun and the music went along with the pyrotechnics and it was spectacular! After that was the Kevin & Perry DJ act and 90’s disco, but unfortunately 90’s dance music isn’t really my thing so I did leave the rest at the 90’s party and headed back to the van, where me, Tony and my daughter had a very challenging game of eye spy, until the others also gave up on the party and joined us for a drink.

The van fit 3 adults ( my son being over 6ft) and a child ( who is also tall) and it wasn’t really even a squeeze. It was quite comfortable. The difficult thing about the van unfortunately is driving it. It is a 1987 van and that means it drives like a 1987 van. It has no power steering and does not get anywhere fast. On the way home we were curteous every so often and pulled over a couple of times to let the faster traffic pass. We will definitely invest in adding power steering to it and some point in the near future just to make it easier on the arms to drive it.

So that was our first trip away. Although its a bit of a dinosaur to drive, it is an amazing van!

Thats all for this week, see you on the next trip.

Kiera & Tony