The Goldilocks Guide to Motorhome Purchase

If the first motorhome we tried was Too Small, too uninsulated and too not-provided-with-heating, the second one the hire company lent to was a complete contrast. For a start it had six wheels (7 if you count the one you steer with and 8 if you count the spare) and was exceeding long. This meant that when you were driving along the road and looked in the rear-view mirrors you couldn’t actually view the rear because owing to the curvature of the Earth, it was below the stern horizon. I began to suspect that it was also in a different time zone but this might have been an exaggeration. What is undeniably true is that, profiting from the fact that our night in it was spent at Fakenham Racecourse in Norfolk, we took the opportunity to drive it around the course. On the second lap at the third fence we nearly overhauled the back of the van but it gave us the slip and we never saw it again until we were packing up and unplugging the mains power supply at the end of our stay. Despite the copious blasts of hot air from the heating (oh, joy!) we decided that the van was Too Big. Would we find one that was Just Right?

I had been looking at continental websites since late October, but by late December I decided that there were more urgent things to do and I had better restrict my ogling to the websites of motorhome sellers. This revealed that the type of van we were looking for, that is roomy but compact, with a fixed bed and left-hand drive would be easier to obtain on the continent. It also seemed that the best prices were to be found in Germany, which has the largest selection of models (like the websites I had been looking at in October) and the most competitive market.

We started planning a weekend trip to Bremen. Before we had arranged it, however, I looked at some Belgian sites and found an apparently suitable van in Ostend. If you think that the opening of the high speed rail link to the Channel Tunnel means that you can effortlessly book through train tickets from say, Bedford to, for example, Ostend – both of which are linked to the tunnel by unbroken lines of rails - then think again. The best part of an evening and afternoon battling with the rigidities of the websites and then with the phone operators of TheTrainline and Continental Railways proved that, thanks to the online timetables of Belgian National Railways, I knew more about the available routes than did the operators. Not only that, but the train fare was going to add up to 5 times the cost of taking the car through the Tunnel. We went by car. In the event this was just as well since, a few days before going, we were told that our selected van was no longer considered “perfect enough” for sale. I found two other Belgian dealers within driving distance of the Tunnel and so, the next weekend, we visited all three and made our selection. Our choice fell on a Fiat Ducato-based Laika Ecovip 1R which met all our criteria. However, thanks to the suddenly discovered flaws in Bungler Brown’s Butterfingers Budgetary Policy the fall in the value of the £ has put the price and the wind up. We’ve only paid 10% deposit though, and all may be better when we take possession in April. The really good bit was the time spent strolling around Bruges, the dinner on the Saturday night in Bruges market place and the Sunday lunch in Calais. I also found a bar with 400 beers and we tested Geneva gin flavoured with chocolate. I don’t find Belgium at all boring.

Remind me to tell you about transit plates.