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9th Trip Bramcote Mains is a working farm which also offers caravan storage, an aeromodellers club, 4X4 Off Road driving, fishing and more. http://bramain.wordpress.com/ It's registered with the Caravan Club as a Certificated Location, 1.5 acres being set aside around a reservoir for 5 caravans/motorhomes. Just a half a mile from the village of Bulkington and three miles from Bedworth, it's not exactly a place many would book to stay unless they had a reason to stay in the area. We went there, our 9th trip away in the caravan, for two reasons. One being my mum lives in Bulkington (I grew up in Bulkington) and she hadn't yet seen the inside of our caravan so we arranged to pick her up and have lunch in the caravan. And two being we wanted to try running off the batteries only and not electric hook-up. The Caravan Club website doesn't say it has electric hook-up and at £12.50 a night, we thought this was a bit expensive for a CL with no electric. I decided to give them a ring to check the price and it was indeed £12.50 a night but WITH electric and free fishing. I asked them if we could pitch without electric and how much, they said no problem and it was £5 per night. We were happy with this but what a difference in price!! £7.50 for electric?!?! Hmmmmm. Having lived in Bulkington most of my childhood, I knew exactly where Bramcote Mains was. There's an old army bunker right outside the entrance by the roadside I used to play in when I was a kid. However, I was unsure where the camping site was and on arriving there, the absence of the usual Caravan Club signs didn't help either. I turned into the farm track road for Bramcote Mains and as per instructions on the Caravan Club website, took a left turning at the end of the track. This led us down yet another track to a gate with no sign of the reservoir or pitches! For the first time ever, I had to reverse the outfit in a rather narrow dirt track to turn around! After a 10 point turn and back down the track we came, we decided to take a track now on our left which would have been a right turn and then we saw the toilet and shower block with the usual Caravan Club signs on! Just past the shower block was another entrance into yet another field with a large reservoir in the middle and pitches marked out around it. All pitches were empty so we set up in pitch number 1 closest to the entrance, nearest to the water tap and elsan point. As we were pitching up, a motorhome arrived looking as confused as to where to go as we were when we arrived and stopped and asked us if they were in the right place. It was a nice little pitch right next to the reservoir and plenty of nature to be seen. Ducks, geese (and their babies, awwww), moorhens, sheep and even a few rabbits hopping about in the early evening. The electric hook-up posts were opposite the pitches the other side of the dirt track, so anyone using would have their electric cables run over by the occasional cars who visited. These were mostly fishermen who came to use the reservoir for their hobby. The weather was great on the day of arrival (Wednesday), not as hot as last time but warm enough to have to open the roof vent and a window. Thursday was also lovely and was the day I fetched my mum to have lunch with us in the caravan. I took her back home around tea-time when it started raining. Friday, we departed for home and everywhere was wet and muddy but we still had a great time. So how did we do surviving on the leisure battery? Just great! Once again, we took some recordings on DVD with us as well as watched some of our usual programs on TV. We probably had the TV/Satellite on for between 16 and 20 hours and still the voltmeter showed no less than 11.6 volts remaining in the battery. Still plenty to power the movers to turn the caravan around to hitch up as we left and move the caravan onto our drive when we arrived home. The fully charged spare battery remained in the car so I reckon we could have lasted a week with the two batteries no problem. We did conserve power by not using the lights much and the water pump as little as possible. Would we do it again? Definitely. It's way cheaper without electricity, certainly at Bramcote Mains anyway! Some sites only charge an extra £2.50 average per night for electric so we'd have to compare that to the cost of using gas to power the fridge. (and heating when the weather isn't as warm but we'd mainly only go without electric when the weather looks to be good) Would we go to Bramcote Mains again or recommend it? Hmmmmm. Yes and no. I'm sure you could judge for yourself but it's handy for visiting my mum. The shower block, elsan point and water area and the area surrounding it was a dump, with a tatty old caravan parked at the back. The rest of the site was fine, except for that one area.
14th Trip Bramcote Mains - Part Deux Went again to Bramcote Mains Sunday to Tuesday since it was my mum's birthday Sunday. The junky old caravan behind the toilet/shower block was gone. In it's place were some plastic tubs covered over. Well, it IS a working farm after all. Despite this, it's obviously a popular place. There were two caravans and a motorhome pitched when we arrived. We got Pitch 1 again, same as last time. The two caravans left later that day and another caravan arrived the next day and pitched in front of the motorhome. Both were still there as we left. Throughout our stay, there were no end of people fishing. As I said, it's probably not for everyone, nor is it exactly in a location for things to do and see. It's just ideal being close to my mum and only a fiver a night non-EHU. Weather was HOT, nay, BOILING! Was a lovely peaceful break anyway. Oh, and they have now put some of those rubber ramp strips across the track for EHU cable.
36th Trip Bramcote Mains - Part Trois Well, it's been over a year since we last came here and although we've been visiting my mum on a regular basis, we just haven't found the time to stay anywhere locally. Until now. We decided to revisit Bramcote Mains but first telephoned in advance to book as well as to check the prices, expecting the prices to have gone up. Much to our surprise, they said it was £8 per night with EHU. I did report last year (see above) that they charged £12.50 a night EHU which included fishing but they never asked us if we wanted fishing plus the CC website lists it as £12.50 a night (with no mention of fishing) so we assumed it was £12.50 per night plus EHU with free fishing IF you wanted it. Apparently, it's £12.50 plus EHU plus fishing if you fished, otherwise it's £8 per night plus EHU and £5 per night non-EHU! Doh! Unfortunately, we didn't get our fave pitch number 1 this time and there was two other vans there too. We decided on pitch 5 this time, even though it's a LONG way up along the reservoir and furthest from the Elsan and water. So far up in fact that our EHU point was an EHU cable laying on the ground. The site only has two EHU bollards near the entrance so pitches 3, 4 and 5 are served by several 25 metre EHU cables laying on the ground and connected together. The rubber ramps strips I reported last time seem to have been reduced to just 2. Anyway, once again it was a lovely break and once again, the weather was kind to us. Not exactly "boiling hot" but pleasantly warm, especially in the afternoons. The pitches and reservoir area was pretty much the same but the "dumps" I reported on last year at the back of the toilet/shower area now hosts some sort of unfinished mobile office. Maybe they are making this into a shop or something. There are also now 7 marked pitches. New signs have now appeared on the old army bunker I reported above so you can't miss it now. They are now a registered CaSSOA Gold Award caravan storage site and so have introduced a new electric barrier with CCTV. You need to pay a £10 deposit for a keyfob for the barrier. We'll still continue to use this site, especially when visiting my mum and especially now we know it's (currently) only £8 with EHU. It's a peaceful and lovely place right beside water.
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