Week 2: Urban Camping

We started this week at a small five pitch campsite called Salts Farm on the edge of Cheltenham. It was a bit of a random stop for us but worked out really well... the entrance to the campsite is literally on the 'Cotswold Way' footpath. The Cotswold Way is a 102 mile route from Chipping Camden to Bath. Over the last couple of years I've been walking the Cotswold Way path with my mate Mark and we've only got a couple of days left to finish it. 

Salts Farm is on a section of the path that I haven't walked yet, so it was great to do a recce of this section with the dogs. The area was really beautiful and we were surrounded by woodland and right next to a small reservoir. 

More importantly we discovered 'Dunkertons' about half a mile away! Dunkertons is a bit of an odd place but in the middle is a sort of up-market outdoor foodcourt, with street food from pretty much every country you can think of. We made two trips to Dunkertons over the two days we stayed nearby, the first to 'The Woozy Pig' for a very tasty burger and the second trip the following day for an ice cream. Definitely worth a stop if you're passing by!   

I was stood on the Cotswold Way walking path when I took this picture of our van, so you can see how close we were to the path.

Some photos of Dowdeswell reservoir and the nature reserve, where we had some nice shady walks with the dogs. 

From Salts Farm we made the short trip to my parents, where we stayed for a busy few days. Whilst parked up at my parents, we made a trip to the vets to collect the travel paperwork the dogs need to cross the channel next week; unblocked a drain (no photos of this luckily); said goodbye to our car; and had a trip into London with Yvette's mum and brother to see a show, whilst my mum and dad provided a free dog sitting (and laundry) service! We also got fed a lot and squeezed in a few nice walks with the four dogs! Luckily the dogs all get on well together, even if the oldest dog Martha 'the boss' has to put Yogi in his place occasionally.

Can you guess which show we saw? If you need a clue… when we got Bear he was very nearly named ‘Paddy’ in tribute to my childhood hero (and more recently a Hollywood mega-star)! 

Whilst at my parents house we tried out their dog grooming device called a ‘furninator’… Yogi was very pleased with the results! In fact it was so good we’ve ordered a furminator to take away with us, as we’ve been wondering for a while what to do about the dogs regular haircuts whilst on the road! Thanks Amazon for the quick delivery!!

The furminator has a hoover built in to stop the fur going everywhere, which will be very handy in a small confined space like a motorhome!

Yogi modelling the results of his haircut!

Our final stop of the week was at Yvette's mum and dad's house (you can see a family stop theme developing this week), this meant more free 'urban camping stops' with free laundry and most importantly a chance to spend time with our family before we head across the channel for a few months. The few days here consisted of more dog walks and nice meals for the humans, including waffles and Nutella and a particularly good chipotle mac'n'cheese!