Series 2: Recent Episodes
Richard Chubb
Welcome to this week's show, when I talk briefly about our Pumpkin Picking trip and a few days we spent seeing the sights in Cheltenham.
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means we will earn a small commission on the products or services you purchase using the links. There is no additional cost to you and if you do purchase, then I thank you for supporting the website.
I also thought I would share a quick note about something we find useful on the Campervan, that you may find useful too.
This week, it is our Minipresso Coffee Maker. Decent Coffee without needing power for it Here is a link to the Coffee Maker - https://tidd.ly/3sckque
Transcript (Auto Generated)
It's Friday, the 17th of December. This is episode 31, and welcome back to the podcast. Hello, hello, hello and good morning. Good afternoon and a good evening to wherever and whenever you are listening to this. Thank you for being here.
It's great to have you on the podcast again and welcome to this week's show. If you are new here. Welcome. And if you've been here before. Welcome back we are a podcast all about UK travel and generally camper van life and all things to do with campervans and getting out and seeing what is around us in the
UK mainly. And we cover things like the trips that we go on. We take you to places that we've been to and I also talk a bit about the van and anything that we're doing to it and some tips and tricks around the van in terms of perhaps storage or the bits and pieces that we like the most or the products that we're using. There is no sponsorship or adverts or anything on the podcast, so it's all me talking from the heart and giving you my truthful opinion on things. So we are going to talk today about a few more things that we did in 2021.
We're nearing the end of it now, and this is a quick recap of what we have been doing. I think today I'm talking about what we did in October time, so it's going to be Halloween. Ian walks in the forest and things like that, so stay tuned for that.
And at the end of the show, I will. Also, I'm going to give you a quick, some quick feedback or some quick thoughts on something that we use in the van and something that we every now. If you never show my stick at the end, a thing that we use in the van that we like that we
enjoy and that we can. It might be something to do with the cooking or something to do with how we set things up or storage or something outside. Just something that my feedback on something that I can't do without, I suppose, or that I'd seen.
I think that is a necessity on the van. So if you like we here, don't forget to subscribe to the show. Give me some feedback. If you enjoy the show, then stick a review on your chosen podcast platform.
And if you don't, or if there's something you'd like to me to chat about, then head over to Richard Chap dot com. The contact button and send me a message and I will respond to every message. I guess so without waste any more time.
Let's jump straight into today's show. So the like I say, we are recapping the bits and pieces that we did this year because the podcast ticks and found time for a few months, and I didn't really talk about what we did.
So I'm using the last couple of shows to catch up on that, and I've covered lots of things over the past few few shows ranging from May all the way through to September about all our travels, and today a very quick chat about what we got up to in October.
So October is obviously Halloween. We live near the new forest, so there's a few farms around that at October time. They lay out all their pumpkins and make a bit of a display and sort of invite people. And I guess it's a fundraising thing as well because you buy a ticket and you can go and have a
look at the displays and pick your pumpkins and buy your pumpkins a lot more expensive than they would be at Tesco's. But they're also not Badawi's we. I think we spend £20 on pumpkins and I'm getting ahead of myself.
Sunny Fields Farm is where we went to and they do a good job by hand. If you hear the odd click, it's because I'm looking at my pictures to refresh my memory and they have some displays there, like old tractors covered in pumpkins and some Halloween displays of which is in golden burrows and burrows, and trucks
and trucks and containers full of pumpkins. You buy your ticket in advance and you can grab one of their wheelbarrows that they put on offer and you can walk around. And if you see a pumpkin you like, you can throw it in the burrow and pay for it on the way out.
They have some massive pumpkins that we're looking at. A picture now of Max standing by these three pumpkins, and the biggest one is probably three, four, maybe four feet in diameter. So they are massive.
Obviously, these are extreme, but we will have a couple of normal ones, but they have things like that there and they have massive hill covered in pumpkins. And all the rotten pumpkins were getting thrown into a big hole in the ground and they were stinky and there was a fake skeleton diving in and things like that.
It's just the. And the quality of them, like I was saying a minute ago, are much better than the ones that we saw in in the supermarkets. There are a lot more expensive. I like £2-3 in supermarkets, but these £6-7 for the bigger ones, they sold them on the diameter.
So if it was at a no and a twelve-inch pumpkin would be more expensive than a six-inch pumpkin, which you'd expect. But we ended up spending £20 on three pumpkins and some little bits and pieces. And as we have a lot of things I do here on my, I'll give you the details at the end, but my and my website and YouTube channel has a blog post and a video about our time there. So if you want to know more about that for this or for next year's Halloween, obviously you make a note and we'll give you some information on that.
They have a cafe there and it wasn't a great cafe I must have met, so I wouldn't bank on it for lunch or anything. The sausage sandwich wasn't great. The coffee was not brilliant, but they're not designed for it.
What do they do, this once a year? So you wouldn't expect it to be a proper cafe with all the mod cons So worth bearing in mind that while there is a cafe, take it with a pinch of salt, but is a good couple of hours that we spend there wandering around and having a look at some.
And also I've just clicked off my pictures there and I said I have some animated displays as well where there's sort of skeletons playing music and which is talking to you and things like that, say dragons roaring. I think as well.
Excuse me. Yes, that was Sonny Fields in October the same week. We think, you know, into the forest for a walkthrough into quite a popular place in a new forest called Will Enclosure, which is why, in the heart of the forest in nice big wide tracks to walk around and plenty of parking, it's one of the
few car parks with toilets in the car park. And yes, if you want to kill a couple of hours and go for a nice long walk, I think it was about five k. We did a five and a half K circular route so we could go to and from the car park on a circular route.
There was little extension on it where you could add a kilometer run if you wanted to, but we didn't have to, but we did. And like I say, it all came to about five K and that is called willfully enclosure or willfully plane is another car park nearby.
So another great new forest. What it was, it was autumn turn that leaves on the ground and everything was golden, and it was a pleasurable few hours that we spend there. We then had lunch in the in the camper van afterwards in the car park and the how they cost us nothing that whole day, the two or
three hours that we spend there. I think we got there about ten ish left, about two ish because we had to do a school pick up. But it was it was is good to get out in the forest and, you know, enjoy the autumn, the autumn trees and things like that.
So that was willfully enclosure. And the final thing we did had nothing to do with the camper van at all. But we all went to Cheltenham. We spent it was half term, so we wanted to go somewhere with Max and we wanted to go somewhere that we'd never been before.
We decided on this occasion to fork out for a hotel, so we stayed in the jury zone on the outskirts of Cheltenham for I can't remember if it was two nights or three nights. My photos will tell me.
The first photo was taken on the 26th of October and the last photo was taken on the 29th. So we stayed on the 26th when he says it was for three nights that we had there and we did loads.
When we were there, we were proper tourists. We went into into the town center and they had a thing they called a science center. Now we weren't sure what to expect and it was a lot sort of more.
I want to use the word amateurish, but that's not fair. But it wasn't like a proper science museum or science center, Winchester, that we've been to before. This was very much organized, I think, by the local council. They had lots of good, interesting stuff there where you could play with.
What did they have? They have things where you can like heat sensitive cameras, or you could make molds from plaster of Paris with dinosaurs and make you look like a fossil. And they had a thing there that demonstrates how electricity works and how wind works and things like that.
So it was an hour that we spent in there with with Max and he, you know, he enjoyed it. He might learn a couple of things as well, which is always a good thing. We then popped. Into further into the town and just generally walked around, we did things like we had brunch at the Boston Tea Party
, which is a chain of cafes in the south of England. Really nice place. You have four coffees. We would have an indoor bowling bowling. We're talking about an indoor golf course, mini golf like crazy golf. There are two courses and we went around there and we spend an hour or two in there where we could.
We played golf in like themed golf courses at a dinosaur one and the water one we chose. The underwater one was somehow finished on the dinosaur one, so they must cross over at some point. And we obviously wasn't paying attention to any signs.
But that's in the brewery quarter, which is a nice little area where they as restaurants and bars and breweries and things like that. And we after we finished in the Gulf and the Crazy Gulf, we popped into a a bar, shall we say, called the alchemists.
And they have a few of them around the country. And these this place makes really unique, shall we say, cocktails with dry ice and washing up liquid and they set things on fire. Not cheap, as you would expect.
But you know, it was it was good fun. Max had something called a bubblegum, which they put in the washing up liquid very, very tiny, tiny, tiny amount that I could see that bubbled up. At least some sue me is that's what it is on the menu.
Who knows? They may add something, you know, non washing up liquid substitute to make it to give it the same effect and just pretend days by some washing up liquid. But it's only look like washing up liquid, and it all bubbled up and he drank his.
Suzanne had one filled with dry ice that she held for a few minutes to dry. Ice dissipated and we had a whiskey one come what time you went in there? Now it's only we. It's only 5:00 on drinking whiskey.
My God. Well, I was on holiday and we then headed to a restaurant. I think it was the brasserie blanc restaurants, nice dinner and nothing really to write home about, as you'd expect, but pretty, pretty decent. We wanted to make sure that we didn't spend too much money on this thing, so we did a few things and
it wasn't expensive in the brasserie. Belonging might sound it, but it wasn't massively expensive. But we did things like breakfast in the hotel room. We took stuff, we kept it in the fridge, in a campervan, and we were able to have cereal or croissants or, you know, sandwiches or whatever we wanted in the hotel room.
And we we took the milk and then I think we need it out of the fridge and had breakfast in the hotel room. And in the next day, we headed to somewhere called the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Steam Railway, which is a steam steam railway that runs between the two.
And you know, it's just a good trip up and down the line on a steam railway. It was about, I think initially we paid about £40 for the three of us to go on and we misread everything and we ended up going on the against the wrong staff and meeting the diesel train instead of steam engine.
So we had to upgrade to the to a what do they call it? It's like a hop on hop off Typekit, where you pay £60 for a family and you can get on and off as many times as you like throughout the day.
Not what we intended, because we only want to be there for an hour, a couple of hours, and thanks to my poor planning, that's what we had to do if we wanted to get on the steam train. Not their fault.
Totally my fault. But the guards dressed up in the old style uniforms and you know, the the stations are made to look old fashioned and they probably are old fashioned with the old trunks lying around in a luggage trunks rather than today's suitcases that you see.
And it's just little props that they add to the whole the whole experience that gives you a step back in time. And that was really our two days that we spent two full days anyway. We went to board on the water, which is a nice little Cotswold town.
We spent a couple of hours there, had lunch, walked around looking a quaint little shops, and that was generally our trip to Cheltenham videos and blog posts for this again on my website and YouTube channel. So if you want to see more about them, then head over there.
I'll give you the details for that at the end if you still hanging around. And that was pretty much October really didn't do too much. Those three things are the things that we day to day trips in a couple of nights away in Cheltenham.
So I haven't done this part of the show before, but I thought it might be useful for those listening to see the sort of things that we use in our camper van and the things that we can't really live without.
So today I want to talk real quick about a coffee maker that I use now. I don't use it all the time. But it is something that's always in the van. We have a machine in the house. This one stays in a van and it is called a mini presso.
And it's one of those ones that where you don't need any power or any heat, you just need a coffee pot and a hot water and some hot water. So and it gives you a shot of coffee that you could then mix with warm milk if you've heated milk on a pan.
Or you could just drink straight if you wanted to. I am not a coffee connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination. I don't have these fancy pots and filters and crocheting beans or anything like that, but sometimes I just want a coffee, and I found this to be the easiest way is an instant no-no.
You could do instant. That's fine. But this using this or sachets things like that. But I think just the quality of this is just a little bit better than the the the instant coffees and things like that. So.
And I use this. Let me find out the make of it because. I am just going into find where are we? Come on, come on, come on. Portable coffee makers. So it is called a mini presso portable espresso machine, and it basically has a it's like a cylinder shape about the size of a small flask.
You unscrew it, you pop a pudding, you screw it back up again. In one end, you put hot water, you just pour straight from the kettle and then you pump it. There's little thing that pops out and you squeeze and pump it, and it sends the hot water through the pods out the other end into a cup
and you've got a coffee, and you could then heat some milk on the on the cooker. And we also have a hand-held frother, which you can press a button. It spins and makes the milk frothy. In an easy we save for some reason.
And you've got a glass eye or something. And that's what we tend to do. We tend to warm some milk in a pan and a bit of water in the kettle, pump out the coffee, mix it with the milk and you've got a nice camper van, let's say.
So that is a a mini. Let me get the name of it again. Bah bah bah bah bah. We're already here a mini presso portable espresso machine. I will put a link to that product down in the in a description in the show notes here.
So if you are interested in that, then go to let me get the link for my. I think it's going to be Richard Chubb dot com forward slash. Podcast Forward Slash Episode 31. Or if you just go to Richard Champ dot com podcast, you'll see all the episodes there, so there'll be a link to there.
I'm telling you this because it will be an affiliate link. There's a quick disclaimer. It doesn't cost you a penny more, but it does help support what I'm trying to do here and keep the money. If you buy one, it might get me tempi if I'm lucky.
So by the way, even if you don't just Google, the make of the thing, which is a mini presso portable espresso machine and you should see what I am talking about. So real quick, like I said, there are many places you can see all the things that I am doing and producing.
You can go over to Richard Chubb dot com and have a flick around there on all the menus and all the posts and stories I'm telling. And you can also head over to YouTube dot com forward slash Richard Chubb and you'll see all the videos I'm doing.
And there is, of course, this podcast as well. I think I have a waffled on for a long enough we are going for how long are we going for now? Wow. We're going to be 20 minutes as a bit of a long one this week.
That said, I cannot believe it is Christmas in just over a week's time. So next week there will probably be one on Christmas Eve, which will be the last recap of 2021, and then we will be back into 2022.
Unbelievable. Let's hope 2022 starts being even more like normal. 2021 was probably better than 2022, but we're still dealing with this pandemic and hopefully we're going to start seeing a big improvement look, just a little improvement in what we can do travel wise and freedom wise, if you like.
But thank you so much for listening. It's really great to have you here. If you are a newcomer, like I say, welcome and to those returning to the show. Drop me a line. Say hello. I'd love to hear what you think and what your thoughts are on what I'm doing here.
But until then, we'll see you next time. Have a great week and happy travels.
In this week's episode, we visit East Devon and check out some great sights and things to do around the area. We also take a short trip to Arme, in Dorset, and there is a quick update on the channel's future.
YouTube - www.youtube.com/richardchubb
Transcription of Podcast - Auto-Generated so apologies for any weird words!!
Hello, everybody. It's Friday, December the 10th, this is episode 30, and welcome back to the podcast. Hello, hello, hello and good morning, good afternoon or good evening to whenever and wherever you are listening to this podcast today, it is great to have you welcome.
If you're new here. Welcome. And if you are returning visitor and welcome back, it's great to have all of you and welcome to the show is another Friday. Another week has gone by and as you may know, I am still catching up on talking about all the things I've done over the past few months.
Today, I'm going to talk about a couple of things that we have done in September with the help of my photo library, because that is how I kind of track and remind myself where I've been and what we did.
So I'm going to be flicking between screens. If you hear the odd click, that will be why. What if you are new here, then what is this podcast all about? Well, it is about mainly UK travel and largely in our camper van is done in conjunction with my website, Richard dot com, and also with the few videos
that I put out over on YouTube, which is YouTube.com forward slash Richard Chubb. And this week I've made a bit of a decision to really focus on. They're going to stick with UK travel, but I'm really going to concentrate on the campervan side of things and you know, it's tough to get out all the time with a
family and school and things like that. So I'm going to be doing a little mini trips, possibly on my own day trips out in the van, sharing tips and tricks that I do when I'm out and about and talking about the gear that I use and any tips or advice I can think of.
So if you are a campervan lover, you have definitely come to the right place. If you are just generally a travel lover again, you're in the right place, particularly if that is UK. And if you have some weird fascination with listening to a strange person talk, then you are also in the right place.
So we are going to quickly jump to watch a bit of a catch up to take take you around a few places because one, we did a trip in September that it was only one trip, but we got to see lots and lots.
So let us transport you on an adventure to East Devon. We had three nights in a campsite called Oak Down Tauren Park or I think is Oak Down Touring and Holiday Park something like that? Really good campsites. It's got a great some great facilities there.
Nice big, spacious pitches, award winning according to all the signs they've got everywhere around the park. And so it was a great campsite, great for the kids. There was a play park and a, you know, golf like a little pitch and thing and, you know, nearby lots of places to see which I'll get into.
And we it took us about two and a half hours to get there from the new forest. We headed out west to East Devon and we stopped at Lyme Regis first and foremost, which is a great little beach side of COVI type.
And there's not really a cove, actually. It's a sort of pebble shingle, beach fishing, lots of fishing boats hanging around and the usual beachside attractions, kayaks and trampoline and things like that. We had lunch in the van and took a walk along the beach as a as a little break up of the journey, and then we got
tied down and parked up on a pitch. That was it was very nice. It was very spacious. We were obviously a few tents and camper vans that obviously had come together. He had never quite sure what to expect, but everything was fine.
They were respectful. We wasn't noisy. The noise and more noise from the road that ran along the side of our pitch. But you know, you can't. We've got to get to these places. There's going to be a road somewhere.
We just I'm fortunate enough to get one. That was the other side of the hedge. But you know, we survived the call and down at night time, the campsites self, the toilets were gray, the showers were gray and they had camping pods there, clear skies at night.
So sort of set out under the stars in the Sun, where this was September. So it wasn't brilliant in the evening, but we made the most of it. The facilities were good. They had everything you need washing up, obviously all indoors.
Laundry, yeah, you know, it was all clean and tidy and big and spacious and warm and well-kept, and you can kind of see why it's one. Devon's multi award winning holiday park has splattered over the sign as you walk in there.
So yeah, it was fun. We'd go back. Absolutely. We had two or three nights there, so we had two full days there the first day we threw the bikes on the back of the van and. Went to see Tom Wetlands and did a little tour around the wetlands, great, if you're a nature lover or if you want
to have a walk around and look at the the marshes and the wildlife and do it upon the pain and learn a few things, then then that's the place to be alongside the wetlands. Is it the tramway which we wish we did go on the next day, which I'll tell you about in a second, but we left
the company parked in Seaton Cemetery, which is free parking there if you visit in the wetlands. And we left the car there and we cycled into Seaton seats in town, which is right on the beach, had a couple of drinks.
It was on one of the cycle networks, a national cycle route to, I think it was or it could have been three. Then I take a picture of it. I'm not sure that I did. But anyway, you can cycle down this side of the side of the we leave the wetlands and you go through the footpaths and
eventually you come out in actually pops out at a car park right off their seats and tramway. So really convenient if you're looking to do both in one day we did and we had a drink and cycled back again before spending the evening at the the campsite.
The next day, we did go on the tram. We bought the tickets first thing in the morning and the tram leaves from Seaton and travels up to a place called Clyfford. You had the choice to get off at Cullerton, if you like.
And it was really cool. Is good to see. The old thing still being maintained and still running is obviously a tourist thing now rather than a practical thing. Or maybe some people use it as a practical thing, but they go every sort of 20 or 30 minutes and it's not that cheap.
So it may be more of a leisure thing, but we had fun on it. We got off a qualified try to get lunch in the town of Collingwood, but I guess it doesn't get much, much business because everything shut down at 2:00.
You still get drinks. I think a lot of cafes closed after lunch. The pub stopped serving food, so we ended up eating at Collingwood Station, which had a café inside. And it was good. You know, the food is decent enough, nothing spectacular, but it certainly wasn't, you know, very edible.
And we'd certainly consider again if we happened to be to be passing through. The whole thing takes about 20 minutes if you don't get off and 20 minutes back again. But it is worth getting off and having a wander around looking give as a gift shop, shock horror and just have a check out and see what's around
and walk in to qualify. There's nice views on the way up to the hills, and the tramway runs in between the wetlands and the river acts. So on one side, you have great views out to sea to them wetlands, and on the other side you can see the river acts in the hills beyond their home.
The weather was pretty good. Some was out. Was it roasting, but certainly really quite pleasant. And if you are in the area, check it out. Everything I'm talking about now, you can find on the website or on the YouTube channel.
If you want to learn a bit more about the wetlands and the the new I'm clapping and the tramway. Then it was what did we do then? We visited Grand Scheme Cove and we are disappointed that we didn't spend more time there because it was a lovely, lovely little cove.
The Sun was thinking about setting people, having barbecues on the beach and, you know, just like, relatively warm at this stage. Still, because the sun was still up, it's kind of a cool place. You could see yourself hanging around till the sun falls and the sunsets and enjoying the evening with a cold beer or two.
But we didn't because we had hoped we had dinner reservations at local pub, which is nothing spectacular. And then it was back to the campsite for the evening, back out, down to park. If you can hear some banging in the background our neighbors are having building work done, that might be why, but you probably can't because hopefully
the microphone is doing its job and the next day was our day for check out and we packed up and headed and we headed home or we headed towards home, but not before stopping at the donkey sanctuary and free to enter.
They do rely a lot on donations, as you can imagine, because it is a charity, I believe, but it's a great place to spend, probably no more than two hours. If you want to have a look at the donkeys, how they looked after and you know it's fun for the kids, they can learn loads about them and
and see them up close. And there's also a play park there with. A tractor, and it's just good to find out about how they live and and you know what the charity does there, so lots of information, there's a gift shop you won't be surprised to hear.
And yeah, it's a good way to kill a couple of hours before we headed home. And that brings that trip to an end. And the next the next little trip we did was just really a local war. We went on, which is a little nature reserve in not far from where I'm aware of forest and is right
down by the beach, by the beaches, by. I'm just going through my pictures now. It was kind of near where the river runs. I'm just going have a quick look at the map so I can understand exactly the body of water that we were looking at over there on bay.
And it goes kind of near Pearl Harbor in Dorset. So we spent an hour or two at walking around taking photos. Nothing real. Major issue, nice again. A little nature reserve. If you wanted to just spend some time with nature and transport some birds out over the harbor and the bay there by kind of a beach, but
nothing that you'd want to spend a whole day, I wouldn't have thought. And yeah, that's really been there before. We'd like to go back and perhaps do a little bit more in there because there's lots to explore. Biloxi, Arizona.
I think we took the bike we were staying with. We weren't staying, so we took the bikes on the back of the camper van and we cycled from. I think we might have stayed a family member's house there.
She sounds that lives near where. So we stayed with him and the next day took the bikes down to along the river and into our own. And it was, yeah, it was good. It was a nice cycle ride along the river there, if you care for the pedestrian.
But there's now a few roads we had to go along, but they weren't too bad who looked the bikes up in the car park where it's all coming back to me now because I didn't take many photos, but just to let you know it's a great place to go if you're looking for somewhere in the area and
you like walks and nature and things like that. So that was on, and that's really all I'm going to talk about this week. I have a couple of more things I'm going to save for the rest of this year before I really turn my attention to the whole van life and campervan side of things.
So I guess there's not much left for me to say, but to shamelessly plug my website, which Capcom and also my YouTube channel youtube.com forward slash fiction shop. There are videos and blog posts and tips and tricks and sights and sounds on there, something I'd never done before.
If you want to support the channel, I don't want anything from you other than a review. If you like what you're hearing or sign up for the more or less over RichardChubb.com and ask him for anything else other than that he just makes means a lot to me to know that people listening to get a bit
of value from it. And if there's anything you'd like to say, then why not put me an email from my website? That is all I'm going to say for now. I've been rambling on for probably about 14 or 15 minutes, and I will let you get back to your days.
Thank you so much for watching, for watching. I hope you're not watching this that we re boring, but thank you so much for listening. Stay safe. Happy travels, and I'll see you next week.
Welcome to this weeks podcast, where I am continuing to recap on our 2021 travels, catching up from when the Podcast was off line.
In todays Episode:
Exbury Gardens - We visit a Falconry Display
Swanage & Corfe - We take a trip on a Steam Train, and visit Corfe Castle
Weymouth - We enjoy an inflatable water park on a lake, and blast around the Jurassic Coast on Jetskis
Beaulieu - We camp at a CAMC pop up campsite, and spend a day at the National Motor Museum
Concierge Camping - And finally we camp at one of the best campsites in the UK, but not without its complications!
Don't forget to subscribe to the show, and get in touch if you have anything to share, suggest or say!
Transcript of Podcast
*Please note Transcriptions are Automatically Generated so may not be perfect*
0:00 Hello it is Friday the third of December This is episode 29 and welcome back to the podcast
0:18 Hello hello hello and good morning good afternoon and good evening to wherever and whenever you are.
Welcome back to the show we should hear and it is great to see or to have all of your ears for the next 10 or 15 minutes or so. If you're new here welcome if you been here before, welcome back and you may or may not know what this podcast is all about. It is trying to share with you all the trips we take in some great parts of the UK that you can visit and you may have heard of and you want to know a bit more about or perhaps places that you've never even heard of that sound interesting to you.
I seem to be getting my tongue in a twist today so bear with me but we are going to crack on or what I'm doing for the rest of 2021 as our travellers kind of slow down a little bit and things are happening at weekends and Christmas is coming and all sorts of things like that we may not be getting to some places that we want to go to but that will that will change but we have been to a lot of places the podcast was down for a few months and I'm just catching up on our previous travels that we've done through the year.
You may have caught last week's show when we visited Marwell zoo and Activity Centre The Isle of Wight and lonely safari park well today I am going to briefly take you to a falconry display on a steam train in Swanage. Some fun that we had in Weymouth. We also went camping to Bewley motorhome museum where the caravan and motorhome club did a pop up campsite and we also went to concierge camping and depending on how long I ramble on for, we may save a couple of these for next week's podcast because there is only a couple of things I have to talk about next week. So we may defer one of those but let's see how we get on. So we've recently been to Chichester was our wedding anniversary last week and we celebrated our 10 year anniversary in a beautiful town or city is it I'm not sure of Chichester, there's a cathedral there.
So it could be a city where there what there was there is some nice bars and coffee shops and a couple of restaurants we went to there for two nights we were Max free. I'm not sure if I mentioned this in last week's podcast. But I will cover that in more detail perhaps over the next week or two. So let me just crack on with a quick catch up of where we've been in the summer of 2021. So we started off this, this show if you like with a trip to X Ray Now X ray Gardens, which you're going to hear about again soon in a couple of weeks. Because we did I also went to a Halloween event now because really cool. There's a video over on my YouTube channel about that day it was really good fun. But this time we went there when we're friends of X ray members, which means we get to go we pay an annual fee and we can go as many times as we want while it's open and closed for a couple of months in a winter. But it's great there's a steam train there the if your friends have expiry members, you can go on for nothing Well, we obviously not nothing's you pay the annual fee but you know what I mean. And it's great to walk around as a play park as a cafe. It's just it's just a nice place to spend a couple of hours with with Max and seeing the things that we want to see but it also means that we get access to these other or sometimes we get access to these other events they're having and on this particular occasion they were having a falconry display. And so we went along for a few hours went for a ride on the train and we saw the display we've done before when there was a lot of birds there but he only had two or three this time but it's still great to see them flying up and sweeping down and grabbing their dinner and they're well looked after they're well cared for. And they're just it's just fascinating to watch you learn a bit about what they what the handle is no. And it was good farm eggs free anyways, great is a great place to go. So if you are in the New Forest area, be sure to to Google experi and why not? Why not pay them a visit.
The next thing we went to in the summer which was I think a couple of days later, we went to experi back in I'm checking my photos because that is my my bookmark for everything we've done on the ninth of August. The next day on the 10th we went to we drove into Dorset and went on the Swanage Steam Railway and visited Corfe castle.
4:49 Swanage Steam Railway, is an old historic train where we you can obviously pay your feet it takes you from a place called Norden, which is not far from Corfe castle and it takes wood on the old railway line into swinish. And you can spend as much time as you want to Swanage and get any train back as long as you don't miss the last train, obviously. And we did that without him before, but it was just good fun to, to do again because we we've got to stop early on the way back and we visited Corfe Castle, which is an old historic Castle, which dates back to let me see if I can give you a little bit of history. It's been a Saxon stronghold. It says, When was it built? Let's see. If good old Google core Castle is a fortification standing above the village of the same name on the other pervade blah, blah, blah, built by William the Conqueror, and it dates back to the 11th century. So there you go is in ruins now, unfortunately. So it's not one of the castles that have stood the test of time, but you can walk around you get great views over the Dorset countryside, obviously, because you're up high. We saw the Swanage steam train go out and back a couple of times. So it's a great bird's eye view, a view of that. And it's just a good history lesson. The kids you know, Max could wander around and there's little buttons you can press it tells you all about certain things around the castle on this particular day, they had an archery like a kid's archery thing sets up the camera go out. And it was actually free for us to get in because we won. I say one, we would have one of the first 25,000 people to apply in a newspaper a competition. And you got National Trust tickets for two months. What is used as much as we probably should have done but Corfe Castle was one of the places we went to, and we could see it free and normally have to pay an admission. But we we got lucky this time. So it was quite a cheap day for us. 20 Drow where we had to pay for parking was real cheap in northern three pound I think we spent a few hours around cough and finished up within it in core village itself in one of the cranial pubs is supposed to be the oldest pub in Britain, I think. I think I took a picture of the sign. Let me take a picture of the sign of that I just take a video of it. I'll probably just took a video of the sign and now we have a look. Yeah, I got a picture of the sign. But I think is supposedly one of the oldest pubs in Britain. And it was called the, the something and something Hang on a second. I am going to check my map where we visited whereas Corfe castle to the Greyhound, the Greyhound in so great pub great foods cream cheese pizza as usual pub food. Definitely recommend it if again you are you're travelling through core four through Dorset or through Swanee journey in the area. Cough definitely recommend that to stop what came up then we then spend that was on the 10th I think a few days later, we went a family holiday to Weymouth so very much spending time with family there's 10 of us that when but we did a couple of cool things. One of them was a waterpark in Dorset, I can't remember the name of the waterpark. I think there's only one there you can actually see it from the top of Corfe castle and it's basically bouncy castles on a lake. Get your wetsuits on, get your life jacket on. And that's it go go for a swim, climb up, do some jumps on the inflatables. You slide down things you fall off things you push someone else in there's big airbag that someone jumps on and pushes you up into the air which is good fun for little ones all in all that was good fun and the other cool thing we did was we went on get skis which I really quite enjoyed and there's a good video on YouTube channel again about the drastic jetski tours I think it is. So that was a bit of a family thing. So we didn't do much sightseeing and that it was mainly spending time with with our family. So not real a great deal to talk about there but then which was quite cool is we went to the National Motor Museum so that's not far from us either because it's just in Bewley
9:42 and the caravan and motorhome club who we are members of we they had what they called pop up campsites. They pick certain places around the country and they take over a field. And I think if you're members, you can stay there if you're not members, you have to pay a bit more. But this was in the grounds of the national Motor Museum. And with your ticket you've got entry to the national Motor Museum. So we had a wander around. We stayed there was only flew there we booked for two nights but things changed. We had to leave on the on the second base. We didn't quite stay for the second night but we made use of the national Motor Museum for two days. And it's great. A lot obviously a lot of old cars there f1 cars, which I was really interested in. They have a James Bond exhibition exhibition they have the world of Top Gear which had loads of Top Gear cars in they have a monorail. They have a massive PlayPark gone an old fashioned bus. What else did they have there? Where's my pictures? There's a cafe they have. Sometimes they have events they're like an Audi de or BMW de and when that happens, they tend to have extra stores that are selling sweets and burgers and things like that on top of the cafe. Whilst we go in we're around the Motor Museum. I went on a little racing simulator which was good fun I think in about two minutes that sums up beautifully. There is a matter how say you can walk around this gardens that you can go around. I'm just looking through my photos. Yeah, and again, it's it's not cheap or anything to get into but you can easily spend a whole day there and there's so much to see and do particularly obviously if you like cars or you like taki or James Bond or that kind of thing. And obviously there's a plate like say there's a play park and yeah, so that was a camp about campsite, we never did the pop up and never done the pop up kind of site before and that was interesting to say the least because caravan or motorhome club sites are normally sort of well, the facilities are really good, they're clean, they're spacious, they're warm. This they had sort of mobile units dragged in which we didn't really embrace probably as much as we could have we use a lose obviously and as we're only there for one night we for four went a shower for one day. But it didn't stop us the weather was great and we're camping you know when I came home so we enjoyed it. It's what we like doing and we are told it's all about spending family time together at places like this. So that was really the last thing I'm going to talk about this week I have got through them all there as we think and I was going to ramble on for ages and not get through them all was a campsite called concierge campaign which has won awards for several years has been one of the best campsites in the country if you don't mind paying a little bit more because you want stunning whilst that you want really really clean neat tidy surroundings the showers and toilets there are second to none other than you know the best we've ever been in you get your whole room to yourself. There's neon lights it tells you if there's people in there there's music coming through all the speakers it's warm you know the they've just gone above and beyond with the with the facilities really and it's not just camping they have a glamping there as well their Safari tents and other tents that are like I can't call them now or did I call them they're like, they have luxuries where you can sleep in but they also have these sort of tight Safari tents where you you pick you sleeping your camper van or caravan or motorhome next to the 10 but in the 10 there's there's a table a TV, not really counting it as a table TV, cooker, heating, all that kind of thing. Oh, here we go got a picture of one here what they got in there says a massive fridge running tap sink and water. There's an archetype stove, there's a big picnic table, there's like a kitchen with a, I don't know, 32 inch TV in there as well. And for summary, I did a video on this. And it ticked along nicely for for quite a while. But over the last week is just is you know, for me anyway, it's it's been my most popular video for the last two days or probably longer than that now, because it's just seen a boost in views for some reason. So that's good. So you check out concierge campaign and you'll find one of my videos over there wasn't all plain sailing there. Because when we got there, the pitch that they put us told us to go to somebody who was already on so we thought we wouldn't have a pitch but we did in the end it was all good. They fixed it quite quickly. But the picture got to didn't have electric but again, they fixed it really quickly. So credit to them. You know the best thing in my eyes that things happen, things go wrong, and I think it's how people respond to them and how they fix them makes all the difference in a service and things like that. So while there was a couple of hiccups, within half an hour everything was solved and
15:00 We were set up and things were good. So that's, that was all done that we've done in August. I think we then got a couple of things to talk about next week. So don't forget to don't forget to stay tuned. I do this every time and I'm going to carry on doing it. So I have to warn you, I've got my website, which will be great if you could check out is Richard chubb.com. There's loads of blog posts, and you know, information about great things to see in the UK and where to go and what to see and how much things cost and all the places that we visit, we we stick on that website there and when appropriate, and we're recording videos that goes over on the YouTube channel, which is youtube.com forward slash Richard Chubb. Check that out as well subscribe to this newsletter over on the website, if you want to sign up to that and be told when new posts and new podcasts and new videos go out or feel free to hit that subscribe button on the YouTube channel. And of course on this podcast, and we're going to keep this going over the next few weeks. This is the 32nd I can't believe I'm recording this a bit earlier. But I can't believe when you hear this. It's going to be the third of December and three weeks today. It's Christmas Eve which is unbelievable. I will try and get two or three more little trips in somewhere maybe not overnight trips, but certainly day trips out where we can see some sights and share that with you guys. So if you enjoy this podcast, please give me a rating over on the watch whatever platform you're listening to. And feel free to pop me an email over on the website. If you have any suggestions or any way you'd like to see south coast of England is easy for us relatively easy. Anywhere before the further north is a bit more of a challenge takes a bit more planning but we are going to see as much as we can. So stay tuned. Have an amazing day or week or great Christmas or New Year whenever you happen to be listening to this. And thank you so much for listening. And we'll see you next week. Bye for now
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Welcome to this week's episode, I take you on a tour of Hengistbury Head in Dorset, and a few notes all about the Hythe Ferry, and how you can get from the New Forest to Southampton City without a car!
Don't forget to subscribe, and if you like it, leave me a review. If you think it could be better, why not pop me an email!
Thanks for listening!!
Welcome back to the podcast, when we discuss Cheddar Gorge and a great walk in Hampshire.
This week, I embark on a 2021 Recap after not posting an episode for a while.
We are covering May and June when we take a walk from Keyhaven to Lymington in Hampshire.
We also spend a few days exploring Cheddar Gorge in Somerset.
I have been quiet on the Podcast front. I love sitting here in my office, rambling away. I am not sure where to take it next.
Looking for feedback, so after you have listened to this episode, head over to richardchubb.com, click on Contact Richard, and let me know your thoughts.
Thanks for the feedback,
Richard
Welcome to this weeks podcast, when I share all about our trip to the recent New Forest Motorhome show, 2021.
We visited 17 motorhomes, changed our minds, and I tell you about an upcoming change that is going to happen.
In this week's episode, we check out another Caravan and Motorhome Club site, dodge the rain, fail to dodge the mud, and headed into Wareham on the Wareham Forest Way.
Hope you enjoy this week's podcast.
A short, sharp podcast today. I discuss plans for the next few weeks, and the desires of the next few months.
Welcome to this weeks Episode, where we take a trip to Dorset, and stay in a campsite near Weymouth.
We visit the Blue Pool near Wareham, a beautiful pool naturally filled from a man made clay pit. We also head down the Rodwell Trail, a great disused railway that has been surfaced and is suitable for walking, cycling and pushchairs.
This weeks podcast is all about our trip to Wimborne, and our thoughts on noisy campers.
Wilksworth caravan park was out site of choice, a Shorefield Holidays site deemed as an alternative for Merely Court.
We visited Rufus Stone, and a couple of pretty New Forest ponds.
This week's episode sees us visit the beautiful seaside town of Swanage, and we stay at our first Caravan & Motorhome Club site.
It was a good weekend. The weather was perfect for April, that campsite decent, and Swanage was as beautiful as ever.
Listen for the great time we had, and a few bits of advice about pubs and parking!!
If you are looking for a campsite in the New Forest, Hampshire, then be sure to check out Long Meadow. It is situated right in the middle of the forest, close to Lyndhurst and walkable / or bicycle to, Brockenhurst.
Also, we have signed up for the Caravan & Motorhome Club! We have never signed up for a club before, so be sure to listen to find out why!
Another Friday, another Podcast!
Today we are talking about how we are going to camp when all facilities are shut, and VW's new Camper Converter scheme. That, and bits about our recent videos make up today's podcast. Enjoy!!
Welcome to this weeks Episode, when I talk about a long-overdue repair that was needed, some new bits for the campervan, and 3 news items that you may find interesting.
I also share a couple of walks we did, seeing the sights and sounds of the New Forest.
Welcome to this weeks episode. I have a couple of pieces of news for you this week, including things to check when booking for April and May.
Also, we have more campsites booked, and more trips to look forward to.
Welcome to this weeks podcast!
News on a recent YouTube video just released, and we have already booked two campsites for when we come out of LockDown.
Happy Friday, and welcome to today’s podcast! I am back, and looking forward to resurrecting the Podcast, with a slight change or two! Thanks for listening, Rich
Happy Friday, and welcome to today's podcast!
I thought I would quickly chat about how different site are doing things differently.
This may help you to understand what to expect when arriving at your next site, and what each site may be doing differently from their neighbour down the road.
Thanks for listening, Rich