When we picked up Malibu Molly (MM for short) of Tuesday we had already decided that we needed a trial run trip away to have a shake down.
MM is a 6m campervan based around a Fiat Ducato van. Old Molly was a 7m coachbuilt motorhome. It's amazing what that extra metre can do! Size does in fact matter!
MM also has a fixed bed with lots of storage space underneath. There's also a removable floor that fits in so that instead of stacking stuff up we can fit storage boxes, if the are 20 litre sized (!), under the floor and other more accessible stuff on the top. The floor space is about 7ft by 4ft. All the boxes that used to fit under the bench seats in Molly fit nicely under this flooring. I was going to take a photo but never got around to it, and oddly, none of the similar vans on the internet at dealers all across Europe actually have the floor and the brackets fitted.
There does seem to be a range of Malibu 600 vans. Ours has the two portholes in the rear and many don't. The interior can be different with a fridge mounted at the end of the sink/hob unit. Ours has a high level fridge between the bedroom and the dinette.
MM is the DB and comes with the transverse double bed. The LE model has two single beds that are lenghways in the bedroom area.
Anyway, the shake down trip was to see how we would cope in the smaller van. MM is fitted with an S7 rated tracker and a Cat.1 alarm. The alarm was always going to be the one thing we had to remember how to use. Of course, of all the handover items, it's the one I forgot.
It's easy to set from the standard Fiat key. Lock is a padlock. You can unlock the front doors separately from the side/back doors. It's a good idea to make sure the doors are closed properly before trying to lock it! The sliding hab door is a bugger to slam shut from inside! It's a case of pressing the button and then again and hopefully disabling the inside sensors....
We decided to stay local and chose the Black Horse Farm Caravan Club site at Hawkinge. It's about 10 miles from home. Just far enough to be "away" from home and not have travelled far if it all went tits up.
We arrived after a quick stop at the Sainsbury's at Park Farm in Folkestone to get some snacks and stuff for lunch. Arriving well after the 1pm opening time we were greeted by the wardens who used to run the Daleacres site near home. It was nice to catch up with them. We found out pitch after a drive around. I chose 78 as it was in the middle of a few empty pitches. It seemed almost flat as well and so I wouldn't need to break out the levelling ramps, kindly left by the previous owner. We do have several spirit levels to check.
The darned electricity wouldn't work. So when we went up to the reception the tell them which pitch we had chosen we told them about it. When we got back I gave the breakers a wiggle and pressed the reset button and eventually it worked. I went back to tell them. Later another van came onto pitch 80 and had the same problem.
We had a few walks with Reggie. Tested the heating on electricity. I had already tested the gas to the fridge was working before we set off to get it cold. When driving the fridge runs on 12v electrics but all that does it maintain the temperature, so you need to get it cold. We use gas as we don't have a drive where we can connect to the mains electricity. On the site's EHU the fridge can run on electricity.
We had a snug night. The alarm only went off once when Claire tugged the habitation door handle before I had unlocked it, so that proved it worked. It didn't go off inside after I locked it and did the second press to disable the interior sensors.
There are a few things that we need to iron out before we go away on Saturday for our next trip. More on that later.
Incidentally, the Black Horse Farm site is really nice. The facilities are a little dated but they are warm and clean. There's a shop right across the road and a pub, the Black Horse, around 100 yards away.
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