Our place in France is a major rebuild and restoration project. The building had been uninhabited for decades, around a third of the roof was missing and there was no water, electricity, septic tank or even loo! Clearly we needed somewhere to live while we worked on the restoration, so a caravan was the obvious choice. We were expecting to be there for at least 3-4 months of the year for a couple of years at least, so anything else (such as camping or renting) was either going to be impractical or expensive.

Having decided on the size of caravan we wanted, we searched for caravan sales outlets in our region. We had settled on a two berth caravan with a small kitchen and wash room / toilet. We had also decided that we would like an awning to sit in and relax in the evening. The decision to go for a smallish caravan was based on the ease of towing and increased manouverability around the narrow and hilly French country roads as we neared our destination. In retrospect a larger caravan would have been more comfortable, and we would not have had to go through the rigmarole of setting up the beds each evening.

We eventually found a caravan for sale privately just a couple of miles away from our home in England. The caravan came with just about every camping accessory imaginable, including towing accessories, camping furniture and a caravan awning. Also included were a few very useful accessories that we hadn't considered as novices to caravanning, including a bulldog tow hitch lock, nose weight guage, a Snakemaster stabiliser and caravan levelling ramps. We ordered the few bits and pieces we didn't have from Towsure.

We have had Land Rovers in the family for almost 25 years, and in that time have had most of the product range to come out of Solihull. Actually I'm a big fan, and looking back, it sometimes seems like we have had a fair proportion of the total output of the factory! Our latest is a recent model Defender Station Wagon which is fitted with a few of the comforts regularly found on cars, but something of a novelty for us. There are a few very practical additions, including electronic traction control and ABS, luxuries such as electric windows, and others, particularly air conditioning, which have proved invaluable during blisteringly hot French summers.

The Land Rover Defender has proved to be the perfect vehicle for the French adventure in so many ways, not just for going to and fro between England and France,

Land Rovers, caravans and a French Odyssey

but more importantly for carrying materials and equipment, towing the caravan and assorted trailers, pulling tree stumps, and carrying on through torrential French summer storms, mud, ice and snow. The tarmac surface runs out a few hundred metres before we get to our property, and the track is fairly steep and rutted. We fill the potholes with stone each spring, but because it is on a hill, the winter rains inevitably wash the surface away again. We'll no doubt talk to the maire about getting it properly surfaced one day, but there's no rush while the building work goes on.

One thing the Land Rover didn't have was a tow bar. We knew that we would have a variety of things to tow, so we opted for a height adjustable tow hitch from Dixon Bate. The model we chose has the facility to quickly change the height of the hitch to suit different trailers, as well as change just as easily from tow ball to Nato-type hitch. We had a single trailer socket fitted because we weren't planning touring with the caravan.

Both the caravan and the Defender were fully loaded with everything we needed to get the restoration started, including scaffold tower, 240v petrol generator, solar panels and all manner of tools. We hitched the caravan to the Land Rover and headed for the ferry port at Portsmouth. It towed the caravan through France effortlessly, in fact if it hadn't been for the extensions on the wing mirrors it would have been easy to forget there was a caravan on the back! Happily the journey went without incident, and even some sudden downpours caused no problem.

to be continued.....