After much heart wrenching discussions, flipping and flopping etc. etc. we have bought a Bailey Unicorn Madrid.  There I’ve said it.

Why the Bailey when I’ve never been a fan of theirs – well I looked around at many of the makes and models and surprised to discover that a few of my favouites have ceased trading.  Fleetwood, Avondale and Bessacarr spring to mind – all caravans we had in the past and all great vans.  We wanted something that we could sleep at least a couple of the grand children but as that would only be “on occasion” we needed to be able to make use of the space for the remaining 51 weeks of the year.  I was determined to have the Alde heating and wanted an onboard water tank for when we were travelling. An end washroom with a decent sized shower was also high on the list. When you look around for caravans with that specification the list becomes very short.  One or two fit the bill such as the Swift 530, the Compass Rally but at the end of the day the Bailey warranty, price and build quality stuck out  as being good value.  So we took the plunge.

The layout is twin beds at the front (that can convert into a large double) side dinette (converts into two single bunk beds for the grand children) and a rear washroom with his and hers wardrobes.  Already I have increased the leisure battery size to make sure we have enough power for the motor mover to get up the drive and give us plenty of power while on route to the next site.  It comes complete with alarm and tracker, Alko stabiliser, wheel and hitch locks so fingers crossed it should be a deterrent to would be thieves.  The tracker is particularly good in that you have a geofence that sends a SMS message to my phone if the caravan moves more than 200 metres whenever we are not in residence.

Its covered over with a full weather cover so photos will come later.

In the past awnings were both a blessing and a curse.  A blessing as they are much more suitable in bad weather and serve to extend the UK season as you can dine out for longer periods using the awning against the wind cold and rain.  A curse as we always argued when putting it up as neither of us had enough arms and hands to cope.  This time we have elected to go for an inflatable awning – no poles and an electric pump to inflate it. Having read numerous reviews on all the various makes and models we have elected to go for the Kampa Rally Air Ace 400 porch awning.   Now time will tell as to how effective it will be but we have decided to give it a try.  No doubt more to follow.

Well we managed to try out the Bailey and the Kampa porch awning and pleased to report a very successful week with the caravan.  The awning worked a treat, all systems in the caravan worked well.  The LED awning light strips are superb.  While the weather was great with no rain or wind I can see how folks could benefits from the new Kampa Limpet system so we have now purchased a kit and will fit them on our next outing.  My only negative comment would be not reading the instructions properly for the Kampa Breeze air pump.  In my defence the system is defaulted to 0 psi whereas you would expect it to be set at the recommended pressure.  The result was that I couldn’t get the pump to work at first until I fiddled about and realised that you need to set the pressure before you can start it working.  I tad cockeyed if you ask me but who am I…..  I have noticed that for 2017 season Kampa have “redesigned” the pump so maybe I wasn’t the only one……  More on the Kampa Ace to follow in the equipment section.