An Introduction To Motorhomes & Some Stories Too!

A slightly longer post to introduce you to our motorhome stories.

Our motorhome is called Mary McHarg, and the name comes from my mother’s first name and my dad’s middle name, which is also his mother’s maiden name. I don’t suppose it’s too long a story, but if we’d have used both my parents' first names, it wouldn’t have looked or sounded quite right, and people may have thought it was my wife and I, especially as I’m a David, as my dad was.

If we’d used my mum’s first name and my dad’s last, it would just be my mum really, so that wouldn’t be fair, so that is how we came up with the name we have. It represents both my parents, who are sadly no longer with us, and it was their generosity through their will that enabled us to buy Mary McHarg.

If you have read some of ‘my story,' you may have seen the job offer letter that was given to my dad when he changed jobs many, many years ago, and it was an offer of £12 per week, and so he went from earning that wage to leaving enough money in his will to enable his son to buy a motorhome with some left over, and there were two sisters who received the same amount and two grandchildren who received five figures.

In any financial world, he was a shrewd man; don’t ask me how he did it, especially bringing up four children along the way on that wage and not that much more when he moved jobs. I know later in life he dabbled in shares, some of which were very successful, some not, and along with pensions, he did okay as we now know, so thanks mainly to Dad, here I am sitting in a motorhome typing this. I know how fortunate we are in life, and this is not bragging; it’s just me writing about how things are in life. Many people my age will receive much, much more as inheritance than we ever did.

And that is how we joined the motorhome fraternity. It was a world I never fancied; I had been camping twice and just didn’t enjoy it. The first time I went, I ended up pitching a little two-person tent somewhere in the Lake District, in the rain, in the dark, using the headlights from the family’s VW Beetle to enable me to see what I was doing. During the night I awoke with drops of rain dripping onto my face and I thought, ‘this is not for me.’

But I did try it again some years later; we had borrowed a double sleeping bag from a friend, and we had to wash it in the local laundrette, as it was infected with some sort of insect. And that was it for me, and since then it has been hotels and B&Bs, later AirBnBs and the like. So, motorhomes or caravans came from the same place in the camping world, and they weren't part of my plans.

So, after my parents passed, my wife suggested it, and my first reaction was sceptical bordering on no, but funnily enough, when we were in Peebles for Mum's funeral, we had planned to stay for a couple of weeks and found we had more time on our hands than we really needed. Low and behold, just opposite her sheltered housing was a motorhome hire company called ‘Zoom Motorhome & Campervan Hire Scotland.’ I’m naming this company because of the help they gave us. I will always name companies and people who are good to us!

Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the husband-and-wife team who own this business, but you couldn’t ask for a friendlier and more helpful team to get you out on the road with a hired motorhome, as that is what my wife talked me into doing with our spare time, and I’m glad she did.

We hired a Rollerteam Zefiiro, and we decided on a five-day trip, setting off from Peebles, up to Loch Lomond, Glencoe, back via Aberfeldy, and Edinburgh, and I will always remember sitting on a chair in the sunshine near Glencoe, looking up at the hills, thinking, ‘this is the life for me.’ And how quick a turnaround was that? From not really fancying that life, to being sceptical and being persuaded to hire a motorhome, to thinking that within days, and so that was it, we, well, I was sold on the lifestyle.

Rollerteam Zefiro and a nice vehicle - note the large overhang at the rear, giving you room for the double bedroom at the back

And in this section, once again, I will tell you some stories, and I will also hopefully give you some tips and suggestions should you be wondering if you should try this for yourself. And in that area, I will be a mere amateur. There are so many people out there who I will call experts, none more so than Robbie Roams, who does make a living out of this, and he has numerous books on the subject of motorhome journeys, and this is another recommendation should you need help.

After deciding this is something that we would be trying, we then started looking at different makes and models that we might like, and the choice is massive, so where do you start? Well, I would always say start with doing what we did and hire one first because you may not like it. You may decide you would prefer a camper van, which is just that, a van for camping in, and normally just like driving a car, and one of the important aspects of choosing a vehicle.

You might fancy a caravan, which I never ever fancied, as I just didn’t like the thought of towing something, even after driving HGV class 1 vehicles many years ago, and those trailers are 40’ long, plus the towing unit; I just never fancied it.

First of all, it is quite a cramped environment to live in, even for a week. That is something I don’t like. I enjoy my space, so if, like me, you enjoy your space, you need to change your mentality when going in one of these vehicles, unless, of course, you are on your own or you can afford a 'Winnebago' style, which will set you back half a million pounds if purchased new. The first time I saw one, the TV in the vehicle was bigger than the one in our front room. The owners were also towing a small covered trailer, and inside was their quad bike so they could get about once parked up, which I will come to.

But probably, or obviously, the very first thing you need to think about is who will be using it and how many people will actually be sleeping and using the vehicle. Will you be taking the parents, the kids, or the grandkids, or will it be just for the two of you, as it is with us and always will be?

It is very, very relevant to the size, so once you know that, you need to think about berths and more. The Zefiro had a separate bedroom in the rear, with a double bed, and I believe another double that came from a drop-down bed from the ceiling, the same as ours has. But this is relevant, because whilst we still prefer our motorhome, there isn’t a lot of space.

With the larger one we hired, there were two rooms as such, and, therefore, there are options. What if one of you is an early riser and the other likes a long lie? In a motorhome like ours, the early riser couldn’t get up to watch TV or sit down with a coffee and do a crossword or anything. In the one with the separate room, there are things you can do while your travelling aprtener sleeps the morning away! Something to think about even if there is just the two of you. Fortunately for my wife and me, we tend to get up at the same time. But think about the end of the day too; what if one likes early to bed and the other likes to sit up with a beer or a wine and watch ‘Last of the Mohicans’ for the 47th time, just like I do? I don’t bother in the motorhome, and again, we are compatible. We go to bed at the same time too!

Once you know who’s going, it’s all about size, and something that is relevant is the size you will be happy driving; that could also change who you take with you! Many people won’t be phased by driving a larger vehicle, and fair play to them. I was driving down a narrower lane near one of the campsites and couldn’t help thinking that I’m glad I wasn’t in anything bigger. Plus, for the first time in my life, I was happy I was driving an automatic. At least when I was concentrating on navigating these narrow lanes, I never had to faff about changing gears, and that's something else to consider!

The longer vehicle is the Rollerteam Zefiro that we hired, and the shorter one is the Rollerteam T-Line 590 that we bought, and straight away you can see the difference. And one of the most important things for me is that overhang between the rear axle and the back of the vehicle. If you are in a tight turning area, that length matters, as the back end will swing out as the vehicle turns on the axle, and as we were told by the hire company, a vehicle often comes back with scuffs and marks on the rear end where people clip things, quite often petrol pumps when leaving a garage.

Some difference? Nearly 1m longer, but with more room! Our TLine 590 in the bottom picture!

Compare it to ours; there is very little overhang, similar to what you will get in a car, so the chances of us hitting anything when turning are minimal, a preference I had as the main driver, or should I say pretty much the only driver.

The rear area on a motorhome is called a ‘garage’ and is a storage area, so something else to consider. What do you need to take with you? What do you want to relax with? Will you need sun loungers, an outdoor table, deck chairs, and, in the summer, the much-needed barbecue? Here’s ours, taking up very little room and adequate for two.

Cadac BBQ, and ideal for two

And again, the relevant point is who will be using it. As mentioned, the hire vehicle had a separate bedroom and a bigger garage, as it was built for more people, but I felt the bed was too big, meaning there was very little room to move in the bedroom - the choices are massive!

Back to the outside, being new to this, it is obviously a learning curve from minute one. The funniest part of the journey was at the very first campsite we stopped at; the lady on reception turned out to be someone who I went to school with (there was only one senior school in town,) and I believe she was in the same class as my younger sister. They said a quick ‘hello’ on a video call.

But on the second site at Glencoe, the size of the garage became more relevant as the driver of one of the bigger vehicles took a motorcycle out of their garage to go exploring, and that is the difference. I would struggle to get my granddaughters' pushbike into our garage, let alone anything else.

Not even my granddaughter's cycle, never mind a motorbike!

And there is another aspect: I have found myself in tight driving situations in our motorhome, where I couldn’t help but think that I was glad I wasn’t in anything bigger, and I now know why people in bigger vehicles have these motorbikes/scooters or, as our friends do, tow a Fiat 500. They simply park up their bigger vehicle and head off on their second choice. Some places we have visited, you would not want to be in a smaller motorhome, let alone a larger one.

When we planned the NC500 last year, I was happy to see A-class roads in the road atlas; in reality, one of them was a single-track road with passing places. Simple in our smaller machine and a bit more complicated in the twin-axle models, but people do it, as other friends proved to us, and people do it in caravans too – credit to you.

On the campsite near Aberfeldy, we saw a model we both liked, also a Rollerteam but the TLine 590 model. One good thing about the motorhome family (and other vehicles) is that everyone seems so friendly. So as the owners were sitting outside, we asked if we could be nosey, and they dully obliged, and that was it really; we had found ‘our model.' After that, when Mum's finances were settled, it was a case of setting a budget and finding the right one, which we did at Rove Motorhomes, Gunthorpe, near Nottingham.

We had seen the vehicle online, and being left alone by the ever-helpful Charlie, we pondered, looked, opened cupboards, pondered, and looked some more, and of course there was the test drive, and it was just like driving the car. But there was another company next door, and they had a couple of Mercedes in stock that I wanted to see. So, being honest, I told Charlie that I needed to go. He even let us leave our car on their premises while we walked round to check out the opposition, which took all of about ten minutes, as those models were not for us, mainly due to the fabric on the seats being too old-fashioned. So, thanks Charlie and the team at Rove Motorhomes, Gunthorpe. Another mention to a very helpful company.

And as also mentioned, our bed is the type that comes down on straps from the ceiling, but the other bed for the other two people would have been made up from the bench seats and the living area table by moving the seat cushions about, with a mattress over the top, not too comfy for anyone. And what I would call a double bunk bed - and definitely not for me!

Obviously, we all need a table in the living area, but to give us more room, we bought a driveaway awning, as can be seen in the photograph here. Now, had we thought about this properly, we could have saved ourselves a few hundred pounds.

I had always thought the table in the living area was too big, and we had already decided that here there would only ever be the two of us, so I suggested we should take the table out and replace it with a foldaway, which we did after buying the awning. And since doing this, we have never used the awning, and what a waste of money, as we have more space inside, and we don’t need the permanent table or the driveaway awning.

Do you really need it - we didn’t!

And this is the type of thing that needs to be looked into before you buy and there is more which I will go into in time. But the layout is important, remember this will probably be your second biggest outlay after your house and there are two things to do, although they are both pretty much the same.

Go to the caravan and motorhome show at the NEC; everything you need is there, from a new set of cups, a motorhome doormat, or a water-carrying container to that half-million-pound Winnebago. Or you simply find a few different motorhome sales companies and head off to look around. All the ones we have seen have the doors open to all the vans during the day, and you have the freedom to walk around looking in any vehicle they have on site, often unaccompanied. And to me this is a must. And this is where Rove at Gunthorpe is also good, as there are four companies all on the same road, all selling motorhomes, caravans, and camper vans.

You may say we didn’t really do this, and no, we didn’t, but we did do an awful lot online; another option these days, ours was more this individual make and model, and once we had seen inside it near Aberfeldy, our minds were pretty much made up.

But as you’ll be living in it, sometimes for weeks on end, that internal layout is a huge factor in the decision-making. we are all different and we want different things, and the layout of a motorhome, or any touring vehicle,Lomond and will be the same

Thanks to Mum and Dad, and thanks for reading

DJ