Dan Cartwright has over 12 years of experience in the caravan and motorhome industry. He is a judge for a number of prestigious leisure vehicle awards and regularly heads off in his motorhome with his family. Every week, Dan shares his insights with the community. Here’s what he has to say this week.
This week at CaravanTimes has been extremely busy, so I thought I’d give our readers an update on a few of the things going on at the moment. Undoubtedly, many of you will have already been following along closely.
Read on to find out how the Sahara Challenge concluded, why CAMC aren’t really opening a lunar campsite and what we’ve been doing with sweet Vanny Adams.
The Sahara Challenge
Over the weekend, our talented crew of two completed the Sahara Challenge. They relaxed into a well-deserved evening off, before heading straight back into the office the next day to start editing footage.
A massive thank you to Rodrigo and Rob, who documented the whole adventure. I hope they had a great time out there, but I know it was certainly very hard work with plenty of sand in the equipment too.
I hope you’ll agree with me that the crew got some fantastic footage. Parts one and two of the journey are both available to watch below.
The final video, in which the team travelled across Dores Gorge and Fez, will be coming out very shortly. Look out for some great behind-the-scenes content, including a Moroccan fixer crashing a Ranger on the dunes – we have evidence that it wasn’t our crew!
Part one:
Part two:
Goodbye to Space Camp
Whilst the prospect of Space Camp sounded incredibly alluring, we’ve since had to come clean – April Fools! Social media blew up following the announcement last weekend, featuring CAMC director general Nick Lomas in a space suit, broadcasting from the lunar surface at the Club’s most daring project to date. If you missed the video, take a look below.
A second video followed on Sunday, revealing it was in fact a clever way of promoting CAMC’s involvement in the Sahara Challenge, as well as its international site work. The Club is doing a fantastic job of inspiring people to take their leisure vehicles further afield – but maybe not to the Moon.
View the April Fools video below.
An update on Vanny Adams
After announcing CarvanTimes’ newest addition in my last column, I wanted to update everyone on exactly what we’ve done so far with sweet VA.
We’re still waiting for a few parts to arrive for the engine service. Because it’s been changed, we aren’t sure exactly what type of engine it currently has. So, we’ve had to remove, identify, order and replace individual parts to get a clearer understanding.
Don’t fear, though. We’re committed to using Vanny Adams as intended. So, to identify further faults, we’ve been using it daily for the school runs – about five to ten miles of travel each day.
Since we started driving Vanny Adams, we’ve completely blown the coolant. It looks to be just a disconnected pipe which luckily we identified before we lost it all and the engine seized. Now, we’re starting to look at the brakes too. On rough ground, we had one tyre blowout, but otherwise, VA is shaping up nicely.
It’s been such a busy week, but time flies when you love what you do. Please send in any suggestions for Vanny Adams, including accessories you’d like to see tested and reviewed.
Photo credit: Chris Larson / Pexels
