Read The Manual

There are so many new things to use for the first time when beginning the Grey Nomad Adventure.

Included in that are several pieces of equipment that I have not met in during many years of living in a brick and mortar house. Thankfully for most of these there are manuals that provide enough information to get started.

Here is a list of a few little learning experiences that surfaced in the first few days.

• Operating a 3 way refrigerator. It is relatively easy while set up in a Caravan Park with a 240V power supply. It is just a matter of setting the thermostat to the best level after making sure that the AC power option is selected. That took a little time to adjust to, and I have found that outside temperature conditions may mean adjusting the thermostat more often than a typical household refrigerator.
• The Cooker has gas and electrical hotplates. On day 3 we discovered that the burners will not operate if the glass cover has not been lifted right back. That makes sense, as we have heard of another caravanner having the glass cover shatter when left down and heated.
• The TV and Sound system are linked. There are 6 speakers (in 3 pairs) and 2 switches to control which speakers are on or off. the manual did not help there, so it’s a matter of trial and error to get the right speakers working.
• The annexe. Again, no manual, but I did get comprehensive instructions during handover. It all looks good, but on the second night we did get heavy rain and some water got inside from the edge seam of the awning. It appears that I needed to rotate the awning just a few more degrees.
• Emptying the toilet cassette. Here is where I needed to refer to the manual, but unfortunately I did not find the manual easy to follow. With a little investigating how the system seemed to work, backed up by referring to the parts of the manual I could understand, I eventually worked it out. All of that happened while we had some visitors on day 2, and I took great delight in making sure that they saw what I had to do, despite the mock looks of disgust from some of the visitors.
• Day 4 or 5 was hot. We were cooking, the air conditioner was on and we used some hot water, so the water heater kicked in. Unfortunately that overloaded the circuit and the circuit breaker shut off power to the caravan.
• It was hot, there was no power, lunch was half cooked. Simple matter of finding the circuit breaker.
• I looked in all cupboards (or thought I did), but no sign of the circuit breaker. Maybe it was  not just our caravan.
• A couple of  quick checks told me it must be just our power. I still could not locate the circuit breaker.
• In desperation, a quick trip to the office, and an offer to send one of the caretaker to check the power supply. No problem with that, and he did not know where the circuit breaker might be.
• The caretaker offered to ask the owner of a similar caravan if he could suggest where to look. He came back with the answer. One small cupboard had the circuit breaker inside. The only cupboard I had not checked. So small that I did not realise it was there.
• A simple flick of the switch and power restored!

I am sure there will be many more little experiences like these over the next few weeks and months as features of the caravan are used for the first time. It is good to know that help is usually at hand and fellow caravan owners are willing to share their knowledge.

More about that in a coming post.