Quirky Motorhome Aire at Lydney, near the Severn Estuary

Zagan the motorhome’s feeling sporty, parked on AstroTurf for the first time in his life, facing the calm green waters of the Lydney Canal in Gloucestershire. We’re at Marina Base Camp, a low-frills (they have electrical hook-up, fresh water, a loo and waste disposal) aire-style stopover we’re using for a couple of nights on our way down to the Gower Peninsula (N51.713131, W2.528776). Only adults are allowed to stay here – for fear of nippers ending up in the drink.

Normally we’d just plough down the M5 and across the M4 into South Wales, but it being a bank holiday the sites on the coast are busy, so we’ve come west of the Severn to kill some time. Hey, we’re glad we did. It’s a quirky little spot, a tad dishevelled (it’s being gradually done up), set alongside an ex-car repair shop in an industrial estate. And yet it’s relaxed and popular with very friendly, genuine owners and hosts. It’s the kind of place which feels a bit odd at first but later, once we’d been settled in by Marika who met us at the entrance, much warmer. Everyone wanders along chatting with fellow campers, a mini-community of like-minded folks, reminding us of this quayside spot we stayed at in Sand, Norway many moons ago. It also reminded us of this round up we wrote ages ago about quirky motorhome stop overs we’d stayed at – I suspect we have many more to add to that list now.

We had a quick chat with Marika and her other half Richard after we’d had a cuppa. Turns out they finished the job of clearing the overgrown trees and laying the AstroTurf (recycled from a play area somewhere, each small section weighing literally a ton) just before the 2020 lockdown. Bad luck for them, good luck for a full-timer they knew who found refuge here in those difficult days. He normally spent his time travelling Europe earning a crust printing signs from his van (he’d a massive printer which is currently in storage here – I’ve no idea how it fitted in a motorhome). Anyway, this chap made a beeline back to the UK like most of us did and was able to sit it out on the quayside. Tucked away out of sight, within walking distance of shops and the Severn Estuary, with the ducks and swans for company, we can imagine much worse places to be confined for a few months.

We’ve kept ourselves entertained chatting with fellow campers and fussing their dogs and watching ducklings scooting about on the water besides us. Out on foot there are a few interesting sights to see too. The mile-long canal here is linked to the historic Lydney Harbour on the Severn Estuary, and was once used to bring goods down from the river to the town. Barges carrying tree trunks from Africa would be unloaded closer to the river where a factory (now a pile of rubble) was built in 1940 to convert the wood for war use, including for gliders used in the 1944 D-Day landings.

A walk from the site, along what used to be a railway line taking coal to the harbour, gifts you pretty cracking views along the Severn Estuary down to the bridges to the south. We could just make out the tiny lorries making the international journey between Wales and England. The estuary’s quite wide here, but across the water a couple of twin buildings stood out, the decommissioned Berkeley Nuclear Power Station. When I say ‘decommissioned’, it stopped generating power in 1989, but won’t be fully cleaned up until the radiation has died away, in roughly 2080, long after I’m gone.

The harbour itself is fascinating. At least for a rapidly ageing old git like myself it is. As the Severn is tidal, lock gates are needed to keep water in the harbour for boats to float about on when the sea’s out (and to keep water in the canal). The harbour here has an inner lock which keep the canal and a yacht marina full of water, and lets boats in and out even when the marina level and river levels differ. There’s also a huge set of outer lock gates which should let larger boats stay afloat in a river-side loading/unloading area. They’ve been stuck open for a few years though, and that part of the harbour is now mightily full of mud. You’d not be wanting to fall into that lot. A soft landing maybe, but it’d be the devil’s own job getting clean. We’ve no idea whether the marina yachts can get past it all, and many of them are now looking decidedly unloved, a real shame.

We had a wee wander into the town too, treated to the departure of a steam train from a nearby station (separate to the modern station, which we could have used to nip down to Cardiff or other city spots if we’d the energy/desire). We couldn’t help ourselves but to wave at the families on board, all of whom couldn’t help but look up from their fish and chips (it’s a special chippy train) and wave back. Is this purely an English thing I wonder, waving to strangers on boats or old trains?

Anyway, in breaking news the FRIDGE IS BACK!!! Yep, it appears to have magically fixed itself and has started working on gas. Nope, we don’t know why. Could be some electrical connection in a switch has worn itself clean through a bit of use? Dunno. Means we can use some sites without mains hook-up now though, and we’ve booked up the next couple of sites down on the Gower Peninsula. Tomorrow, we ride. First down to a Morrisons we’ve spied out near Port Talbot to brim off the cupboards and fridge (to fend off the scurvy while in the wilds), then onwards to the legendary Gower. Jamie, a great Welsh mate of ours eulogized this area to us years ago but we’ve never made it. Finally, tomorrow, we’ll get there.

Cheers, Jay