to Eribafolk and good luck in your search.

Hi All. Quick update. We visited Tony at Eriba Caravaan Sales today to find out more about Eriba caravans. What a great guy he is. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting and talking with him and learned lot. Being honest, we'd begun to wonder whether we could realistically manage the Eriba thing but today changed all that. Fell in love with an older Puck and think we may go for that. We'll find a way around the obstacles and we want to give it a go. Just great to have a reasonably local Eriba guru, aficionado and dealer who strikes us as the best insurance a newcomer to Eribas can have against buying a lemon. So now we need to find out more about:

1) Best way/cost/company for insuring an Eriba
2) Should we join Caravan Club or Caravan & Motorhome Club (were they formerly the Camping & Caravanning Club aka 'The Friendly Club'?). We're now two 60+ adults with two small dogs and wanting smaller/quiet/scenic sites and we expect to tow with the Bongo and (in fairish weather) to be able to park Bongo next to the Puck and/or attach our Khyam Motordome side awning to either the Puck or the Bongo (which is an unconverted one and I recall some CC site managers can be funny about those though once we're towing a caravan I'd hope not).
3) On board power options for the Puck. This one has no heater but we think a small oil filled radiator will be good for hook-up and we can use the space instead for a porta potti. We'll have to scratch our heads about wild camping though I doubt we'll do much of that anyway and almost certainly not out of season. To keep the Puck light for manouevring (I'll need to manhandle it on and off a drive with a very slight slope) we're thinking we won't fit it with a leisure battery. When hooked up on site we'll get power that way and if wild camping we can either take power from the Bongo leisure battery (and that is replenished by a 100w solar panel) and or/use portable USB rechargeable/LED lighting as these are cheap, effective and efficient these days. The fridge is a 3 way so we can use gas or 240v on hookup but we may have a problem when towing as the Puck has a 13 pin connector I think but the Bongo has a 7 pin (for trailer lights only) supply. Not sure how we sort that but will start looking into it.

All and any thoughts on the above would be most welcome as we've a lot of learning to do!

Excited? Us? Just a bit :-)

Mike & Trish

We came away with our Puck L from Tony after 3 visits about a year ago, on each occasion he had plenty of patience with us.

His YouTube channel is a great reference for people starting their Eriba journey & deciding which layout best suits their needs.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaZ6JWS...sable_polymer=1

People will now know why you called him "The Quiet Man".

Thanks all and yes we've been watching his channel for a while and its a great help. We've a Khyam Motordome that we use with the Bongo and Tony confirmed that will work fine with the Puck also. Its a great awning, handles any wind and has big flyscreen protected openings for when its hot. And it is VERY quick to erect (only the Quecha pop-ups would beat it I think but they're not nearly as nice accommodation:

https://youtu.be/jBdpXph1QGM

...of course, with any awning, its the pegging out of guy ropes etc that still takes time and back bending ha ha ;-) (though the Motordome has very strong hold down points at the four pole bases so in light winds you could opt not to use guy ropes at all). And of course you won't be forgetting the poles as they're built in :-)

I realised I'd got my camping clubs the wrong way round in my earlier ;post - its the Caravan Club that's changed its name. I used to hear stories of them being rather haughty, but that was I think perhaps mainly because they are the choice of older campers wanting quiet (so people with kids who want to play might feel snubbed), they are very neat and orderly, and they don't always allow unconverted Bongos like mine, which can make planning hard if you turn up having booked only to be told you can't stay. But I'm guessing that once you have a caravan, what's towing it is irrelevant (within reason!). And I think I heard they are the best for small secluded sites? We'd ideally want pitches with a hardstanding for the Eriba I guess but with grass adjacent for the Khyam to be placed over and pegged down. We'd welcome comments on all this as we want to get it right in choosing which club to join. C&CC also seem a little cheaper + with 10% discount for pensioners, though I was struggling to find out what that works out to on their site plus if one of us join can both of us camp (when together)?

The differences between the clubs are relatively small. The C&CC sites all have tent camping facilities as 'Camping' is part of their name. When we've used their sites I have to say they've seemed noisier, or as some might say, more lively.

The CC (or more lately CMC) do have a few sites where tents are allowed but a lot don't.

When you book in at a CC site they ask you to choose a vacant pitch and let reception know which one you've selected. On C&CC sites you're usually allocated a pitch and a warden guides you to it.

My C&CC membership lapsed a couple of years ago so I'm not certain of their charges etc. The CC membership allows a 'Joint Member' to be added at no extra cost.

Thanks for the advice steamdrivenandy and sorry all for being quiet. We've been busy making our decision but yesterday became the very happy owners of Penny Puck (Trish named her), a 1992 Puck in very good condition, bought from Tony at Eriba Caravan Sales who was (as you've all said) an absolute pleasure to deal with. We're looking forward to fettling it to get it how we like it (new curtains etc) and then to some great adventures. The Puck came with a 'pyramid' shape sun canopy which we've yet to try putting up (we'll probably use our Khyam Motordome Tourer as our extra room but its nice to have this accessory anyway). It also had another piece of material/tenting which we have no clue as to the purpose of. If this link works it should show a picture of it:

Mystery tenting sheet~material, showing velcro strip along one edge and loops on the other

If anyone has a clue what this is and can advise we'd be very grateful.

We've joined the Caravan Club as they seemed to have best sites for places we'd like to stay, and we took out insurance with them also.

Let the good times roll :-)

Mike & Trish

If the material has velcro along an edge then there should be a corresponding edge somewhere else.
Happy camping.

You seem to be inundated with help and advice so I can only you to the forum.
Tom & Margaret

Quote: mikeonb4c wrote in post #1

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Hi.

Just joined the forum as me and my partner are thinking seriously about buying an Eriba caravan (we have looked also at Freedom caravans but the Eriba seem nicer even if prices tend to be higher for this iconic design). We’re very uncertain about a lot of things:

* I get the impression Eriba build quality is fairly bullet proof but are there things we need to watch out for especially as we might be buying something that is 20+ years old after all as our budget is limited?

Phew – that’s a lot of questions. We’d be grateful for any thoughts or comments any of you might have and thanks in advance.

Mike & Trish

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