Radcot Bridge - aka Orc Island

I suppose, dear reader, that we must start at the beginning.  I shall however take poetic licence and say we should start at the beginning of our caravanning  adventures and leave out the one or two experiences in the trailer tent.  That's not to say we didn't enjoy ourselves, more testimony to the hours it takes to put said trailer tent up of a Friday evening.

So, we come to it, what its all about.  Our first place on the map is a lovely small CL belonging to the Caravan Club.  Yes dear reader, you need to belong to the Caravan Club to be able to stay here.  And being a CL, they can only take five (5) 'vans.  Good job too, as from the pictures you can can see there isn't space for any more.

Facilities wise, its pretty mulch zilch, nada, nothing.  There is a water supply and somewhere to empty the elsan, but that's it and certainly no EHU.

On the other side of the list, there is the river, the fresh air, the greener, the pub, the river, plenty of walks, the pub, BBQing space, the river, the pub.  You get the drift.

Welcome to Radcot Bridge.  A lovely place as you can see here.

The five 'van only site

The Thames at Radcot

The CL site is actually a small island on the Thames, it being created by the Thames deciding to go a few different routes through here.  The bridge of the non navigable part of the water waterway is in fact the oldest remaining bridge over the Thames, which from the map below is the bottom of the three river ways.

 There is also a rally field for this site, which is away down a small drive and not visible from the CL site.

There is also a nice pub very near by at the entrance to the CL, which serves Ale and Food.  What else do you need? 

I have been here twice now, once in 2006 and once in 2011, the later being the weekend of the Royal Wedding and the first being during the World Cup.

These pictures are from the 2011 visit and as you can see when compared to the above pictures from 2006, not a lot has changed.

There are, believe it or not five vans on this site.

My friend Colin's shed.

From across the river.

Kid friendly?  Sure, as long as they can swim

We stayed here with the other member of the 500 Guild; Colin and his family.  Long term caravanners and good friends of ours.  No doubt I shall speak more of them in other posts.

Now, to finish off this review of Radcot Bridge, I must point out that across the other side of the river is a public campsite, and that at the time of our visit in 2006, it was a little rowdy with youthful noise, so it was this time that we penned this site 'Orc Island'.

Dear reader, we had no issues at all with those or even from those inhabiting Orc Island, so I would recommend this Caravan Club site to you.

At the time of writing we are planning another trip to Orc Island in September, but this time to do some fishing.