Officially, he’s an Adria Twin 640 SGX 60Y, which is rather more of a mouthful. So we’ll stick with Rocky.
We picked him up on Saturday 8th August 2026 from the dealership at Brompton-on-Swale.
After a couple of hours being shown how everything worked, it was time to drive him home. Hayley went ahead in the car and I followed in Rocky.
It had been a long time since I’d driven anything anywhere near that size, so I was a little nervous to begin with. But we made it home safely, and suddenly there was a rather large campervan sitting on our driveway.
Why a campervan?
We’d tried campervanning a few years earlier in a VW Transporter.
Rather deliberately, our first trip was in December. We thought that if we could enjoy campervanning at that time of year, we’d probably enjoy it at any time of year.
The weather was truly awful.
And that led to perhaps the most important thing we learned from the whole trip: if you don’t like it where you are, you can just go somewhere else.
So we did.
We loved that freedom, but we also discovered that the VW was simply too small for us. The idea of having our own campervan never really disappeared, though. It just sat quietly in the background for a few years.
With retirement approaching, the time finally felt right.
We knew we wanted something bigger, with enough space for us and the dogs, a proper fixed bed at the back, seating for four and — rather importantly — its own toilet and shower.
Rocky had exactly the layout we wanted. And, by a happy bit of timing, the local dealership actually had one in stock. No six-month wait. Decision made.
Our first big adventure: about 100 metres
Having finally got Rocky home, we were desperate to spend a night in him. We could, of course, have booked a campsite and gone somewhere for our first trip. Instead, the following day we drove to the paddock at the bottom of our own land.
It was actually quite deliberate. Staying at home meant we could work out what we’d forgotten to put in the van without being too far away from whatever we’d left behind.
Which turned out to be just as well. We forgot the Prosecco.
There were other reasons for staying close to home too. We’d never actually spent a night that far down our own land before. The paddock sits amongst the trees, overlooking the river, and it feels surprisingly removed from the house.
And it gave Chewy and Ted a gentle introduction to Rocky too.
We put the awning out, set up the chairs and started figuring out how everything worked when you actually live in the van rather than have someone at a dealership demonstrate it to you.
Hayley invited her mum, Maisie, down to join us for a glass of prosecco.
A night at the bottom of the garden
As the evening went on, what struck us most was just how peaceful it was. We know the land well, but sitting there with nowhere else to be felt completely different. There were none of the usual distractions we’d have had if we’d stayed in the house.
We saw bats flying around us and an owl appeared during the evening. Chewy and Ted seemed perfectly happy with their new surroundings too — although the alpacas provided some additional entertainment.
It had been a very warm day, so when we eventually went to bed we left all the windows open.
Some time during the night it started to rain and became rather cooler, which resulted in some sleepy fumbling around to close a few of them. Another lesson learned.
And that, really, was the point of the whole exercise.
Our first night in Rocky wasn’t about travelling anywhere. It was about working out how everything worked, what we’d remembered, what we’d forgotten and whether the four of us could actually settle into this new little home on wheels.
We could.
Where next?
We bought Rocky because we want to travel, but we don’t have a great master plan for where he has to take us.
We want to explore more of the UK, sometimes just for a day out, sometimes for a few nights and sometimes for longer adventures. Being able to take Chewy and Ted with us is a big part of that.
And when the time feels right, we’ll venture further afield — Ireland first, perhaps, and eventually across into Europe.
That’s one of the things that appealed to us about campervanning in the first place. We can decide where we’re going. And if we don’t like it when we get there, we can always go somewhere else.
Not a bad first trip. Even if we only made it to the bottom of the garden.