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June 08 issue

Next up, some creatures of the not-so-wild kind – your pets.
I had quite a response to reader team member Adele Bromfield's piece last month (pp44/45) about travelling with your dogs in your motorhome. It seems that many of you like to take your pets along with you when you go on tour, so I thought you might like to hear about a new line recently launched by Halfords.
Did you know that an unsecured, 50lb border collie thrown forward in a 30mph crash would, apparently, fly forward with a force equivalent to more than eight 12-stone men? I didn't, and it makes for scary reading. And, of course, an unsecured pet could cause havoc in the aftermath of a road accident.
The Halfords dog harness seems like a great idea: you simply fasten it around your pet and then plug the harness buckle into the seatbelt clip of your passenger seats. The dog is kept safe and secure but has enough room to sit, turn and lie down while on the move. The harnesses are available in a number of sizes, and cost from £9.99.
Also relevant to us motorcaravanners is the Travel Food and Water Bowl (£9.99), which comes in a handy case, and the Whistle Frisbee (£4.99), which makes a great toy to entertain your dog during journey stops.
Halfords website is at www.halfords.com, or you can find the location of your nearest store by phoning 08457 626625.

I love a good bargain on all things travel-related, and came across a great one this month. I was tucking into a packet of Walkers crisps the other lunchtime (…bear with me, there is a point to this story!) when I noticed a special promotion flagged across the top of my Salt 'n' Vinegar packet.
Walkers is currently running an offer called 'Brit Trips' to promote the greatness of Britain, and the premise is simple: just collect codes from packs of the company's crisps and submit them via the Walker's crisps website; they are then turned into points. Once you have accumulated a few points you can turn them into some great deals at fantastic locations and attractions across Britain.
Because the theme of this month's issue is 'going wild', I took a quick look at the website to see what your points can earn.
The code from one packet of crisps gets you two points, and you do not have to collect many to be able to grab one of the special offers: ten points earns you half-price entry to a Sea Life Centre, and even just five points entitles you to a two-for-one entry deal to loads of attractions nationwide, or free family entry to an RSPB reserve.
When you consider that the crisps cost around 40p per bag, you can see that it is a great way to save money when you are out and about on tour.
There is a good range of other deals, too, including a two-for-one offer on pub lunches (ten points), day passes to National Trust properties (15 points), and two-for-one deals on rounds of golf (ten points).
You can collect points until 31 October this year. To register for the promotion, go to www.walkersbrittrips.co.uk. You can also text points to your account if you don't have immediate access to a computer. When you have accumulated enough, you can trade them in for your special deals. Easy!

Finally, here is a light-hearted warning about using online route finders. The growth of the internet has been a boon to us motorcaravanners, allowing us to research and plan our trips with ease. That is all well and good but sometimes you can't beat a bit of human intervention – as demonstrated to me the other day.
Our technical writer, Phil Curry was on the internet, planning the route for his adventure feature to southern England (see page 12). I heard him chuckling to himself and realised why when he explained to me what he had found. He had been using an online route finder to get road directions between the New Forest and Arne (on the other side of Poole harbour) via Brownsea Island – a journey of no more than 20 miles.
However, entering the locations into the planner's search engine had returned
a journey time of almost 16 hours! We just couldn't understand why until we looked more closely at the suggested route: it told us that Phil would have to drive to Poole, catch a ferry to Brownsea Island, then another to St Malo in France. He would then have to drive from St Malo to Cherbourg (140 miles) before catching another ferry back to Poole, and then drive the 13 miles to Arne. The total distance covered would be a whopping 419 miles. Talk about a wild adventure! So, instead, he used a road map to get there.
It just goes to show that although the internet is great, it can't always beat a bit of good old-fashioned book-based research!
Wherever you go this month on your travels, I do hope that you have a wild time.

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June 08 issue