Site Overview
A large site spread over two areas, east and west . East side is more suitable for families with children as there is a play area and an enclosed area where kids can kick balls around, play football, or basketball / netball. There is a fish and chip van a few days a week as well as an ice cream van, who comes daily in the summer season. So there’s every opportunity for you to get your wallet / pulse out and for you to be relieved of all the cash you’re carrying around.
The site is set in Nene Park and is a short walk from the site to the park itself, which has a lake, playgrounds and a coffee shop – I’d recommend the Lemon Grizzle cake.. It’s also near Overton station which is on the Nene Valley Railway. This is definitely worth a visit if you’re a train buff, or indeed, if you’re not. Staff here are friendly and helpful, we enjoyed the old mobile post office and the chap in there was very chatty and full of knowledge. Lots of old train carriages, including a mobile sorting office, which has been left was it was when it was used. A strangely emotional visit to this carriage, you can imagine it being full of workers as they sorted the post on their travels around the county. It felt almost like any minute now the workers would rush back in. Almost frozen in time.
No vlog to accompany this review, I didn’t get enough footage of the site itself, however, I’ll add some photos of the surrounding area and attractions.
Toilet Blocks
We stayed on the east side and there was one toilet block, which was clean, although possibly not enough toilets / showers during the high season. I’m told the women’s were busier than the men’s I didn’t have personal experience of this!
Site Access
Being spread over two sites you have to check in on one site and depending which you choose you could end up driving out of one site, crossing the road and going onto the other site. Not really an issue, but unique as far as I know. The site is quite near the A47, I recall the very first time we went, over 10 years ago, we had real trouble finding it. However, on this visit I can’t imagine why we found it so difficult.
Wardens
Generally speaking we don’t have a great deal of contact with wardens on site. We say good morning etc. When we arrived onsite wardens were very friendly, and helpful, which is always great and can really make a holiday. The caravan next to us had attempted some sort of land grab. Normally on a pitch at the CAMC sites, you’ll have your car one side, then your caravan in the middle, then the awning on the right.
This family had done exactly that, however, they’d added a windbreak onto their awning therefore they had; car, caravan, awning and windbreak. It didn’t leave us a great deal of space to park our car. A bit cheeky we thought, but wasn’t really bothering us. However, the warden did come around and speak to him, mentioned fire regulations and for some reason the owner of the caravan took the position of wanting to negotiate. If it was me I’d have taken the windbreak down, admitted I was being a bit cheeky and got on with my holiday.
In the end the warden said “keep it up for today, but it needs to be moved tomorrow.” Now, I don’t like to moan, but surely if you’re trying to keep a certain gap due to fire regulations, and there’s a real need for this, it’s not something to compromise on, is it? Were they hoping there wouldn’t be a fire during the night? (Fingers crossed). I don’t get it. Rules are rules. One of the reasons I’ll never be a Warden is that I wouldn’t stand for that, I’d have taken his card off him and revoked his membership, “You’re banned, now get out!” haha. It’s funny as it wasn’t something that bothered me at the time, but as soon as I heard the guy trying to negotiate over rules….
Official Caravan and Motorhome Site Leaflets
East Side
West Side
Conclusion
Great site if you have kids, good play area, ice cream and chip vans. We use Ferry Meadows as a site to take the Grand Children to so we go to the East side and it’s maybe not for the feint hearted ? We did go West side once and it’s a lot quieter. You get asked at reception which side you’d prefer, at least we did. In the evenings the Wardens did speak to people who were outside their caravans at about 9 O’clock, I can only assume they were just politely making them aware about noise. It did work and the site is peaceful at night. Mind you if like our grand children they played on the park all day, they would sleep well!
In truth the children aren’t really the issue and if I were to moan about anything it would be the parents. One decided it was a good idea to play frizbee on a windy day near all the caravans. “Don’t throw it near the caravan” the Dad says. Oh right this is going to end well. We were sitting outside our awning as although it was a bit windy it was quite warm and sunny. Naturally the frizbee hit our caravan. I just looked at the Dad and raised my eyebrows, it might have been my infamous death stare.
“Right kids that’s it, no more frizbee I told you to keep it away from the caravans”, he disappeared into his caravan leaving the kids to get the frizbee and apologies..
So, not meaning to sound snobby, but the side we were on was a bit like that…
Grand child and us enjoyed our time here and this is exactly why we have been members since 2006.
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