As we’re getting more used to the caravan, we’ve come to realise that it’s a bit too heavy for us to shift by hand. Although we’ve got a nice flat pitch at our secure storage site, there’s a little slope up to the path which is just too much for us to manage.
We have a secondhand Bigfoot mover that replaces the jockey wheel and provides some power assistance, and a hand winch originally bought to shift boats up a landing slip, and by dint of using both, we can get the caravan out of its parking slot. But it’s a real fiddle. We have to unbolt the jockey wheel, install the Bigfoot, connect it up, then set up the winch, which involves unbolting, extending, and re-bolting it, then correctly position and attach the winch strap. Once the caravan is out, the whole process has to be reversed and the heavy and bulky Bigfoot and winch stowed back in the car.
We went through that performance for the last time yesterday morning, then drove up to Coventry to have a Rhyno Motor Mover fitted. Rhyno had been recommended to us by a neighbouring caravanner at the storage site, who had seen us struggling with the caravan on an earlier outing, and had kindly lent us a helping hand.
I thoroughly approve of his recommendation!
Just unhitch, connect the mover friction wheels to the tyres with a couple of turns of a wrench, switch on, and the caravan moves slowly and precisely using a remote control. It’ll turn on a sixpence to line itself up …
… and back gently in to the narrow parking slot. No more stress that we might be about to hit neighbouring vehicles!
And all via the little remote control gizmo. All that’s left is to put the brake on and disconnect the friction wheels from the tyres for storage.
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