A fellow camper reverses into our caravan.

We’d arranged for an early start last Monday morning (21st June) to travel to the Ina Garage at Tivat airport, the only place in Montenegro (apparently) to get our portable camping gas recharged. We wanted to get this done before our trip the following day Tuesday (22nd June) to the North of Montenegro to visit the two UNESCO national parks Durmitor (which has the deepest canyon in Europe) and Biogradska Gora (which has the only rain forest in Europe).

In the process of us getting ready for our early 8am start, around 9am whilst I was finishing a cup of tea in bed chatting to Steve, who was at the foot of the bed, there was an almighty thump to the rear of the caravan which sent me flying across the bed (luckily no tea spilt) and knocked Steve off his feet into the bathroom door.  Steve regaining his balance flew out of our caravan to see what had happened. I could hear him shouting “stop, stop, stop” whilst I was following close behind, throwing on clothes en route for modesty, to join him.

Our right hand side neighbour had reversed his motorhome into us whilst he was negotiating (badly with all the gear and no idea) his way out of his pitch in order to leave the campsite. 

This is a picture of another Motorhome (post accident) showing the location of the right hand pitch in relation to us plus the more than adequate space to manoeuvre a Barnsley Bus. You can see that the driver (from now on called the ‘culprit’)of the accident should have, as every neighbour before him had done, driven forward out of his pitch turning left into the road until fully on the road (the Poacher was not there at the time as we always leave pathways clear), then continuing on the road reversed parallel to our caravan to straighten up facing forward to drive away. Not, as he did, a short cut on to our pitch and into us. Simples!

Looking at these photos, post accident, you can see how much he misjudged the space reversing into us instead of the road. It’s the distance between the left hand side of his unit and the consequential damage to the right above his light cluster. Cupid Stunt!

Luckily, we hadn’t left early as planned or we would have missed the incident. I see ourselves as lucky because the damage to our caravan only looks superficial and I am unsure if the culprit would have lingered to own up or just driven off!

This neighbour was part of a five unit rally group who had been on the campsite for about four or five days. All that time our caravan was in the same place, well within our pitch boundary. Indeed on a daily basis we nodded hallo to each other.

On the other side of us our lovely German neighbours François and Heinke (the people with the pedal powered inflatable kayak and who helped us eat the delicious Krempita) were about to leave the campsite when the incident happened. As onlookers gathered they stopped to help out with translating. Confident that the culprit and rally tour guide spoke pretty good English, with the rest of the rally group witnesses to the collision and after checking we were OK they left for their next campsite.

The accident was all so stupid and totally avoidable if the culprit (1) had used a slower reversing speed (2) had used the road instead of our pitch (3) his wife was standing at the back of their unit, instead of munching in the passenger seat (or indeed any other member of the rally with eyesight), as is normal to guide drivers of long units out of their pitch space (4) they had used walkie talkies as we do (5) he had used his driver’s wing mirror OR (6) any combination of the above.

The impact was so forceful that the motorhome pushed our caravan steadies completely off their ramps by a full 12cm. I know this because having seen the 1999 film The Bone Collector where Angelina Jolie placed a currency note against a footprint to calculate its size in the rain before it was washed away, I raced for a tape measure to mark the distance the steadies had been moved off their ramps before taking my photos of evidence. It wasn’t raining, there wasn’t any urgency but I felt a bit of drama was appropriate as in the absence of ‘police keep clear tape’ it reminded me of a very good film.

We did the usual (leaving out the war and football) of exchanging insurance and contact details. Luckily we think that the impact damage is minimal, just superficial marks on the corner frame, and we’re hoping that the structure integrity of the caravan hasn’t been compromised, i.e. safe to drive.  We won’t really know until we drive a bit of a distance to test it which could be this Saturday to Albania.

To get the caravan back on its steadies, which were now hanging in thin air, meant emptying, detaching and taking down our awning, disconnecting services of water and electrics, raising all four steadies (two at the front and two at the back) then reversing the caravan using the motor mover off the pitch, driving it forward back into position, lowering the steadies and adjusting the levels on the ramps for the two at the back, re-erecting the awning and reconnecting services. It’s not a 2 minute job especially in heat.

It was now well beyond mid-day and we had missed our slot to get our gas which is only dispensed in the mornings. We decided to delay our trip by a day by getting the gas the following morning and travelling North on Wednesday.

Being a total optimist – it could have been worse, much worse. We could have lost our travelling home and that could have really spoilt the trip!

View from the Cockpit

So I got upset a bit !! Well it is our home, and we cannot get around without it. Only problem is I can’t test it, until I tow it and I don’t relish the packing-up process, which takes a few hours, the day before. Most of Tuesday was spent filing an insurance claim, to Herr Groll’s Insurance Company and collating the pictures of the accident. I had to create a new folder, “Caravan Accident 2” which goes nicely alongside the folder “Caravan Accident 1” which was the lorry wing mirror I scraped in Barcelona this March.

Oh well – SH*T happens.

Late edit – As the German Team Manager said to his players.