It was all going so well. I had successfully connected our splendid caravan to the borrowed tow car, just as instructed. I had driven the lumbering ensemble from the pickup point along miles of West Country lanes and at journey’s end managed to reverse the whole caboodle in the general direction of our allotted chunk of seaside Dorset.

Actually the size of our “pitch” would have comfortably berthed an ocean liner – but I think our kindly hosts had seen us coming. “New to this, are you?” Yes. Completely. This novice in the art of holidays awheel had bravely invited two 11-year-old boys along for the ride to witness every Mr Bean-like encounter with truculent towbars and the mysteries of vacuum loos. There was plenty of room for pratfalls and “Why did you do it that way, Dad?” humiliations.

But so far, so good. I could hitch – could I pitch? The boys looked at me quizzically. Here we were on a cliff top overlooking Lyme Bay, the late summer evening was fabulous, the sea shimmering enticingly below. I can do this, I thought, as I twitched the Land Rover Discovery from left to right and nudged our gleaming van into position (think riding a bicycle backwards).

I did the unhitching, just as I had been taught on my – essential – training day two weeks before with the Camping and Caravanning Club.

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On with the brake and down with the jockey wheel, crank, crank and the jacks at each corner did their hoped-for steadying act. Connect up the waste tank and fill the clever push-along water barrel. Hook up the electric cable, gas bottle turned on. The sausages were in the pan.

Ready to go, I thought. Not quite. Life with a caravan, as I would discover, is a constant battle against inanimate objects. Like a ship in a gale, anything that can come loose will. The chilli sauce bottle had jumped out of the cupboard and curled up in my sleeping bag. The frying pan’s contents had hunched to one side like lifeboat seekers on the Titanic. “Dad, it’s all wobbly,” said Joseph. His friend Toby thought it hilarious.

Picking up our caravan “clean” – ie, with no provisions – from a service centre on the Dorset border, I had brought with us “just enough things for an equivalent stay in a hotel”, plus a saucepan or two. Oh, and some groceries. It was all as I had been advised.

But I had failed to bring a spirit level. Nobody told me about that. It was time to obey the first rule of caravanning: never feel shy about asking for help. Barry, super-efficient site manager at Highlands End Holiday Park, near Bridport, arrived to explain the art of “chocking” – placing bits of wood at appropriate points on the ground to keep the mighty Swift Challenger on the level. Everything went so much better after that.

Ask for help – and meet your neighbours. It’s another caravanning must. We were surrounded both by young families and old pros who had been doing this stuff for years. Their encampments were as well equipped and efficient as corporate hospitality chalets. “Corkscrew? Of course.” “Washing-up liquid? Borrow ours.”

We all got used to the rhythm of the shower block and the standpipe. We turned in with the sunset and rose with dawn. I plunged my postbreakfast arms into the foaming suds, chatting to fellow washer-uppers in alfresco solidarity. Now I was one of 1.7m UK caravanners.

Our plan was hardly ambitious, a nice, pottering itinerary that would take us from Bridport to Exeter, four nights and three pitches in parks of equal friendliness and cleanliness, the two ingredients that make for nomadic happiness. The days of plonking yourself in some farmer’s field are long gone – it’s all hot showers and flush loos now. And there were lessons to be learnt along the way – such as avoiding town centres and being happy to cruise at 55mph.

That’s why, like buses, caravans all come along at once. But once you’ve made your pitch, you’re free! Your lumbering tow car turns into a sprightly runabout to take you wherever you will. We had some super holiday fun – an outing to the excellent Occombe Farm, near Paignton, a kind of “this is where food comes from” live lesson for townie kids (with organic farm shop attached).

We had Enid Blytonesque adventures in the Beer Quarry Caves, and an exhilarating RIB ride from West Bay near Bridport along the Jurassic Coast to Lyme and its fossily beaches.

“Look, there’s our caravan, up there on the cliff top,” I found myself saying excitedly as we zipped over the waves. I could hardly wait to get back inside and put on more sausages.

The Camping and Caravanning Club one-day manoeuvring course, £90, 0845 130 7631, www.campingand caravanningclub.co.uk; Swift Challenger 530SB caravan supplied courtesy of Weymouth Caravans, near Blandford, 01258 880 786, www. weymouthcaravans.co.uk; Highlands End pitch from £22, 01308 422 139, www.wdlh.co.uk; Oakdown Holiday Caravan Park, Sidmouth, £20.25, 01297 680 387, www.oakdown.co.uk; Webbers Park, Exeter, £18, 01395 232 276, www.webberspark.co.uk (prices for touring caravan plus car per night with electric hook-up, high season); Occombe Farm, free entry, 01803 520 022, www.occombe.org.uk; Beer Quarry Caves, family ticket £16.50, 01297 680 282, www.beerquarrycaves.fsnet.co.uk; Jurassic Coast boat ride, adult £15, child £10, 01308 423 479, www.lymebayribcharter.co.uk; Rural Escapes brochure, www.enjoyengland.com/ruralescapes

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