Are you afraid of the dark?
You know that feeling when you’re away, sleeping in a new place, maybe in a hotel or the house of a friend or relative, and as you try to go to sleep you become aware of different things around you. Your senses are heightened and you become aware of every little sound, every shadow, anything different to sleeping at home.
Sleeping in Rex, our motorhome, is sometimes a little bit like that. The bed in the top bunk of Rex is HUGE! It’s bigger than the king-size bed we had at home. It’s also super comfortable, with a lovely mattress and an added memory-foam topper. Combine this with a lovely, big down duvet and cosy pillows and we’re in bed heaven, sleeping like babies!
However, it’s not just about the bed in Rex, it’s about where Rex is that makes all the difference to our sleep. We’ve stayed in some amazing places where there is no light pollution at all. It’s awesome to be able to see so many stars in the sky in places like this, especially if you’re brave enough to step outside, because of a darkness like nothing else! It’s as if the darkness can grab you and make you disappear. It’s certainly not a darkness I’d ever experienced before, living in Portsmouth with streetlights outside my bedroom window. Some of the darkest places we’ve been have included Duckpool and Colliford Lake on Bodmin Moor.
Luckily, Stuart is brave enough to take Luna out for her late night business at times like these, but even he felt a shiver of fear when he had to go out in a place like this after watching a scary film.
In Rex, you can also hear a lot more than you would in a house. You can hear lots of outside sounds. There could be animals, like moor ponies or cows, chickens, birds including owls and woodpeckers, clocktowers, other cars, people… Anything. Unfamiliar sounds when sleeping, especially in those exceptionally dark places, can be a bit disconcerting to say the least.
Finally, there’s the weather! We’ve already talked about how the wind can make Rex feel more like a ship than a motorhome, and getting shaken about can definitely wake me up with a start! Rain can also be fun, especially big downpours or hail which can sound deafening! And rain when parked under a tree is worse; for ages after the rain has stopped, the tree will perform a certain type of water-torture on Rex and us… Drip… Drip… Drip… And let’s not forget thunder, like the biggest thunderclap I have ever experienced when we were in Arisaig, Scotland, and the thunder made the ground shake!
Sleeping in a motorhome is definitely very different from sleeping in a house, but I wouldn’t change it for a thing. We both sleep great, especially when not parked under a tree. And the top bunk is super cosy! One of the best things is trying to tell the time by the sounds of the dawn chorus or how light it is outside. Not to mention the windows giving us beautiful views of the sunrise (as long as we’re not in a supermarket carpark).
