Running reports
We welcome our latest long-termer, the Adria Altea 472 DS Eden
Tested by Peter Baber Price £16,985 Berths 5 MIRO 1205kg Payload 165kg MTPLM 1370kg Awning size 925cm
IN A NUTSHELL Light and bright inside, and featuring a flexible layout
WE COLLECTED OUR new long-termer just before Christmas. It’s a family van, with front and rear lounges, both of which can be turned into double beds, and a bunk that folds up on top of the double at the rear. Basically, it compromises a little on bed flexibility to give you a caravan that takes up less than 7m of driveway. It certainly proved an easy tow with our Volvo XC40, on our cross-country route from Adria to Camberley. It survived very cold weather fairly well. Unlocking the door on our first day back at the Camberley depot proved a bit of a challenge, thanks to a hard frost, but this would probably have been the case with any van. We got there in the end. And since then, we have taken it for a short spin to one of our regular haunts, the Camping and Caravanning Club’s site at Chertsey, right on the river Thames. Those of you familiar with this site will know that there’s a fairly tight turn on a busy road to get into it. Our outfit, with the Eden again matched with the Volvo, coped well. Despite the noise from nearby roads (including the M3 and M25) it’s easy to forget that you are close to London at Chertsey, partly because the sound of the weir on the river provides a good distraction. We could certainly enjoy the best of the surroundings in a caravan equipped with a huge rooflight and large windows to bring in every scrap of sunlight there might be. It’s an unusual interior, too, in being much more sparse and modern than some caravans we have been used to. With its sleek lines, extensive use of grey, and jersey cushion covers, you almost feel you are in a modern city apartment, rather than a caravan. But that doesn’t mean the Eden sacrifices style for comfort. We did have a bit of a quandary deciding how to lay out the cushions to make up the bed in the rear. In the end we decided that our own system was better than that suggested in Adria’s own pictures. Still, you can call that a good example of flexibility in a caravan. More flexibility comes in the way you can put up the bunk on its own and leave the rest of the rear lounge intact as two parallel sofas. That’s kind of useful, given that the main TV viewing point is here. Perhaps the only thing we thought slightly unusual was having a drawer for cutlery and kitchenware on the opposite side of the aisle to the kitchen, right above the heater. At least this meant the chef was kept warm while making dinner! Finding all this out now bodes well for the future. We are looking forward to enjoying the Eden even more in the months to come – when the weather starts getting warmer and the longer days mean there is even more opportunity to enjoy that light-filled front lounge. ■ For our full Live-in test verdict on this model, see p62