A lot of holidays my partner and I take are spur of the moment decisions and primarily camping is involved somewhere in the UK.

Throwing a tent in the back of a car is easy, together with the sleeping bags, blow up mattress, stove, pots and pans, not to mention also food, toiletries, clothes and entertainment. Oh and we must not forget the dog, dog bed, dog bowls, dog food and her toiletries, well okay plastic bags.

Take away the car and replace it with two bicycles and the list starts to look like a long inventory of unnecessary items.

So last Wednesday morning with a rare weekend free we packed lightly, attached our trailers and cycled down to Oxford station with our passenger, dog and bicycle reservations heading for the coast. Knowing the difficult journey we were attempting to navigate (three trains and 20 miles up hill thereafter) we had decided to book our tickets in person at the Oxford ticket office.

Carefully explaining the vehicles, luggage and animals involved we were sold our holiday transport for a reasonable sum of £130. However, fellow cycle tourists beware we were knowingly sold a connection at Reading station which gave us the grand total of seven minutes to transfer two bikes two trailers, two people and one dog onto a seaside bound train. It was disastrous; our only saving grace was First Great Western’s delays which in turn allowed us to catch the next available train to Exeter. Nonetheless regular cycle/train passengers know if that cycle carriage is full and you have no reservation you have diddly squat chance of persuading the guard to ram anymore in. Luckily for us it was midweek and all the other cyclists were all at work.

However, with that one glitch aside our journey was thoroughly enjoyable. The dog got the hang of changing trains quickly and the trailers remained intact despite some rigorous abuse.

And our praises go out to the staff of First Great Western who routinely advised us ahead of the destination where to find lifts, which platform to run to and where on the platform to stand for the hallowed cycle carriage. Perhaps my only downside was the 20-mile uphill slog to the campsite thereafter.

That list of items regarded as provisions when travelling by car, paired down to necessities by bike even started to look like superfluous items. But when we finally arrived victorious and sweaty, fellow campers were smiling, looking at us inquisitively and I swear some even looked slightly envious of our lack of motor vehicle.

There was even one final bonus when we got there, we got a massive discount on our pitch for travelling without a car and they even let the dog stay for free. Well, she had worked hard for it as well.