1/2 Stijn with the remains of his festival caravan (photo: Collin Beijk).
For many dozens of hours and hundreds of euros, Stijn stuck (19) and his group of friends from Best in an old caravan. They wanted to use him as a luxury stay at festival campsites. But on Friday afternoon all those festival plans literally went up in smoke. A fierce fire completely destroyed the large caravan. “We worked on it until midnight yesterday.”
Stijn had arranged his father through an acquaintance that he could temporarily store the caravan on a plot on the Broekdijk. That is in the outskirts of Best, right opposite Best Zoo. Around ten for three, a Defense helicopter circles for minutes above the caravan of the group of friends who are already a fire. Moments later, thick black clouds of smoke rise from the Vleut.
“Only the lock is still usable.”
The caravan is completely on fire and also the beech hegs that are parked against, goes up in flames. The fire brigade has the fire quickly, but nothing is left of the construction project of Stijn and his friends. “Only the drawbar lock is still usable, but I don’t think anyone is going to take him with him,” says Stijn with some sense of humor.
But he and his friends certainly do it. “There have been some power senses and swearing words through the phone and over the app, when I sent the first photos and videos to my measurements,” says Stijn as he is a bit embarrassed by De Grote Hoop as. The fire started on the front of the caravan, he thinks, but he has no idea that.
“Very sin, because we were almost ready.”
The group of friends was almost finished converting the old caravan. “It was really a big, a double axle and we were able to take it over for very little because the interior was already out,” says the young Bestenaar. “We have completely rebuilt it inside with laminate in it and plenty of sleeping places.”
It went even further than that. Because the caravan even had its own power supply and every sleeping place had to be provided for power points and USB connections to charge the phones. “With this festival caravan we just wanted to camp just a little more luxurious at festivals than in a tent.” The first festival on the agenda was the 24-hour Solexrace Festival, but the intention was that it would certainly not stay there.
Because they would travel to various festivals with the caravan and therefore had to cross the public road, the caravan would be inspected July 29. “Stijn said yesterday that he had to buy lighting for the outside and that he was disappointed that those lights cost 15 euros each,” says his father. “But yes it had to be done, because otherwise the caravan would not get through the inspection.”
“It will be just a tent again, unless someone has a caravan.”
They can cancel that inspection after the fierce fire, but to the 24-hour Solex race in Heeswijk-Dinther in the weekend of 30 August the group of friends is still going. “Just not so luxurious, but just in a tent,” says Stijn with a smile. “Unless someone still has an old big caravan that we can take over.”
