As landings go it was exactly like a hard landing that Soviet and American space rockets experienced in many of their moon landings. In early flights these two countries had deliberately crash landed on the moon for experimental reasons. On our first relocation to another camp Peter crash landed the caravan but not by design, and it had nothing to do with any kind of experiment.
The crash landing of the caravan was possibly unavoidable. It was certainly unfortunate. Inexperience played a part but it was also dark and he was on his own, I was coming up the next day. (I say he was on his own but I am not sure two heads would have been better than one in this situation.) He had arrived at the camp in the dark and he didn’t really know where he was, except it was muddy underfoot. It was raining, of course.
There are a few steps to go through when parking (landing) a caravan. Peter put in an extra one that he has since deleted. When trying to lift the caravan off the tow bar he wound the wheel brace too far. It came off at the top, the wheel sat by itself and the caravan crashed to the ground.
He had just had a harrowing drive up a narrow road . He was tired and now here he was quietly despairing in the rain and the mud.
“Oh, we can fix this,” said a voice in the dark.” The voice appeared with a few blocks of wood, one long enough to be a lever. The towbar was levered up. The wheel and brace were reintroduced to each other. There was a bit of a fiddle and a faddle but the caravan rose from the mud.
Two things were learned that night. Firstly in this new life on the road there is always a helpful person. Secondly there is something about winding the wheel up which is important. I am not aware of the logistics but I know the caravan has never hard-landed again.