Bailey Orion 460-5

The Bailey Orion 460-5 has aA unique layout that creates a very separate kids’ zone in the centre of the caravan – and also gives you a full end shower room

Accommodating up to five in a small caravan without everyone feeling cramped – and without an awning being essential – isn’t always practical. Yet the Orion 460-5 comes as close to achieving good daytime space and practicality for five as any caravan we’ve seen.
The five-berth 460-5 was one of two new family-layout Orions added to the range in February 2012; the other is the six-berth 530-6.
The 460-5 is a unique – and very cleverly designed – layout that creates a central family area as well as a full-width rear shower room. There’s a two-person dining area on the nearside, just forward of the shower room – and, opposite, a long settee capable of seating at least four people. This area is clearly defined, separated from the kitchen-lounge area forward of it. There seems to be a kids’ space identity here – and the lounge is equally clearly mum and dad territory, separated from the children’s living quarters by the kitchen, with a wall on its rear end, and a nearside dresser with a Venetian-style blind. It’s here that you notice the difference between a caravan heated by the Truma blown air system – in which there’s the inevitable bulk of a heater in the layout – and one heated by the Whale system which is mounted under the floor, out of the way. In the 460-5 that means the dresser doesn’t have to be designed around a heater.
The excellence in meeting family requirements continues in the showering department…
 

Showering

In a caravan that’s only 5.3m long, it’s a surprise to find a generously-proportioned shower room as well as two living areas. The 460-5’s square shower is on the nearside, with just enough floor space for mum or dad to stand to supervise young caravanners’ showering routine. There’s a square Belfast-style washbasin in the centre (not large, but sufficient in size for teeth-cleaning and hand-washing). A two-shelf cabinet beneath it gives enough space for most of the washing necessities for five.
In common with only two other caravans – both Baileys, the Pegasus Rimini and Unicorn Cadiz – the toilet is mounted on the rear panel. This layout enables a wardrobe to occupy the whole of the offside sector of the shower room – and that creates one of the 460-5’s best features in terms of catering for five. There are two full-width, deep shelves plus full-length hanging space beneath them. The only fault we could find here is that delving for footwear at the bottom would mean you had to reach through the hanging garments.
In short, then, this shower room is amazingly large considering the size of the caravan and its wardrobe is superb.
 

Sleeping

The central family area sleeps three. The nearside dining area makes into a single bed and the settee opposite creates two bunks. The base of the top bed pulls up from the wall. Its mattress lies under the knee-roll-shaped top upholstery of the settee. Which child chooses which bed here will be governed by size – or, rather, weight. That’s because the two bunk beds have mattresses half of the thickness of the one that makes up from the seating on the nearside, so, logically, the heaviest child gets the         nearside bed.
A curtain draws across the corridor between the kitchen wall and the wooden dresser back. Because two thirds of this partition is made up of wooden walls, there’s a very cohesive, cosy feel in the central area when the curtain is closed. But the curtain doesn’t exclude all the light (it’s pale cream) – and none of the conversation noise. A sliding wooden door would have done a much more effective job – but would have added significantly to the weight of the caravan.
The front double bed is created by drawing out a slatted base from a shelf under the removable monopod coffee table.
 

Storage

The needs of five – including the toys, without which no holiday could take place – presents heavy demands on caravan space. The wardrobe is brilliant and the six top lockers all have splitter shelves, effectively doubling their capacity. Small shelf areas at the rear ends of these lockers runs are perfect for DVDs and books.
In the lounge, two deep top lockers on the sides and two more small ones across the front, plus more small shelf areas, are just about sufficient for the needs of mum and dad here.
The real storage plus-point about having three settees and two more dining seats is that there are five under-seating storage areas. None of these lockers has front access and there are no stays to hold up the lids while you delve inside. But when weight is the keynote of this caravan, we think that holding locker lids up is a task you’d be happy to accept.
Storage, then, is brilliant in all areas – except one. That’s the kitchen, of which more later.
 

Lounging

There’s actually seating for 10 in this caravan – and that’s a big statement for a caravan that’s only 5.3m in body length.
The front lounge seating isn’t long enough for kick-back relaxing – but one lucky person can bag the central offside settee. The television points are on the dresser; if you raise the Venetian blind you can turn the TV to face the offside settee and get cosy with some cushions supporting your shoulders in the alcove created by the wall of the shower room as it curves forward towards the door.
Everywhere you look in this caravan you can envisage family needs being catered for…

 
Dining

That goes for mealtimes, too. With two eating at the central dining table and four more at the freestanding table in the lounge, that’s everyone plus a guest accommodated. And when it’s just coffee and cake, you can clip on the small semi-circular, monopod table at the front.
 

Kitchen

The kitchen, though, doesn’t match the brilliance we see elsewhere in the 460-5. There’s one big problem here: where do you put food, other than in the fridge? There’s a small cupboard under the oven, but that will probably be entirely occupied by pans. The top cabinet, alongside the microwave, is generous is size – but all of this space will be taken up by tableware. There’s only one solution: the cook needs to take over some of that brilliant storage space under the settees. If we bought this caravan we’d buy a couple of plastic storage boxes of the right dimensions to sit comfortably under one of the seating areas and load it with the fruit juice cartons, rice, pasta, canned foods, perhaps… It just takes a bit of creative thinking to get around the problem. The point made here is that, in order to give five people not just beds but good daytime space too, there has to be a sacrifice in a caravan with an internal length of just 5.3m.
Cooking equipment is a combination grill-oven and three burners in a triangular hob; that shape means that there’s a central area in the kitchen for food prep. We think cooking for five here would take a lot of good organisation – but it could be done, even if serving food onto plates has to be done on the tables.
 

Towing

Orions have their gas compartments amidships; in the case of the 460-5 it’s on the nearside, intruding into the living area to create the dresser. But that means there’s no gas to weigh down the nose. The 460-5’s designers, though, have produced a well-balanced model with, our measurements showed, an unladen nose weight of around 44kg – and on the road it behaved predictably stably, and its short length made manoeuvring onto pitches a doddle.

The Bailey Orion 460-5 must be regarded as one of the mos inventive family layouts ever; the key to its success is the multi-purpose area in the centre of the caravan, and the fact that this caravan is so light in weight