Under The Moon Of Love (Camping)

Member Name: raehippychick

Product:	Camping
Date:	25/04/07 (737 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap and cheerful

Disadvantages: a fair weather hobby for me

Now, whilst I am a lady who adores wallowing in luxury and being pampered, I also enjoy getting down and dirty too! I grew up revelling in family camping holidays, until I reached my late teens and did the typical volte-face and swore never to spend another night under canvas. In recent years my nights away have been 4 star hedonism, until that is, my lovely fella suggested going camping. Initial reaction? Ew! Bugs and midnight trips to distant loo clutching bog roll and a torch… no thanks! After thinking about it and making a few comfort demands (lilo and pillows to start with) we bought a tent and a few essentials and took a trip down memory lane

Our first night away saw us in Rendlesham, in deepest Suffolk, on one of the sunniest days of last summer. I was pleasantly surprised by the whole experience; tents are now designed be remotely easy to erect, the site was clean, the toilets were spotless and joy of joys, fully stocked with plenty of loo paper! Sleeping under canvas (or nylon as it is nowadays) is a treat not to be missed and ensures a great night of sleep, if not the night of camping if you are scared of owls and strange rustling noises, then definitely the night you get home!

With the glorious weather we have been blessed with this year we have been away already at Easter, again to Rendlesham, but this time with friends who own a caravan complete with awning. I have to say if you have a small tent and know friends like this that you get along with, do go with them as it is great to decamp under the awning when the evening chills instead of shivering around a dying barbecue or cramping up into a tiny tent. A grand time was had by all and in the morning the male contingent left at the crack of dawn to go fishing while us girls curled up in the caravan beds with cups of tea to put the world to rights (okay, we gossiped)

While campsite prices vary, on the whole it is a cheap break, often as little as a fiver a night. We paid £12.50 for our pitch for a Saturday night, yet our caravanning friends are in Lincolnshire this week on a site with all mod cons, pool etc for £55.00 for the whole week. I have yet to find a site without at least a relatively decent loo, although guys seem to find any foliage in the vicinity perfectly acceptable. Many sites have clubhouses, shops and pools. Most sites have electricity points for caravans and larger tents. Perhaps, like allotments, more parts of my childhood are becoming trendy?

To get the most from camping you will need first an open mind, a sense of humour and patience. Without these three you might as well stay home or book in to the nearest luxury hotel. It also helps if you don’t mind getting a bit grubby, as that is all part of the fun of camping and you can wash properly again once you get home; actually this is a good reason for doing weekend trips rather than week long ones, although most places have shower blocks I never feel as clean after using them as I do after showering at home! The first time you go will be a learning experience; in fact the first trip away each year is a learning experience, often consisting of the “who forgot to pack the tin-opener/plug for the lilo/milk…” tiffs

For complete newbies I would suggest a trip to your local camping shop or Millets to have a chat and see if you can pick up a cheap starter pack deal. One word of caution, do NOT try this at Halfords – while their deals are seductively cheap they are not worth the money; we got a tent, lilo, 2 sleeping bags and a lamp for around sixty quid last year... the zips broke on the first night, the lilo still deflates and the sleeping bags were too small and tight for adults! Goes to show; “yer gets what yer pays for” in this life! But at least the bag it all came in still going strong and we have gradually replaced the rest. Incidentally the tent is being recycled into making ‘wings’ to enlarge the windproof area of our fishing umbrella, so it’s got some plus points

With your pile of kit and a location in mind, start making a list of everything you think you will need in a notebook and take the notebook with you because without doubt there will be something you have forgotten when you arrive onsite. Luckily camping is a fairly friendly pastime and if you omit a mallet to whack your pegs most people don’t mind lending you theirs, if you forget your pegs, campsite shops often carry these but at a price, so it really does pay to get organised. I would suggest getting a good-sized box or bag to keep all your gear in. this has worked extremely well for us as it means all the bits and bobs are in one place, and so less likely to get mislaid or forgotten. In the top of our box we have a list of the essentials so that we can easily see at a glance that everything is there. We try to go through all our kit a day or so after we return and clean and repack everything so that when we next want to go off at a moment’s notice all we need to do is grab the box and run away into the sunset

Camping suits all budgets and most lifestyles; from the Winnebago luxury home-from-home campervans to the small one-man tent and bed roll. We go for roughing it with a touch of comfort in a 3-man tent we can sort of stand up in, good airbed, double sleeping bag and real pillows. Other than your tent, bedding, cooking equipment and food there are few things I recommend you pack:

# A torch, because no matter how well lit a site is there is always a dark spot when you make that final trip before bed
# Loo roll (just in case the site runs out)
# A foot pump for your lilo in case the car battery one conks out – you really don’t want to blow up a double lilo like I did our first time last year!
# Bottled water – you’d be surprised how thirty camping is, especially when getting your site set up
# A handful of used carrier bags – great for all kinds of stuff, from dirty washing or crockery to rubbish. And if you are combining fishing and camping you’ll need a way to keep your catch clean on the way home
# Extra tent pegs, do buy a few extra, as you will be bound to bend or lose a few each trip. If you have a tent that uses rubber bands and pegs get some extra bands as these often break or ping away into the undergrowth

No doubt I’ve forgotten some things there, which is why that notebook I mentioned earlier is so useful. Each trip we add another idea or two and sometimes take out something we thought might be useful but have never used

If you have children a campsite is a marvellous experience for them. Our caravanning friends have one 8 year old and a 17 year old and both enjoyed the weekend equally. The 17 year old put our tent up and generally made himself very helpful (interesting how good teenagers are to their parents’ friends while they wont lift a finger to help poor old mum and dad!) round the place, apart from falling over one of our guy ropes and snapping it! As for the 8 year old, well, we hardly saw him as he was off round the site playing with other kids he met there, just as my sister and I did all those years ago – a campsite is a great place for kids to make new friends and it gets them off your hands for a few hours

I personally find camping very romantic… a quiet evening with a barbecue, some wine, the moon and stars and the prospect of snuggling up all night with the excuse that I need to be cuddled to keep warm!

A good website is http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/ that has details of most sites around the UK. It lists site detail and has reviews from people who have stayed at the site

Summary: A fun, healthy and relatively inexpensive pastime