Friday 28th September 2018
Never one to shirk a cliché, my continuing mid life crisis has decided that hitting the highway on my wild hog isn't enough, and that I should add another sadly predictable Dad pursuit into the mix - 'wild camping'. No one is more surprised by this than me.
Let's just get this out of the way - as a lifelong 'non-camper', I have some odd concepts of what does and doesn't constitute 'proper camping'. These views end up offending nearly everybody but hey, I'm used to that...
- 'Camper' vans and caravans don't count - they are little mobile homes, often posher and more expensive than my actual house. I'd love a motorhome myself, and envy those who own one. A marvelous concept. But to me, it aint 'camping'.
- A mattress bunged into the back of a Ford Transit? Comfortable vagrancy minus a view. I appreciate that it allows you to doss in places without hotels, which is fantastic. But again, I don't reckon it's camping, especially when it ends up being in a car park.
- Big cars stuffed with every luxury, in order to recreate an outdoors tupperware version of a typical weekend at home - cooking a curry, washing up, drinking chilled wine etc. Usually in a soulless, sterile grassy field with a communal bathroom block at one end and other 'campers' doing exactly the same. Uuurgh...
- Glamping - essentially an overpriced hotel room with canvas walls and a massive fridge for your humous supplies. No, no and thrice no.
- Generally, if the vehicle in which you arrived is more comfortable as a watertight shelter than the tent you packed - which, with comfy reclining seats, electricity, entertainment, heating and air con, it nearly always is - what is the point? Just sleep in the bloody car. Don't even get me started on Range Rovers...
- Camping should be simple and minimal and not too comfortable. You should carry all your stuff on your back, on public transport, on a pushbike, or at best a motorcycle - ie something you can't sleep in on its own already.
- It should be in tents, and intense.
I have had half a dozen 'in tents' experiences in my life before this trip. They rarely went well. I will recount them now and then throughout this report. Here's the first.
In Tents Experience 1 : 1984 - Tal-Y-Bont caravan park, North Wales.
This was the one I recounted in my tour of Wales entry earlier this year - 'Tenby to The Llŷn Peninsula'. The one where, aged 10, I had to share a very small tent with a sociopathic peer. With excruciating sunburn. Not the best way to inspire a lifelong love of being under canvas, despite the good weather and scenic location...
Score : 3/10
So, as an antidote to all my idiosyncratic qualms about camping 'authentically', the oh so hip idea of 'wild' camping recently took root in my addled head. I started accruing some semi serious gear in order to efficiently get stuff on the Vespa and survive in remote places : a one man bivi tent; a sleeping bag that kept you warm in sub zero temperatures; an inflating mattress and pillow; little cooking stove and mess tins etc. Even a 'spork'! I spent a fair bit of wedge that I couldn't really afford... and worse, I was turning myself into what I had always sneeringly referred to as 'Karrimor Dad' - you know, the types who live in fleeces and walking shoes, even at work.
Still, I was geared up and could potentially take off on another embarrassingly tame adventure. I probably needed to do it soon too, as being late September the nights were already longer than the days. So, given my hang ups about campsites - where to go? Actual off piste 'wild' camping in National Parks etc is illegal in England & Wales, with the exception of certain parts of Dartmoor (too far...). Scotland has always allowed wild camping but that's further still, especially with limited daylight. Some research showed that plenty of people do 'stealth camp' illegally in the UK (and in locations quite near to me such as The Peak District and Shropshire Hills), and my aim is to work up to this before long - but I didn't want my first time to have the added frisson of a potential ranger (or worse, an angry Farmer Palmer) spooking me out in the middle of the night and administering an order to clear off. By all accounts that rarely happens if you are sensible and follow the golden rules of 'set up late, pack down early' and 'leave no trace' - but the possibility would play on my already fragile mind, coping with an already new zone of discomfort.
That said, I simply could not face a campsite with caravans, Transits, psychopaths, loo blocks for reasons which will become clear as you read my limited but melodramatic camping history. So, what to do? Luckily, there seemed to be a compromise.
Nearly Wild Camping is essentially a website that has a map with locations that offer something akin to the wild camping experience but are really just pay per night campsites lacking facilities - but perfectly legal as you have the landowner's permission. You have to pay 20 notes to sign up for a year before they let you see the list of sites - a bit steep I reckon, as there aren't exactly hundreds of them, and only a handful within a two hour drive of my (very centrally located) house. It turns out that most of them advertise directly online anyway, so they are a bit of a parasitical middle man. Such is the modern world. Anyway, I paid my score - you live and learn. At first glance I had a few choices, but when you look closer you see that all of them had fundamental problems such as : they allow camper vans (no!); you share a small field or fire pit with lots of other 'nearly wild campers' (?); they don't allow fires (what? How do you cook?); they are not remote at all but a few yards from the M1 (no thanks, I live right on the M6 as it is - I want to hear nowt but wildlife thanks); or they won't allow a single night - only a weekend or more (I think one night is enough for my first attempt).
One site really appealed. Wonderful Wilderness was within a couple of hours by scoot in Mid Wales, and looked very pleasingly remote. A quick email on the Wednesday asking if one night was possible for the Friday was replied to promptly, and in the positive. We were on!
In Tents Experience 2 : 1986 - A campsite somewhere near Bakewell, Derbyshire
Very hazy memories of this, but I remember I was alone in a tent as Mum and Dad were in the old VW camper van they owned for a few years. Can't remember if any of my 3 siblings were there too but I suspect not as I was definitely sleeping on my todd. Dad thought it hilarious to make owl noises in the early hours to freak me out. Just annoyed me as I knew it was him. Weather was ok. A bit meh in the way that almost everything is when you are 14 - perhaps why I don't remember it well.
Score - 5/10
Friday arrived, the forecast was dry and sunny but cold and I was giddy as a schoolboy. I rode to work in the morning all packed up and ready. At the end of September in Mid Wales the sun sets at about 6:45pm and I finish work at 4pm, therefore I had to make sure I left on the dot to have any chance of getting there and doing my first proper set up before pitch black descended (remember, it was just over two hours away...). I'd had a quick practice in the playing field at the back of our house earlier in the week, setting up the tent and a big 3 metre square tarpaulin as extra shelter (as the tent was too small to sit up in, or store very much). I'd even learnt some basic knots, proper boy scout stylee. I felt as ready as I'll ever be.
It was a pretty straightforward route, and the amber September sun made everything look very pretty (especially after Shrewsbury where the landscape got ever more 'Welsh'). I was lucky in avoiding tractors etc but painfully aware that the clock was ticking and so sadly didn't have time to stop for photos. The owner had warned me that the last few miles were a little convoluted, and to follow the directions on the website, ignoring my satnav which would send me the wrong way. This was very good advice and I was glad I'd spent some time the evening before doing my homework...
The final few miles were a lovely sight, with pheasant, grouse and even buzzards swooping in front of me on the lonely lane deeper into the valley, and the sunlight still kissing the tops of the large hills (small mountains?). Through a large swing gate and over a bridge crossing the stream and I was at the farmhouse. I admit to being somewhat taken aback when the owner Carly appeared - in my ignorance I had expected a sturdy no-nonsense Welsh farmer's wife and instead found myself being greeted by a very friendly, svelte and somewhat glam young southern lady. Pleasantries were exchanged and, aware that the light was fading fast, she gave me instructions to get to my pitch. Apparently, I had the whole place to myself - result! She handed me this hand drawn map (not a photocopy I should add) which I found completely clear and rather charming - I've kept it as a memento.
Back on the Vespa and along a thankfully dry track to dump the gear at pitch 2 (I fancied being next to the babbling brook), then scoot back to the car park to leave it, short walk back to the pitch, and time to get busy. Mars just started to peek out of the ever more inky sky as if to warn me to get a shift on. Tent first for obvious reasons, and before I'd finished it Carly rocked up on the quad bike with a big tub of firewood and a couple of litres of fresh water - very kind. She then bade me good evening and I was left alone...
In Tents Experience 3 : 1994 - Telford, Shrophire
(This was the biggie - the defining experience that put me off ever attempting to camp again for over two decades. Be warned though - there is a LOT of emotional baggage here....)
In May '94 a 20 year old me and my soon to be wife no.1 lived in Stafford, and decided we needed to get away for the weekend. I was feeling quite down due to a frankly far fetched piece of personal bad luck that I'd been through in the week or two before.
You see, a remix that myself and a colleague had done a few months back (for an artist to whom I shall refer as 'The Soul Singer from Slough') had really blown up in the clubs, and was currently sitting in the UK Charts, in the top 5 if you will. That should make us feel great, eh? Well, you'd think so. But it was complicated. Firstly, despite rewriting all of the music for our version (essentially an original composition of ours with the soul singer's vocal on top) we were not given any writing or even production credits (and therefore, no chance of any royalties) by the artist and his management. We got £500 quid upfront when we'd finished it the previous Autumn, which we split. That was our lot. This stung, but it was and still is very common with remixes, sadly. To add insult to injury, the fact that we did it as a 'moonlight' job for another smaller label (NOT the bigger one we had been exclusively signed to for a couple of years, for handsome advances...) meant that we couldn't put our real names on the label either, for risk of breaching our existing contracts.
There was a sweetener on the table though - The Soul Singer from Slough had said that we could stand behind him on his first Top of The Pops pretending to play keyboards that aren't plugged in - you know, as everyone did on dance tracks in the 90s. That would do me! Money is one thing, credit where it's due another - but I'd sack all that off for the immortality of a TOTP appearance. That was, back then, an unarguable piece of evidence that proved to the world that you weren't just pissing in the wind with all this music lark.
So the kindly label boss (none of this was his fault I should add) arranged to take us to the BBC Borehamwood studios in London to attend the Wednesday TOTP recording. We turned up with keyboards etc and had an excited look around the studio (yes, I can confirm that it was indeed titchy compared to how it looked on screen each Thursday at 7:30). We wandered down the corridor to The Soul Singer's dressing room, and were stopped by his manager (a ruthless shark, 25% type) and told of a change of plan - his artiste was now going to have two young models in Wonderbras dancing behind him instead of two spotty spods from Wolverhampton. We had come all that way for nothing. So close to a dream, and stopped at the gate. It was a bit like winning The Lottery and not being able to find your ticket.
I went home despondent but mainly very angry about everything. The tune peaked at no 3 for a couple of weeks - it was unheard of for a tune to go any higher once it had plateaued in the top 10, and both Prince and Take That were tough acts to beat for an independent dance track made in a Tettenhall bedroom. So that was that. My fiancee and I needed to get away and try and forget the whole sorry affair.
We had been invited down to my Mum's place at the seaside in Devon, where the whole of my family were convening for the Bank Holiday. Just the ticket. Thing is, neither of us could drive, and we were too skint for the train fare. So instead we headed off to the balmy climes of a campsite near the famous Ironbridge Gorge, Telford - all of 30 miles away - BY PUSHBIKE. This was the first mistake...
The problem was, she was a champion time trial cyclist with a decent touring bike, panniers etc. I had a cheap Raleigh mountain bike with chunky tires. I was lacking any fitness whatsoever and had the tent and other gear strapped to my back in a huge rucksack. The journey nearly killed me.
The second issue was that the campsite was small, crowded, and full of drunken YamYam youths driving their cars around the site dangerously until the early hours. After dark it was like camping in the high street at chucking out time, only with no police presence. I remember fearing for our safety a few times as the cars sounded SO close, and the guy ropes kept getting pranged by someone or something. At the end of the longest night of my life, we greeted the dawn as nervous, sleep deprived wrecks.
After a bit of sightseeing and a perfunctory afternoon tea and cake at the Iron Bridge, we reckoned we shouldn't suffer another night of hell, or that interminable bike ride, so we decided to throw the towel in and take the bikes on the train home that evening. Before we left I used a phone box (pre mobile days, folks) to call my family down in Devon and wish them all the best for the Bank Hols. My Mum answered VERY excitedly, and I could hear cheering in the background. She congratulated me, and I asked why. 'Where have you BEEN, Richard? Are you not by a radio? Your record has gone to number one! We’re all drinking champagne!'
They were on the bubbly. I had been in Telford drinking tea after one of the worst evenings of my life. I couldn’t even afford a pint. Thus the story of my life plays out...
I didn't go camping again for another 21 years.
Score 0/10
I was very chuffed when I got camp set up fairly swiftly and without problems, as my eyes were just struggling to work in the last faint glow of the early evening. By 8pm I had a fire going and was sitting with a naughty German sausage on a stick, skewered on a couple of tent pegs and roasting nicely over the fire. Belly full, darkness had really kicked in by 9, and I tried to do some moody shots of my camp, only to find that my cheap camera has no option for adjusting exposure times, so they were all coming out as an orange dot in a sea of blackness. The only vaguely discernible one I managed was this very poor effort, using the flash.(Epilogue - The crowning turd in the u-bend was, the week after I got back, I turned the telly on to find The Soul Singer from Slough being interviewed by Richard & Judy about his meteoric rise to fame. Not once did he mention the fact that the tune sitting atop the charts was in fact a remix, let alone give any thanks. If I'd have had a gun, I would have shot the telly...)
So, all my jobs of setting up, eating, and attempting photography were done. Time to enjoy some of that total relaxation in nature that I craved. I was glad I'd bought a high backed camp chair as I could flop my head back and look at the spectacularly clear sky - free from any light pollution, the Milky Way was the clearest I have ever seen it in this country. The fire was so warm I was just in a fleece, despite the temperature being well into single figures. This is what it was all about - so why couldn't I relax?
Well firstly, it was dark. VERY dark. The absence of any moon meant the stars looked great, but also that the landscape was pure ink. This didn't practically affect me as I had a good head torch and lantern and was able to do stuff/move around without problems. No, the issue was actually SOUND. Yes, there were animal noises, some familiar like owls, others new to me and odd, but nothing spooky. I liked the wildlife sounds. It was the babbling brook a few feet away that was putting me on edge. In the absence of much visual stimulus my auditory senses were piqued, and the chaotic, constantly changing frequency spectrum of hissing highs and bubbling lows that was ever present to my right in the pitch black was starting to play tricks on me. I could hear the odd voice, occasional footsteps, even chatter. It was a classic case of 'auditory pareidolia' - the sonic version of that phenomenon that makes us see faces, animals and other 'meaningful' shapes in apparently randomly chaotic sights such as clouds, lunar landscapes etc. I knew this was all it was, but no matter how much I told myself to chill, it was still mildly freaking me out.
I made a brew to try and keep busy which helped for a bit, but before long it was just me trying to ignore that bloody stream and enjoy the evening, but I was just that bit too much on edge to enjoy it completely. Grrr! I read the same paragraph in my Kindle about 50 times, I just couldn't relax. So not long after ten I hit the sleeping bag. Wrapping the hood around my ears, the stream buggered off and I was out like a light....
In part 2 : Will I make it through the night before my mild paranoia shifts to full blown psychosis? Or will the near freezing temperatures do me in first? Click here to read on...
© Rich Lane 2018
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