IN WHICH I
  • ... Write
  • ... Explain

A post-thunderstorm microadventure

20/6/2016

12 Comments

 
The summer solstice was approaching, #30DaysWild was in full swing, the Summer Microadventure Challenge had been issued and the weather forecast was absolutely miserable. It was time to extract our bivi bags from the dark recesses of the cupboard and find a hill to sleep on.
Backlit hills and fields
Good things come to those who persevere!
It had been a while since we last slept wild (on the verandah of a beach box on the winter solstice) and to be honest, I was feeling a bit uninspired. It’s the kind of apathy I get about walking when I haven’t been out for a long hike for a while: it’s not that I don’t want to do it, I just find it hard to muster the motivation to actually start. My mood wasn’t helped by the weather. On the way to work, we drove past the bit of South Downs where we planned to sleep. The hills were engulfed in drizzly clouds. I thought of saturated grass, chalky mud and clammy, insect-infested air and I shuddered.
Cumulus clouds
Ooh, I love a good cumulus cloud!
Low foggy cloud on hills
Low clouds sweeping over the hills gave the landscape a somewhat ghostly atmosphere.
As the work day progressed, though, my anticipation built. I was invigilating exams and there’s nothing like being cooped up in a small room with nothing to do for hours on end to reignite your desire to spend some time outside. The forecast was looking up, too: the rain was due to stop at 11pm, then 9pm, then 6pm. Perhaps we’d be dry after all!
Grey clouds
Now for something completely different: clouds! This time, reflected in a puddle.
Clouds and radio masts on hill
A hint of sun - enough to keep our hopes up.
But in the afternoon, the weather whipped itself into a right state. I left work in the midst of a massive thunderstorm, complete with torrential rain and flashes of lighting. My colleagues wished me well and hoped they’d see me alive on Monday. In the car, Dan and I looked at each other and made the kind of deal that civilised people make. We’d do some last minute shopping for snacks, get ourselves a nice big dinner of pizza and then head up to the hills. We’d take our packs and go for a walk. If we got out to the spot we were hoping to sleep and it was still bucketing down, we’d go home. If not, we’d stick around for the night.
Radio masts with dishes
I know 3G doesn't come from these masts, but I still feel like their presence should mean we have good internet reception on the phone. (It didn't.)
Grassy path
The path over the South Downs. Note the skylark in the foreground!
It was still raining when we finished shopping at 7pm. It was still raining when we finished our pizza at 8pm. It was still raining, just, when we drove into the car park. But as we wandered along the hilltops, the weather cleared. A few chinks appeared in the grey, revealing blue sky above. In the west, crepuscular rays pierced through the clouds, panning across distant ridges and valleys.
Sunset clouds and scenery
The first hint of what was to come - and we thought this was pretty speccy.
Clouds and crepuscular rays
By now, you might have gathered that I like clouds. Quite a lot.
We took our time along the path, detouring through raindrop-jewelled grass to recce potential campsites. What combination of view were we after? Sheep, cows, crops, sea, downs, levels, harbour, river valley, town, sunset, sunrise? There were plenty of options, but we struck most of them off our list when closer investigation revealed copious thistle cover. Ouch.
Thistle in the grass
Thistle do nicely . . . or not. Unfortunately, not all thistles are this easily spotted!
wet grass
Raindrops gleaming in the sunset, like fiery little jewels in the grass.
The shifting clouds, delicate mists and evening light created gorgeous, ephemeral scenes. I could barely tear my eyes from the unfolding drama on the hills across the way. Every time I looked around, the landscape seemed to surpass itself in beauty.
Sunset
The line of clouds on the last ridge burnt a fierce gold in the sunset.
Hills, levels, mist, sunset
(Imagine me gesticulating wordlessly, or saying, "Wow!" over and over.)
Finally, as we reached our destination, the sun broke through, setting fire to the mist, flooding the downs and valleys with gold. I decided then and there that even if I had a terrible night, even if I was cold, damp and cramped by the end of it, the microadventure would have been worth it, just for this view. It had definitely rekindled my taste for wild camping.
Sunset hills of gold
#NoFilter
Hills flooded with yellow sunset mist
Still #NoFilter. Seriously, look at this! Do you see the windmill?
Eventually, as it always does at this latitude, the sun sank below the horizon. We retraced our steps a short way and plonked our things down beside the path. A couple of blokes in camo gear trooped past and we exchanged some effusive words about the evening (“Good night for it” / “It turned out pretty nice after all”), then we started to set up. There was only one problem: it had been so long since I’d used the tarp that I’d forgotten all my knots. Luckily, Dan was on hand with the sensible suggestion that I refer to the intertubes. I stomped off with the phone to find a spot with 3G and a little while later returned victorious with a fresh understanding of the tautline hitch. In just a few minutes more, we were brushing our teeth and snuggling down into our bags.
Sunset and coastal town
Looking the other direction, out to sea.
Sunset sky and silhouetted grass
A wild-camper's-eye-view. Good night.
It was a surprisingly comfortable site. We’d put the picnic rug down to keep the worst of the wet at bay, and the long grass provided quite a nice mattress. My annoying pillow that always deflates deflated, so I used a stuff-bag full of clothes for my pillow instead. (I’d ordered a new pillow online, but we hadn’t been able to pick it up during the week.) Below us, the town lights twinkled and the highway hummed. Above us, a few late night flights headed out from Gatwick and over the Channel. I fell asleep. At one point I woke up thinking someone was shining a light onto the tarp, but it was just the nearly-full moon, sailing clear of the clouds. A clean breeze rippled through the long grass. In the distance I heard a cow calling her calf.
Tarp beside the path
Look! There's our tarp, right next to the path.
Pot of porridge
Uninspiring porridge to finish off the adventure. At least it was hot!
The next thing I knew, it was light, and the air was full of skylark song. There must be hundreds of skylarks up on the South Downs at the moment - or half a dozen very noisy ones that follow us every time we go for a walk. I tried to go back to sleep (it was just after 4 o’clock), but the birds and other aspects of nature were calling. We packed, then Dan wandered off to look at the view. He reported that the tarp was very well camouflaged in the grass. A couple of keen mountain bikers sped past just after 5am, grinning hello. Soon we were walking back to the carpark, where we cooked breakfast under the watchful eyes of rooks and jackdaws.
(Later that morning, Dan collected my new Exped Air Pillow XL from the post office. I tried it out on the living room floor and declared it to be good. I’ll test it properly next weekend in an unusual venue . . . stay tuned!)

Year of Sleeping Variously: Tarp on a hill edition

Tarp with sleeping gear under it
  • Bed (3/5) - Surprisingly comfortable and surprisingly dry, all things considered. At least one point needs to be docked for my annoying pillow.
  • Room (3/5) - Our lightweight tarp pitched using hiking poles. I'm always surprised by how much floor space we get, even if headroom is a bit minimal.
  • View (5/5) - The sunset was so beautiful, I think it's in the top 10 views of my life so far!
  • Facilities (1/5) - There was a small tree? And back at the carpark there was a bench (no table).
  • Location (5/5) - Perfect spot, and handily between work and home, so we can easily stop off again on a Friday night . . .
  • People (4/5) - Docking one mark here for my own grumpiness when I couldn't remember the knots to pitch the tarp!
  • Food (1/5) - The choc-chip biscuits from Waitrose were pretty tasty, but the tea and porridge were not very inspiring.
  • Value (5/5) - Free! And good! Well done, South Downs, would stay again.
  • Uniqueness (5/5) - Wild camping is pretty much the only way you can enjoy this view overnight, so yeah, it's unique.
  • That indefinable something (5/5) - The sunset has to count for at least two or three points, and then there was the skylark song, the clean smell of grass all around, the moonlight . . .

​Tarp on a hill verdict: 74% (but a really, really excellent 74%!)

If you’re interested to see what others have been getting up to outdoors this month, check out the #30DaysWild and #MicroadventureChallenge tags on social media.

12 Comments

Year of Sleeping Variously: A Couple of Updates

3/6/2016

4 Comments

 
Last time I sent a dispatch from a bed not my own was to tell you about our tent in the garden adventure. Our trip to Australia in March/April also involved sleeping in spare rooms and on aeroplanes, but there are no photos of those shenanigans. Back in the UK, the glorious month of May was bookended by long weekends - and here’s where we slept for those.

Suffolk

Two lambs
Two Southdown lambs. Look at those teddy bear faces and wooly socks!
We spent the first long weekend in Suffolk with a couple of lovely friends. We booked a holiday cottage that turned out to be on a rare breeds farm in the middle of the countryside. It was fairly close to the minster where we wild camped last July, so we went on a couple of walks in that direction. As well as walking, we spent the weekend lazing in the sunshine eating and drinking, exploring the cute church nearby and playing board games. On the way home, we dropped in to the local May Day Fair, where I picked up a good supply of jams, chutneys and marmalades.
Church with round tower
A church in the middle of nowhere. We learnt about Champing here - stay tuned for adventures on that front!
Bird on dead grass
A male linnet, IDed by notso at bus-stop birding.
Chook and lamb
A chook and a lamb. Too cute.
Yellow flowers
The rapeseed (canola) was in full bloom, and our walks took us through huge fields of it.
Sheep with horns
This looks like the kind of sheep my parents used to keep.
Two hares
Two hares, just before they loped away down the path ahead.
Ruins in a wood
The ruined walls of the minster, where we slept out last summer.
Rooster
A rooster on the fence. This was the view from our patio.
Goat
A goat sitting on a thing. As goats do.
House
Storybook thatched house. This is not where we stayed, by the way!

Year of Sleeping Variously: holiday cottage edition

Bedroom in pale colours
Our bed for the night, and the next night, and the next one. I love long weekends.
  • Bed (5/5) - It was certainly more comfortable than (a) a tent (b) an aeroplane or (c) our own bed.
  • Room (4/5) - A decent size with plenty of storage. And it had an ensuite bathroom. With a bath!
  • View (3/5) - Not so much from our room, but the view from the living area was lovely - a little garden and some fields with turkeys, sheep and chooks.
  • Facilities (4/5) - Would be a 5, but the water temperature in the shower and bath was . . . temperamental.
  • Location (4/5) - Perfect for what we wanted . . . but minus a point because it took us about 7 hours to get there from Brighton on Friday night. Is it unfair to dock a point for the M25 when the M25 is at least one county away? Probably.
  • People (5/5) - As I said, lovely friends. Would friend again.
  • Food (4/5) - It was all self-catering and I cooked some tasty vegan food. The welcome pack also included eggs from their free range chooks, a sponge cake and a bottle of wine. Score!
  • Value (4/5) - Four people, three nights, £360 (I think). Very reasonable.
  • Uniqueness (3/5) - It's a farm building converted into a holiday cottage - nothing too out of the ordinary for the UK. But then, you don't usually get to see Southdown Sheep and rare turkeys from your window . . .
  • That indefinable something (2/5) - A holiday after our holiday to Australia, far from anything resembling hustle and bustle, sleepy countryside . . . so relaxing.

Holiday cottage verdict: 76%

East Sussex

Handpainted sign
In case you want to visit us and stay nearby in a campsite, this one's pretty nice!
We hadn’t been camping in a tent in a campsite for almost two years! Last year, we spent all our nights out under the tarp and/or in our bivvy bags. So on the last long weekend in May we pootled off to a local campsite for a low-key adventure. Our aim: do nothing except read, eat and sleep. Mission accomplished! It was good to get our tent out after a long hiatus and it was quite relaxing to be in a legitimate campsite, with no worries about getting sprung or told to move along.
Deer
One of the little animal signs dotted around the reception area.
Campstove and pot, biscuit box, magazine
Stroopwafels are important camping material.
Vegetarian burger
Not, perhaps, the best veggie burger I've made.
Tree-lined road
The magic starts as soon as you turn down the lane to the campsite.

Year of Sleeping Variously: tent in a campsite edition

Tent
Home for the night! It was lovely to lie under the awning and read into the evening.
  • Bed (2/5) - Somehow less comfortable than the tent in Australia - but not by much.
  • Room (3/5) - This is our old Aspect 2.5 tent, which is a decent 2 person tent. It has a couple of storage pockets and plenty of headroom. This time for the first time we used walking poles to make a verandah at the front - bonus space!
  • View (2/5) - We put our backs to the campsite, so our view was mostly a fence and some woods. Nice.
  • Facilities (3/5) - We only used the water, loos (showered at home) and washing up area. But they had a laundry, showers, recycling point, tiny kiosk - all the things you need at a campsite, really.
  • Location (4/5) - All of ten minutes from our door, in a secluded, wooded valley. The magic starts with the sign at the front and the drive down the tree-lined track. It feels a bit like entering another world.
  • People (3/5) - The campsite wasn't boisterous in the evening and although there were a lot of kids we were awake before the morning noise began. We were amused by snatches of overheard conversations, too!
  • Food (2/5) - Look, I forgot the oil, so we kind of had to steam our burgers for dinner. They turned out OK, but it wasn't exactly gourmet. Food situation somewhat redeemed by stroopwafels.
  • Value (4/5) - Not the cheapest campsite around here, but it's nice enough to be good value.
  • Uniqueness (3/5) - I really liked all the handpainted signs and little cut-out woodland animals everywhere. Cute!
  • That indefinable something (2/5) - Lying under our verandah reading our books, listening to the wind sigh through the leaves overhead was delightful. And the extremely loud dawn chorus in the valley was . . . well, it was not nothing.

Tent in a campsite verdict: 56%

Now, onwards into summer! There are plans afoot for a couple of fun holidays - short breaks, multi-day walks and possibly (I hope!) some kayaking. Also throughout June, I'll be taking part in #30DaysWild - I did it last year too. This year is extra-special for me, because I did the illustrations on the Random Acts of Wildness cards that people have received as part of their pack. Maybe I'll post about that, as well.

4 Comments

    In which I

    In which I do things and write about them

    RSS Feed

    In which I tag

    All
    #30DaysWild
    Art And Architecture
    Audio And Music
    Australia
    Battle Observer
    Birmingham
    Books And Stories
    Bristol
    Buckinghamshire
    Cambridgeshire
    Cooking
    Cycling
    Devon
    East Sussex
    Eating And Drinking
    Film And Video
    Foraging
    Gardening
    Gippsland GunaiKurnai Country
    Grand Union Canal
    Hastings Independent
    Hertfordshire
    Heysen Trail Prep
    Housekeeping
    Imagining
    Interviewing
    Kent
    Lake Field
    London
    Manchester
    Marketing
    Melbourne Wurundjeri Country
    Microadventure
    National Trust
    Netherlands
    Norfolk
    Northumberland
    Paddling
    Q&A
    Reporting
    Review
    Share The Love
    Sheffield
    Snowy River
    Somerset
    South Gippsland Bunurong Country
    Suffolk
    Swimming
    Tea
    Victorian High Country Jaitmathang Country
    Victorian High Country Taungurung Country
    Wadawurrung Country
    Wales
    Walking
    West Sussex
    Wiltshire
    Year Of Sleeping Variously
    Yorkshire

    In which I archive

    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    October 2021
    September 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.