Ending Up Anywhere

It's been a slow winter as far as camping has been concerned. Our last full-week camping trip was in October when we went to the Lake District and that somewhat-rainy week has put us off weekends away ever since. But now we are looking forward to the summer and we've started planning several trips abroad. Our holidays booked so far this year are all to brand new places. We will visit Arcachon on France's beautiful west coast which we've already seen so much of, and at Easter Cleopatra will visit Spain for the very first time as we split up a fortnight night between the north-eastern coast and a mountainous region slightly inland. Our summer travels will see us set sail for Corsica for a true island adventure. Our ferry crossings are already booked and I'm just waiting to hear back from the three campsites we've picked across the island. There are a couple of holiday weeks still unaccounted for and we're pretty sure we'll pay another visi...

Video of our week spent camping in the Lake District, a few days on The Quiet Site on Ullswater and a few at Eskdale Campsite where we climbed Scafell. Read the three blog entries for more details. LAKE DISTRICT 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

After a wet few days in the Lake District the weather was set to improve and, rather than head up to Scotland as planned, we decided to stick around for the last four nights of our holiday. The Eskdale campsite, an hour or so to the west of Ullswater, promised walks from its doorstep and boasted three local pubs. It was bookable online too and so in a couple of minutes we had a new plan. We woke up on our campsite base of the last four nights to a gloriously blue sky we'd not seen all week, discovering we had a perfect view of Ullswater now the mist had cleared. Since we'd packed up our drive-away awning the evening before we didn't have much to do before setting off to our new camp. We rely on Google Maps to get us from one location to the next and today wasn't any different. The suggested route was a distance of just 36 miles but would take the best part of two hours - we just assumed that was due to school-holiday traffic in the Lake District. What we didn...

For our stay on the Quiet Site in the Lake District we travelled with our drive-away awning which is a huge beast both erected and stowed in its bag. Storm Brian was about to hit the UK and Google told of 48mph winds in our location but we decided to risk putting up the awning. It was either that or have it in the already-small living space in the van with us. During the first two nights Storm Brian blew a gale and I didn't get much sleep worrying about the awning taking off. It blew around noisily but, thankfully, remained pegged to the ground. With a rainy week in the lakes the awning gave us the space we needed to dry our soggy clothes. We moved the oil-filled radiator between the van and awning depending on where we were sitting, but in the end most of our evenings were spent in the campsite bar. We went out each day quite late after cooking a breakfast of Spam, eggs and beans. We walked through fields to Pooley Bridge on the first day. Within minutes my walking boots ...

Last October we headed down to the south of France for some late summer sun. We packed completely different clothes this year for nine nights in the Lake District. Our first base for the holiday was the Quiet Site on Ullswater. Sitting in the hills on the west side of the northern tip of the lake, about a mile from the water, pitches on the Quiet Site have jaw-dropping views across Ullswater and the surrounding hills. Due to the mist and rain it actually wasn't until we awoke on the final morning that we realised the lake was in view - but first thing on a sunny morning, with the sun just rising over Ullswater, what a view it is. The Quiet Site surprises in a few other ways, not least that, in addition to the run-of-the-mill shower facilities you'd expect to find on any campsite, there are four spacious bathrooms if you fancy a long soak to relax your aching muscles after a day of strenuous hill walking. For us the crowning glory was the on-site pub the Quiet Bar. We...

This weekend we stayed on a National Trust campsite in the Peak District. It's a small, 20-pitch campsite in the grounds of National Trust property Ilam Hall and it proved to be an ideal base for a day's hiking in the hills. Tony and I were camping with friends Jules and Pete in their campervan Daisy and we arrived on site within a couple of minutes of each other at just after 6pm. We were booked in by a lovely lady whose husband then helped us to pitch on rather waterlogged ground, providing Jules and Pete with makeshift leveling blocks comprised of a few pieces of wood, and guiding us onto our plastic ones. We got our campervans readied for the weekend with our awnings open opposite one another and then cracked open some beers while dinner, a Quorn Thai green curry, cooked on Jules and Pete's gas stove. The meal cooked by Jules and Pete was so tasty. We decided to leave the dishes until the morning and we got ourselves warm and cosy in Cleopatra to play a card ga...

If you've read much of this blog you'll know Tony and I don't think much to the club campsites of the Caravan and Motorhome Club or the Camping and Caravanning Club. Yes, you know what you're getting, and that includes great facilities, it just doesn't feel like camping. One of the reasons we continue to be members of the clubs is access to more than 3,500 CLs and CSs. That's Certificated Locations (Caravan and Motorhome Club) and Certificated Sites (Camping and Caravanning Club). These are small sites that are allowed five caravans and motorhomes at a maximum. They may also, if the choose, allow up to an additional ten tents. CL and CS sites are usually in out-of-the-way, rural locations, often attached to a farm or country estate. Since we travel in a campervan we're a little more restricted in our options as we need toilet and shower facilities, but some of the CL and CS sites provide these basics. The peace and quiet isn't the only benefi...