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 Topic: A bit of rough; camping story and pics
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19/9/2010 at 5:54pm
Location: Beautiful Warwickshire
Outfit: Various tents
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Recently, I unexpectedly had a bit of time spare. The weather forecast looked good (though later it turned out to be wrong) so I grabbed the chance to get away for two nights. With the Norfolk coast in mind I asked fellow UKCS members for recommendations. I got loads of useful information and several people (including Essexhebridean, Bradybunch4, and debs398 recommended campsites. Here are a few notes about my trip with some photos.
Glampers look away now! If you want to read about manicured grass, swish facilities and well-stocked campsite shops stop here. You've been warned - this story contains references to mud and make-do that may offend.
If, on the other hand, you fancy a bit of rough - and who doesn't now and then? - read on. If you enjoy camping with nature right in your face and log-fire smoke in your nostrils then Breck Farm campsite in north Norfolk should be right up your street.
Unsurprisingly, the site is on a farm so it's definitely not for people who don't like farms. But the name should be a bit of a clue or, indeed, a dead giveaway - y'know, like a peanut butter label saying 'This product contains nuts.'
Peanut butter or Marmite perhaps. Either way, you'll love Breck Farm or loathe it. Me, I loved the place. It's what campsites were like when I was a youngster, rough and ready, traditional, and great fun.
You approach the site off a narrow lane on a bumpy track past tractors, silos and sheds. There are chickens - thousands of the little beggars in fact - running about. Eggs a-plenty and, depending on wind direction, a distinctly chicken-ish smell. I'm talking guano here not KFC. Oh, hang on, KFC does smell like chicken poo. It tastes like it too, come to that - no offence, Colonel, if you're reading this.
Where was I? Ah yes. The campsite reception is in the farmhouse kitchen rather than an office. The door was open when I arrived so I walked in. There was an Aga, a basket of puppies, a couple of dogs mooching round, a straying chicken and a chap reading a newspaper. He offered a reserved-but-friendly Norfolk welcome (you'll have to imagine the delicious accent with its drawn-out vowels and lack of urgency).
Anyone expecting to book in on a computerised system is in for a disappointment. It was £10 a night for me, my dog and my tent. There was no cash register nor even a desk drawer for the money (there was no desk, in fact). My tenner was unceremoniously stuffed into a pocket. I asked where I could pitch and if there were any rules. The encouraging answer was 'Camp anywhere you fancy except the electric points and don't do anything that would upset other people. And keep the noise down at night.' Perfect. As an afterthought, he added "Drive slow, please, and watch out for the hens."
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19/9/2010 at 5:54pm
Location: Beautiful Warwickshire
Outfit: Various tents
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Beyond the farmhouse and barns, the camping field stretched out before me. The site is enormous - it's lucky Norfolk is such a big county. Imediately next to the farm the pitches have electric hook-up and these were mostly taken by caravans. Beyond that was a much bigger field backed by mature woodland and dotted with a handful of tents. I headed towards the least populous area. The car bumped and lurched along the track - I use the word 'track' loosely - and eventually I arrived on the far side of the field. Looking back, I could see the farm buildings and the loos in the distance.
The ground was, I must confess, rather muddy. It wasn't turfed as such; clumps of short rough grass fought for ascendancy over plaintains and other broadleafed weeds amid copius worm casts. Bare circles bore witness to long-extinguished camp fires. The clay and mud stuck to my shoes as I wandered about looking for the best - or least worst - patch of grass to pitch on.
Needless to say it was windy and threatening rain. I fell to discussing wind eddies with some chaps who'd set up a stockade of windbreaks around several tents and who looked set up for the rest of the autumn, let alone the rest of the week. On their advice I picked a comparitively calm spot near the edge of the wood. As it turned out, it was a bit too near because the tent was in shade all day - a few metres further from the edge and the sun would've dried the during the day. Or wouldn't as it turned out because it rained most of the time I was there.
There was certainly no shortage of space. There were barely a dozen tents in a field the size of a prairie. I left a decent distance between myself and the neighbours either side. Once I'd pitched, I noticed I was one of four adjacent two-tone blue Vangos of varying sizes - an Alpha 200, a Beta 200, a two-man tunnel and my Sigma 300. The strip by the wood looked like a Vango rally. Strength in numbers.., birds of a feather... like attracts like ... (insert metaphor of your choice).
I'd just got the fly tautly pitched and guyed when it started to rain. Timing or what? The shower looked like passing fairly quickly so I took the dog for a walk round the site and into the adjacent woods. There were footpaths, clearings, thickets, a bridleway and smells galore - an ideal place for dogs. After a good nose round, I returned to the tent, rigged up the inner, unloaded my gear and had a brew up.
Post last edited on 19/09/2010 18:03:46
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19/9/2010 at 5:54pm
Location: Beautiful Warwickshire
Outfit: Various tents
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The only drawback of this far-flung corner of Empire was its distance from the loo block but that was offset somewhat by its proximity to dense patches of holly and briars under the trees. Now, I know what you're thinking. Well, I don't know everything you're thinking, not all of you. If I did, I'd be God and if I was God I wouldn't be writing this, I'd be giving Blair and Bush a good talking to or worse. Sorry, what was I saying? If you don't like the idea of 'nipping into the bushes', don't read this bit. Oops, too late. You just did.
With the tent pitched and night approaching, I drove the few miles into Sheringham for fish'n'chips and returned to eat supper in the porch of my tent. By the time I'd eaten it was fully dark - rural Norfolk is Very very dark at night. And, oh, the stars! I gazed upward at the blazing heavens until my neck cricked. Being a midlander, I'm not used to seeing a dark sky, let alone one chock-full of stars. Round my way, the night sky is a sort or dull orangey fuzz of light pollution speckled with aircraft navigation lamps. Tell a lie, if we're lucky we can sometimes see the Moon. Mostly though we see the sullen glow of Coventry, Rugby and Leamington.
After a trip to the loo block and a last dog-walk, I turned in early. The rain pattered on the tent, my sleeping bag warmed up in no time and I dozed off to the eerie hooting of owls in the woods and a faint whiff of wood smoke. Bliss.
Next morning I was up very early. After a visit to the undergrowth and a coffee, I took the dog for a long walk. The last of the overnight rain gently dripped from the trees sounding as if the wood was whispering to itself. As the sun broke through fingers of light threaded the gloom and lit up the clearings.
When I got back to the tent, my nearest neighbour and I exchanged pleasantries while our dogs circled one another warily. I wandered over to the loo block to wash and ponder the day ahead. While wondering where to go, I heard the unmistakable sound of a steam locomotive whistle in the distance. Ah yes! The North Norfolk Railway.
I drove the mile or so to Weybourne's prettily preserved railway station and spent a fascinating half-hour watching the engine being prepared for work. When it had departed for Sheringham to pick up its first train of the day, I drove back up the lane to Kelling Heath Holiday Park where I picked up a brochure and looked round the camping fields. They are neat, grassed and regimented - a complete contrast to Breck Farm. But the pitching fee is twice as expensive and it didn't really look like my sort of place.
Post last edited on 19/09/2010 18:02:31
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19/9/2010 at 5:55pm
Location: Beautiful Warwickshire
Outfit: Various tents
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The weather forecast had predicted a sunny dry day so it was no surprise that rain set in at lunchtime and persisted all afternoon. I explored Sheringham, had a drive round the area, then popped in to Cromer. While I was parked by the seafront the sun broke through briefly and the wave tops took on a billious copper hue under a vivid double rainbow. Very impressive - I should've taken my watercolours. Then it started raining again so I drove back to Breck Farm.
Fire! I had to make a campfire! I was cold and damp and everyone else had one. Of course, 'everyone else' had also had the foresight to buy firelighters and a bag of logs from the farm. But I had a newspaper and the woodland was liberally scattered with windfall twigs and boughs - so why not me? I laboriously collected a stash of fuel including a few part-burnt logs I found in a long-abandoned corner and thus equipped made several attempts to light a fire. It wasn't as easy as I'd hoped - the kindling twigs were very damp and the newspaper burnt away too quickly.
Eventually, I got a good little fire going. As it crackled and hissed I felt the same sense of achievement those guys at NASA must've felt when the Eagle had landed. Except their triumph cost billions and mine cost a newspaper and a box of matches. One small step and all that. Besides, I'd enjoyed a pleasure they were denied - the Moon has no oxygen and no twigs. I bet astronauts aren't even allowed to take matches on board. So eat your heart out, Neil Amstrong.
The uncharitable reader may feel that if burning a bunch of soggy wood is such a thrill I need to get out more. But that's how I am in my dotage, as easily pleased as a toddler. The older I get, the more I revert to childlike pleasures - 'seven ages of man' springs to mind. Shakespeare could almost have had Breck Farm in mind when describing the Duke's happy forest exile in in As You Like It). No, you're right - he probably didn't.
Anyway, the incipient blaze attracted my neighbour's attention so I invited her to come and warm herself. She joined me and turned out to be great company, a lucid and entertaining conversationalist. We found plenty of shared tastes and mutual interests so the evening passed very enjoyably and all too quickly.
An emigre from north-east England to Buckinghamshire, my new companion had only recently taken up camping. As a novice solo camper, she recounted, she'd started from scratch buying her tent and kit with an eye to bargains. Her little Vango had proved a good choice and she'd found the UKCS forums very helpful. Having camped at Breck Farm on a previous trip she and her dog had fallen in love with the place. I must say her determination, independence and evident success struck me as very enterprising.
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19/9/2010 at 5:55pm
Location: Beautiful Warwickshire
Outfit: Various tents
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There is something incredibly satisfying about a campfire at night. I can't imagine that sitting in front of a fan heater has quite the same magical appeal. A fire brings out one's inner boy scout, it release the noble savage, a primitive atavistic sort of pleasure, a yearning perhaps for a simpler time when men were men and people smelt like cesspits. Not that my neighbour or I smelt, you understand, except of wood smoke.
The only thing needed to complete the mental flip into history was a rabbit to skin and cook. But I hadn't seen any and my terrier is too old for rabbiting. Besides, my companion had told me she was a vegetatian so I kept schtuum. Mind you, all evening I harboured a dark desire to raid the hen coop.
Once the fire had burned down a bit, we perched the kettle over the embers. It was whistling vigorously in a minute or two and we brewed coffee and tea. My mind turned from rabbit to toast. You can see the connection, right? I always pack a proper metal knife, fork and spoons (I can't get on with plastic cutlery) so it was the work of a moment to cut bread rolls in half, spear them with the fork and toast them. The first slice slipped off the fork onto the embers but, undeterred, we shared it anyway. It had a distinctly woody flavour and the flecks of ember added a satisfying crunchiness. Very nice it was. Who needs Jamie Oliver? No. Seriously. Who needs him? He's so irritatingly blokey, a sort of culinary Clarkson.
Anyway, I must say that evening of fireside conversation was one of the most enjoyable camping experiences I've had. I'm indebted to my charming neighbour for sharing it with me. If you're reading this, thank you - you made my day.
As midnight approached, it grew colder, the firewood ran out, the embers cooled. I doused the smouldering remnants, we said goodnight and went our separate Vango ways. It had got quite chilly so I unzipped my spare sleeping bag to use as an overblanket. Once in bed, though, I was too hot and soon discarded the second layer. Owls may have hooted all night long but I wouldn't know - I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
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19/9/2010 at 5:56pm
Location: Beautiful Warwickshire
Outfit: Various tents
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As sod's law dictates, on the day I had to go home the weather bucked up and became bright and sunny. After breakfast, I shook the worst of the water off the tent and struck camp. The outer was soaked so I just rolled it loosely. The underside of the inner tent's sewn-in groundsheet was wet and muddy so I cleaned off as much as possible with kitchen roll before folding it mud outermost. I put the inner and fly separately on the floor of the car instead of packing them in their carry-bag. At home the following day, the weather was warm and sunny and so I was able to clean the tent, thoroughly dry it, and pack it in its bag.
As I drove away from Breck Farm, I stopped for a few seconds bathed in nostalgia for a nearly-bygone style of camping. The field stretched away behind me, the far corner still dotted by the bright blue Vangos under the sheltering embrace of the woodland, wisps of smoke still curling up here and there. "I'll be back" I thought to myself and, buoyed by that prospect, let out the clutch to start the journey back to the midlands and 2010.
The end
Post last edited on 19/09/2010 18:04:40
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19/9/2010 at 6:15pm
Location: Solihull
Outfit: Vango Vista 800
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 Top review Sceptical Camper, I concur with the midlands sky, and I too was amazed to see teh stars on my last outing, and not just the orange glow and the blue and white neons off our underpaid, over worked and sometimes under appreciated emergency services, bouncing off the trees that line the streets.
Now then lets try and get you a UKCS review award, or if there isnt one, lets make one :-)
As previously aforementioned, Top Review  made me chuckle in parts 
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Apr 2011 - Lower Hyde I.O.W 4 nights.
May - Elsich Barn Farm, 2 Nights
03-05 June - Church farm, Coughton 2 Nights
01-05 Aug 2011 - Searles Holiday Park, Hunstanton, Norfolk - 4 nights
08-11 Aug 2011 - Beech Croft Farm,Nr Buxton 3nights.
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