Message Forums

I'm looking to go away in august to the new forest and one off the campsites I'm interested in is Sandy Balls. It looks like we have to picth our tent on a hard standing area. Being very new to camping what exactly will this involve. We only have a sunncamp villa 4, and I believe the hard standing area is about 5m x 5m, alot bigger then our tent. Will we be able to use our tent pegs and if so, do we need to put some sort of padding between the tent and the ground.

any advice greatly appreciatted as very new to this

You can pitch onto a gravel hardstanding, but not if it has a concrete underbase. You can`t pitch a tent onto asphalt or anything that you can`t hammer a tent peg through. Even on a gravel hardstanding you shouldn`t use a SIG tent, as the chances of knackering your groundsheet are high. It`s extremely unusual to put a tent on a hardstanding of any sort, to be honest.

I would give them a phone and ask them where they put tents. I bet you they have grassed pitches for the tents.

Sandy Balls have a seasonal grass field that they open for the summer, otherwise they have gravel serviced pitches, and you can hire 'grass' matting for under your SIG (honestly!) plus super-strength pegs etc etc