August 2015
So, The Beast is set up and we’ve all our camping gear safely stored in the back. A leisure battery is charged and our electric cool box is ready.. lets see if this driving around and camping randomly thing is fun! 😉
We’re spending just over a week travelling around the South West of England. Starting with a night in Southend vising family, then it’s Devon and Cornwall before meeting up with a group of friends for a weekends fun in Oxfordshire.
Day 1: The first section of the journey is a motorway hack down to Southend and 1 night staying with family. ?? miles total for the day and not much else of interest to report.
Day 2: Head over to Wareham, bit of motorway nonsense to get round London then off onto smaller roads and head to the coast. Found a campsite and pitched out the tent for the first time.. finding level ground is not as simple as it sounds (note to self, get spirit level for inside the car and some parking wedges!). Still.. setting up didn’t take too long and we went out for a walk along the river. Found a great pub for dinner and a well deserved beer or 2 🙂
Day 3: Woke up to a clear morning and dubbed the tent ‘cloud city’ (we have 2 white quilts as bedding). Slept well and very chuffed with how the Beast and the tent worked for us. However using an electric camping kettle powered by a leisure battery would take a week to get 2 coffees so threw the kettle out and went back to boiling water on our little gas stove.. ahhh, hot coffee 🙂
Simon discovered the joys of camping shower blocks after breakfast (bacon sandwich.. lovely).. he stripped off in the shower cubicle before reaslising that you have to put money in the machine to turn the shower on.. the machine that is outside the cubicle :D. oh.. and he didn’t have any change with him. hehehe. Still, after getting dressed and fetching change he managed to figure things out and have, what was apparently, a nice shower 🙂
Packing up didn’t take long and we’re off on our way. Out destination is Tintagel in Cornwall, our route is undecided.. I’m driving and Simon has the map. The drive is great fun with some awesome views as we head over the top of Dartmoor. Get to the campsite early afternoon and set up our home for the night.. then we’re off for a visit to the castle.
We were blessed with a gorgeous sunny day and spent hours wandering around the Castle, well worth a visit and while the walk to it is steep you can always get a lift in one of the Defender buses 🙂 We had dinner in a put in the village and headed back to the campsite in the dark. Camped right on the headland of Tintagel the views of the sky were amazing.. more beer and stargazing before bed, lovely.
Day 4: Ah.. well the good weather didn’t hold out for us!! Woke up at around 3am to the sound of torrential rain on canvas, managed to sleep on until around 7am before giving up and surfacing. The lower section of the tent didn’t hold up too well in the weather, it’s not fully sealed and water had got in with the strong winds. The tent itself fared better though we did have a damp quilt where it had been pressed up against the side of the tent. After sitting in the car for 20 minutes or so watching the rain we decided to get on and pack up the tent in the wet.. not ideal but as it’s a fairly quick job it wasn’t too bad (though standing on top of a Land Rover Defender in strong winds is ‘fun’!!). Loaded everything into the car and headed off.. heaters blaring and a window slightly open to try and dry out the damp quilt.
Now this all sounds awful, but it was actually ok and if anything pretty funny. Once dried off and on our way we decided to drive the smaller coast road and look for somewhere to have breakfast.. the driving around the Cornish coast is amazing, great little roads with not much other traffic. The rain settled down to a grey drizzle and sea looked amazing in the stormy light. We found a little cafe which provided us with a stunning fry up and sat watching the waves (and a group of hardy souls having a surfing lesson!) before having a wander along the wind swept beach.
From here we drove along the coast until Simon spotted something interesting on the map and directed us there. Hartland Quay.. stunning scenery and a pub!! What more could we wish for (except sunshine.. ).
From here we are heading to Tiverton in Devon to visit some friends. We’re due to camp at a site nearby but as we get closer and the rain is still persisting we wuss out and look for a B&B… and wow, do we find a good one 🙂 Awesome roads (single track, hedges higher than the Beast and grass growing in the middle!) and big hills.. great fun. The B&B itself is a farmhouse and is lovely, the hosts are nice and the room is stunning. A hot bath and some cake later we head into Tiverton itself to see our friends and then back to our lovely warm, dry bed for the night.
Day 5: Waking up refreshed and ready to face the day we are greeted by more wet weather (boo) and a stunning full English breakfast (yeay). We eat, drink tea and chat with our hosts for awhile before saying goodbye to the Peacock and heading off on our way.
Today we’re heading over to Bath. Neither of us has been and we thought it worth a visit, we’re booked in at a hotel so aren’t too worried about the weather. The drive is pretty and fun and Bath is easy enough to find and navigate. The weather actually clears up for us and we end up having a great afternoon and evening wandering around the city and it’s Baths, definitely recommend it as a place to visit 🙂
Day 6: Today we’re heading to Banbury for a weekend camping with friends. The sun is out and our spirits are high. Unfortunately our leisure battery is now dead and i forgot to bring the charger (doh) but hey, no worries, the site in Banbury has power and a fridge so all is good.
Day 7: Booze and definitely no driving 😉 Sun stays out, rain stays away, the Beast comes into it’s own as a home for the weekend.. so pleased with it.
Day 8: Pack up and head home. We’ve had a fantastic week and thouroughly enjoyed driving around the British countryside.. yeah so the weather wasn’t always great, but there are always B&B’s if things get rough and the Beast is a pleasure to drive in all weathers.
In total we drove 790 miles getting around 28.6 mpg from the Beast, I’m happy with that! For a first trip camping and driving it’s been awesome.
