Hillfoot Meet

It was last weekend since a dozen or so of our online Camping Group went on a meet to Hillfoot. I went straight from work having packed up the night before.

The weather could only be described as 'iffy' although we got a continuous period of sunshine on Saturday afternoon. We were lucky to have an area set aside for us to use for a campfire and it was under a large Beech tree which, being in full leaf, gave us a lot of protection from the rain which we had on both evenings.

We had takeaway on our first evening and was treated to a fabulous barbecue by my friends on the second evening. Mervyn, who runs the campsite, his son and his son in law came and joined us round the campfire for a while.

Good memories were made and I really enjoyed meeting all the guys once again. I think the kids enjoyed the treasure hunt I had put together which took them around 12 locations zig zagging across the area.

The campfire is worth a mention. It was two washing machine drums with the wheel still attached, so it was effectively on a stand and away from the ground. The fire was set in one of them and the other was turned upside down and put on top. The effect of this was to drive the heat out sideways and made an unbelievable difference to the heat output. People seriously had to move their chairs backwards to get away from the heat and we had one complaint of pubic hair being singed off,

The pictures below have had the children's faces obscured for their own privacy.

First camping trip and the New Bell Tent

First trip report post of 2015! Well I decided that I needed a Bell Tent, don't know what notion I took but in the long winter months I fell for the idea of having a Bell Tent (actually not for the first time but financial constraints always stopped me before) and eventually I tracked one down at a price I liked. I bought it direct from Germany and it is a 4m Polycotton.

Unusually it has two windows in the walls which is one of the things I liked about this one, and I also liked that being polycotton as opposed to cotton canvas, it would be quicker to dry and a lighter weight to handle. I'm not absolutely tied to 'real canvas' anyway. It is branded '10T'.

So I just needed an excuse to use it and I got the chance on a Monday evening over the Easter Holidays. I wasn't due in to work until the Wednesday so I sprung at the chance. It was only one night so I packed little but the tent and my bed and headed off to a campsite called Hillfoot which is near Dungiven in Co Londonderry. As it happened I arrived quite late and didn't get the tent up until it was practically dark which was around 8.30pm. The next morning I had to be away by 10am so it really wasn't much experience of the tent, and first impressions weren't that great.The door was far too low, the single guy rope outside the door kept threatening to decapitate me and the air inside the cavernous space was far too much to heat never mind that it was damp and cold as well. A friend lives on the site and so I actually didn't spend much time in it except to sleep. Being early April it was bloody cold at night but anticipating that I had brought lots of blankets. I was still freezing and did not sleep that well to be honest. The next day, despite direct sunlight, the thing did not dry and I hadn't the luxury of hanging around until it did. So it was bundled away wet and I do so hate having a wet tent to deal with.

It was nearly ready for Ebay at this point but I got it dried in work (an empty, unfurnished office provided the space and the boss gave the go ahead - little does he know, this is the new tent drying area) and I left it for a good five days to make sure it was bone dry. I struggled to get it into it's bag as I was doing this on my own, and the tent really is a heavy brute.

I didn't even get any photos on this trip, I literally had no light in the evening and in the morning I was busy putting it away.

Pro's

It is mahooossive.
It is a lovely colour.
It is really nice quality fabric and the floor is strong and thick, cream coloured pvc (or whatever groundsheets are made out of).
The centre pole and the door poles are strong and substantial.
It literally took about 8 minutes to pitch. First time, never having pitched one before.

Cons

The space means it's hard to heat, any heat goes up to the 2.5m tall centre.
The door is low
The guy rope outside the door is in a stupid place
It's really heavy, I can hardly lift it out of the boot.
It didn't dry practically instantly like a polyester tent does. For some reason this shocked me.
The windows were no good because they were condensated up (although I'm told since that pitching it in cool damp air would not have helped.)