Trip to Mannix Point 2011

So it came around to that time again, the 'big' holiday! We headed off on Monday 18th July to Mannix Point campsite, which is on the Ring of Kerry, in the Republic of Ireland. The reason I chose here is because of some fantastic reviews I found online, which convinced me that there was something special about this area that was worth exploring.

There was quite a bit of preparation for this trip, the work seemed to take most of a week before hand what with cleaning up the house, washing all the bedlinen so that it would be fairly fresh to come home to, laundry and ironing and packing clothes. Then there was the actual packing of the boot, I'd decided to take the big canvas frame tent, Stan (the man) Evans as the space would be useful when going away for longer. The grocery prices in the south of Ireland are expensive and so I was taking all my barbecue fuel, groceries and some cooked meals for the first few days. The problem with all of this of course is getting it into a hatchback, and I have to say this caused quite a bit of head scratching. I know that I'm supposed to leave a space in the car so I can use the rear view mirror, but there was no way I was able to do that in the end. I just had to hope I didn't get pulled over.

I had worked out that the journey would take six and a half hours. In reality it was more like eight and a half hours and I have to say the journey was a hard one, slightly stressful as there are two toll roads and one e-toll road where you have to call in to a garage to pay retrospectively. I was incredibly tired as I had got zero sleep the night before, due to being all excited about going on my holidays!

And then on top of all that when we arrived it was to stormy conditions, and the metal poles of the tent were damaged as we attempted to put up the large tent. We abandoned the efforts to pitch it and just rolled it up roughly to bung it back in the car. I then pitched the smaller pop up tent which is in theory a four man, so at least we were able to get to sleep that night. We had no dinner as we'd arrived quite late, and then any food we had was packed under everything else in the car. We just did without and concentrated on getting some rest as it was so late.

The next morning Mortimer, who owns the campsite, took me, poles and all up to a local garage. The mechanics had a vice and so they quickly unbent the damaged poles and we finally got to start our holiday properly.

Stan finally gets a few repairs.

Stan Evans Standard 6 is a frame tent dating from the early 70's which my parents bought in 1974 for, they think, about £350. It would have been an absolute fortune then. 

It got lots and lots of use, but has languished in the loft of my parents garage for many years. Luckily it was dry and it hadn't been made home to a colony of mice. The last time it had been used the poles where bent due to a sloped pitch and a bad storm, the wind got under the tent and lifted the whole thing.  To be honest I thought the poles were for the bin.

But it's not too bad if a bit wonky and luckily my Dad was able to straighten out the worst of the poles last week. I pitched it in the garden in order to replace a few bits and bobs on it, some of the tent rubbers are degraded with age and I wanted to look it over to see what repairs needed done. I also wanted to get it soaked through, and chose a weekend when the heavens were supposed to open. In the end, despite the forecast, there was not ONE drop of rain. Typical. If I'd known that I would have been away camping in one of my other tents!

I restrung the curtains with new wire and got them hung. I do like them now (I used to hate them) and I think it might be because they're so old they're retro now!

The canvas is very well faded, but as least it's evenly faded all over. The top is still quite brown inside but it's cream from the outside. And the bright, lime green on the inside walls is pale green on the outside, hardly discernible from the cream colour. The curtains are brown, orange and lime green flowers, in these pictures I'm using one set of the curtains as a table cover. The children and I had our Sunday Lunch in the tent, and my Mum and Dad came to visit the tent later on in the afternoon.

The repairs were minor, I replaced some of those rubbers and added some zip pullers. I ordered a hessian bag from ebay to serve as a pole bag, and since I've taken the tent down another four poles have made it to my Dads garage in order to get some more straightening out done. 

I'm trying to figure out how to take this tent to Cork in my hatchback with all my other camping gear. I don't have a tow bar on the car although I could borrow a trailer if I did. I don't want to tow a trailer all the way to Cork anyway. I'll probably end up taking a polyester tent anyway but if it's at all possible to fit this in with half of the back seat down I'll be taking Stan to Cork instead!

When I first test pitched this tent last year and posted pictures online I got a response from the Grandson of Stan Evans himself! To be honest I was amazed at how things like happen in 'virtural land'.

It's not in bad condition for a tent that's nearly 40 years old.

 

The Factory in Warrington

Camping at Benone

I honestly forget how much pleasure it is for me to go solo camping. On this occasion nothing would do but I had to go to the beach. I've had a stressful few months and the need for an ocean breeze to blow it all away was very strong indeed. I toyed with the idea of going to Carrick Dhu in Portrush and also with wild camping in the dunes at White Park Bay (although I don't think I'm brave enough for wild camping yet) but in the end I settled for the non electric pitch at Benone Strand. I chose it because there is direct access to the beach and the walks are very good, not only along the beach itself but there is a network of walks through the sand dunes as well.

Any camping trip is preceded by deciding which tent to bring. A few weeks ago I added another Quechua pop up tent to my collection, a smaller four man one. I wanted to bring it on it's first outing, but knowing that the weather was going to turn bad on me by Sunday I also wanted some stand up space, so I brought the Quechua base seconds too. The site I went to has a policy of charging extra for pup tents so I pitched the two tents butting up to each other because I was going to argue the case for a modular system should I be questioned by the staff, in the end I wasn't.

 I had a really good set up, a bedroom and a living room in effect. The extra benefit was that they were extremely quick to pitch, both tents come in a large flat circle with a strap that holds it all together. Being pop ups all you have to do is release the strap and the whole things going 'boing', exploding out of your grip. Great fun! However there is always a price to pay, and in this case the cost is the difficulty of getting both tents compressed back down again which is always fun with a pop up!


Anyway as I said I got set up very quickly and got to the beach as quickly as I could as the night was wearing on and I was losing light. I got to the beach in time to see the sun setting over Donegal with some spectacular skyscapes and set about taking some photos. This was the best of them.

It's only taken me the better part of a year to figure out how to get decent photos on this blog!

Back at camp I started a small camp fire in the bucket barbecue using a firelog which I broke up into smaller pieces. It was so nice to have a fire that I gave my seat over to my little dog and went straight into hippy mode, sitting crossed legged on the ground beside the fire. It seemed like a good time to open the bottle of wine too and so I sat there getting nicely sloshed and feeling more relaxed than I have in many a long day.

As ever there's always the morning after to deal with and so at 4 am I was out of bed in search of paracetamol and some water - my poor head was banging and I discovered the downside of camping in two tents is that there are four zips to get through before you can get to the camp loo!

The funny thing was in my inebriation the night before I could not find the car keys anywhere! I looked and hunted in every bag and nook and cranny of the tent but once it had got quite dark I was relying on a torch and a camp light which is not a very productive way of finding anything! I resigned myself to looking for them in daylight and it was on the Saturday morning I found the keys in the ignition of the car, sadly slightly turned and so I was now dealing with a flat battery. I wasn't overly concerned because I can call the AA out although I did prefer to get it dealt with locally if I could.

I consoled my hungover self intially by going back to the beach and having a paddle in the sea. I even had a little snooze on a sand dune which really helped with the sore head.

Back on site, my neighbours came to the rescue with the car and I met two lovely people even though I was quite mortified. Mark, who was a Motorhome nearby, had a set of jumpleads, but no access to the battery of his motorhome. So the guy who was caravanning across the way lent me the use of his car. Between them they got me on the road again and it was with much relief that I went in to Articlave for some Noodles from the Chinese Takeaway which I took into Castlerock to eat by the sea front. Actually my dog ate the most of it as I bought too much but funnily enough she didn't object to that!

I met another two very nice families as well. Joyce, Alan and their little girls were camped right next to me and are fairly new to camping, having only bought a tent last year. They were so friendly, keeping their paper for me and stopping for chats, and the children were really sweet too. Then Peter and Amanda with their children were camped two up from me and they were very experienced campers, old hands at knocking up one pot meals and had a very impressive family set up with their Outwell, their firepit and two cars to carry it all!

So I told them all about the Northern Ireland camping forum and handed out some business cards and Mark joined up straight away and has been posting away ever since.

I had such a great time that I would not hesitate to go back to this particular section of the site, and hope to book there for a family meet with all three of our families, mine, my sisters and my parents, very soon. However I still like those solo camping trips and in a way I probably need them to cope with the ongoing stress which shows no sign of easing at the moment!

I'll leave this with a couple of pictures of the site.

Trip Report - Claddagh Glen

It was with much anticipation that we went camping to Claddagh Glen, it was good to get going again but I was a little nervous after our previous bad experience at Castlewellan Forest Park.

Kat, a forum member and a friend of the family, had very generously invited us along to her scout camp so that my boys could be introduced to the whole camping experience again in a more positive way. My boys failed to really join in though, it wasn't until the next day and at Kats own house that they started chattering, like a pair of wee birds who finally found their voice.

When we arrived we found quite a narrow glen, with a river running down one side and a flat bit on the other, what used to be called a holme, or a Strath as it's known on this island. There was a band of mature trees on the river bank separating the river from the flat camping field, with spaces and gaps amongst the trees well run over by generations of scouts. That means there is little undergrowth just tracks of bare earth. In the largest clearing there is a communal firepit, a ring of stones with a couple of felled trees for seats. Everything you could possibly want really!

The flat area was long and narrow, with fairly long grass - and behind that was a steep bank covered in strong smelling wild garlic known as Cramph and mature trees, fallen over trees and lots of bluebells. A really wild wood - great for the scouts who were like little rabbits running all over the place! One girl lost her footing right at the top of the slope. She laughed all the way down but had she come into contact with a tree she would likely have broken a few bones! As it was she hit a mud patch at the bottom and escaped with a few impressive scrapes along her arms and legs.

Anyway the arrangement was that Kat's scout group had booked the use of Claddagh Glen, but there was a double booking with another scouting group from Belfast. That group weren't all that pleased about the double booking and chose to deny some of our party the use of the toilet facilities, but in reality we all used them anyway, and just put up with the snotty looks from their scout leaders. The following day they had to backtrack somewhat, they had been concerned that 'our' scout group would be very noisy and not let them sleep but then admitted that their fears were unfounded.

Shortly after I arrived, a guy came along and pitched a tent I thought I'd never see in my lifetime. It's a Tentipi Safari 9, a tepee tent made of good quality cotton canvas and with a price tag of nearly £1400. It is a really nice tent, it oozes quality and I love the pully system which adjusts the 'witches' hat at the top for ventilation.

There is a walk along the river, which goes up and up through a crevice in the earth. At one point a walker will pass a set of cascades that join the river below. As you go further uphill the river gets deeper and the rocks in it get bigger. At a certain point the river turns through 90 degrees and disappears into a cave. This is the Marble Arch system, a Geopark area which boasts an underground set of caves with many wonders all beautifully backlit with coloured lights. I'm sure it's about four or five years since I did 'the tour'. I remember it being quite expensive though!

Anyway I'll conclude by saying we all had a lovely evening, the children melting cooked marshmallows between two chocolate digestive biscuits, the adults enjoying the quiet chat around the light of the campfire. It was very cold during the night, but I did not wake enough to get an extra blanket for myself. By morning I was the first up and my quiet tea making probably woke the next person who in turn woke the next person and by 7.30 pretty much everyone was up. The youngsters went a walking and I even found a geocache, packed up by two and away to see Kat's tent collection in nearby Lisnaskea.

Can't wait for the next time!

Tomorrow morning

Going camping tomorrow morning, can't wait! It's the first time since the stressful weekend at Castlewellan and this time my kids and I will be with a scout group. We've been kindly invited to join the Black Wolves Explorers for a safe, communal camp.

I'm actually too excited to sleep, it's quite late and I know that tomorrow could be tiring, and that makes a nights rest even more important! But here I am, like a kid on Christmas Eve....

I hope that it goes ok. Fingers crossed.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

New Camping Forum

As much as I love using UKCS it's not in Norn Iron is it? So what's the solution....easy....start my own forum. So last November this is exactly what I did.

I found a platform I can use called Lefora which is an company based in LA. Having used it for the winter I have found it a steep learning curve but am starting to get quite good at it.

In the winter months I worked on promoting the forum through the internet and by word of mouth. I got some business cards and flyers printed off and handed them out at the Holiday World show. I have also posted them off to all the campsites I can find online.

That has paid off as I now have a load of members in my online community. They all seem to be great people and I look forward to further expansion of the forum as the weather starts to improve.


http://www.northernirelandcampsites.lefora.com/

A day at Rossnowlagh Beach

I think that will be my last time using a tent this year. It was last Sunday afternoon and the quechua pop up got pressed into service as a beach shelter on Rossnowlagh Beach. I managed to get a few bits of camping gear into the car along with my garden kettle barbecue. I brought two chairs, my new plastic table from Field and Trek and a picnic blanket, along with a bag of warm clothes and towels for the kids.

They did indeed try swimming in the Atlantic ocean but as it's the end of September nearly and it was a dull, overcast day with the temperature at about 9 degrees I'm not surprised they got out of the water as fast as they got in. They closed up the doors of the Quechua and got changed, something of a luxury on a beach.

Later the wind got up a bit and my friend Violet and I enjoyed the shelter of the tent. After a while a couple came over to us to ask about the tent and I had a giddy moment raving on about my Quechua and imparted with all aspects of the tent, whether they wanted that much detail or not.

A one nighter in Ballyness

I'd like to share my thoughts on the practicality of camping for one night only. I'd planned to go for two nights, solo (well with dog) while kids were at grans only dental appointments put paid to that. Anyway the weather report showed there wasn't any real point staying the second night.

The thing is, I'd got all excited about going camping (even though I'm just back from a two and a half week jaunt - see 'BIG TOUR') and I couldn't bear the thought that it might not happen. Even the night before I hardly got any sleep, I was so excited about going camping! I was going on my holidays!!....even though I'd just got back from some.....

I'd written a list detailing the things I would need. It included the Quechua seconds base plus inner, a lightweight airbed, my XL sleeping bag, a flight blanket (thin but warm), pillows, one chair, the stove plus kettle, a mug spoon and sharp knife, the sigg bottle for milk, the dogs crate, a windbreak, a lantern and a change of clothes. I also took the airbed pump, my toothbrush and a container of coffee, and strangely, a melon.

My Quechua really turned heads. I was very proud of my egg like space pod and I think everyone else was secretly envious of my cool tent. My sister and BIL (and kids) arrived on site for the afternoon. They had two little dogs, but one of them got tragically killed on the road last week. The remaining dog seemed to really enjoy the company of my dog. It was decided that we would all go to the beach, a place called White Park Bay. I've been here before but came at it from the east end, I've never approached it from the main path. The path is very steep, it's not so bad going down but it's a 15 minute hike back up to the car park again which required a fitness level better than mine. It's worth it though. Once I'd got my breath back from the ascent of the path we went off in search of fish and chips (diet...what diet) and luckily there's a place nearby that has won an award from the Fish Fryers Association. The whiting was spot on. Life is good. Especially when washed down with a couple of cans of beer.

I have to say I didn't sleep all that well. I've got spoilt with my Intex double height airbed. It took a few minutes to get feeling in all limbs again come morning. However, the 10 minute walk into the village to The Copper Kettle, where I sat outside and had 2 slices of bacon and two poached eggs, made it all a distant memory. I started striking camp at 12.30 and was on the road by one. That's not bad going considering it took me longer to force my sleeping bag into it's sack than actually take the tent down.

I've come to the conclusion, and you all probably already know this, that when packing up the thing that takes longest is emptying the tent. The quickest part is dropping the tent. Even my Icarus can be dropped and packed in 5 minutes. It takes me an hour to take all the crap out of it! On this occasion I had very little to take out of the tent, which eliminated all the faffing around!

Trip report about the 'BIG TOUR OF ENGLAND'

I went, as some of you may know, on a bit of a road trip around England, which for me entails getting a ferry from Belfast to Liverpool. We went for 2 and a half weeks and went to three destinations. The first was a little place near the town on Frome in Somerset. It is a campsite behind a pub called the Bell in the village of Buckland Dinham, run by a couple called Jeremy and Lucy.

Now the Buckland Bell is a very basic site. Before I went I was able to read very helpful reviews which did reveal that there are chickens roaming freely on site, and that indeed the only toilet facilities are in the pub, which aren't open at night. There is one portaloo on the campsite itself. What I didn't know was that there are approx. 5 cockerels among the 30 chickens or so, who start competing for the noisiest crowing at exactly 4am. I know this because it was a bit stormy, and on night one I was on extension watch. You know how Vango say that if the wind is up a bit it's probably quite sensible not to put the extension/canopy up, well I ignored that and subseqently sat up most of the night popping the elasticated bit back on every time it blew off. (I removed the extension the next day). Anyway I discovered the church bell went off on the hour every hour. So when the bell rang four times, the cockerels started. Over the coming week they would sidle up to my side of the tent, effectively splitting my ears as there's not much protection from a 2000HH bit of fabric!

Feeding the Chooks

 Night 2 I got nudged in the arm by unseen forces. The Propietor, Jeremy, lives in the corner of the field in a caravan because he's scared of the ghosts in the pub. So he was slightly worried when I informed him that I'd been nudged in the arm, twice, by a ghost and I could for certain rule out my kids playing a prank. Through the week a couple of other ghostly incidences happened. My kids saw what looked like a human form made up of white mist run across the garden of the pub. And there was a whole evening of unexplained doorbell rings in the pub itself, even though there was never anyone there. Then my son felt and heard a breath across his face. Now having watched a few episodes of Most Haunted I can catagorically say that these 'astral beings' were not out to get us and so we were not freaked out as we felt that if anything had malicious intent we would know about it!

There are no showers on this site, well, that is not strictly true. There's a pipe with a colander on the end which delivers freezing cold water in what Jeremy proudly calls his Bush Shower. When I got desperate enough to use it I hyperventilated for about 3 minutes. Then I went back to the tent and told my boys that actually it wasn't that bad. I was lying.

The 'Bush' Shower

 One of the most brilliant things about this site is that Jeremy provide beer barrels and upside down bin lids to light a fire with. I went to the nearest DIY and got a weber grill for £5.99 for a barbecue and the campfire really made our stay at this site special. We used this site as a base for sightseeing. We went to Longleat on four different days, then Glastonbury Abbey, the Clarks Village Outlet mall, and Wells Cathedral. I'm putting in a pic of Wells Cathedral because it is breathtaking and the town is such a gorgeous place. We also went to Bath, and got totally fleeced. I swear, Bath is a more expensive city to see than London. I know that because we went there too. We saw the Roman Baths (well you have to, don't you) and the Crescent and the Circus...very cool. I've seen so many documentaries about them and the masonic connection. 

The Roman Baths

 So onwards to London where we stayed in my little cousins back garden. We used that as a base to sightsee in London, so we did a few different things. We went to the driving range of the nearest Golf Club and banged a few balls. We took a boat from Kingston to Hampton Court palace and back again to Kingston. We went into the city and did the London Dungeons, then saw the Tower, the eye and Big Ben.

London was sticky and hot, phew! It wasn't any better at night. I had the wits scared out of me by an urban fox who clanged about the garden, before eventually scrabbling over the wall. I only read afterwards how three girls were attacked by a fox while garden camping.

The highlight, undoubtedly for my kids at least, was a day at Chessington World of Adventures. I even went on a few rides myself, although there were one or two I point blank refused. I have an inbuilt survival gene.

Chessington World of Adventures

 After 5 days or so I phoned Pillaton Pools Campsite on the off chance they would have some room for us. We wanted to go somewhere within driving distance to the ferry in Liverpool and Pillaton was a one and a half hour drive from the Ferry. I've heard so much about the site through UKCS and seen a few photos too and so it was a real treat to get in. We braved the M6 which wasn't as bad as feared and it was only a three and a half hour drive from Epsom, South of London.

The pitch we got was No. 175, just right beside the Chase pool. Four large steps took you to the waters edge. It was absolutely idyllic, although the ground was the hardest I've ever come across to put a peg into. I had only 8 rock pegs. Most of my pegs are a variety of pin pegs. I have some plastic pegs too which are usually great but no use to me on this site. I had to use a claw hammer to insert a rock peg in every point and every guy, then use the back of the claw hammer to pull it out again, and carefully, without losing the hole - insert an ordinary peg. I then poured a little water down each peg to swell the soil around the peg to make it hold fast. I also used all of the rock pegs on strategic points. The whole process meant it took about an hour to pitch my Icarus, which is usually up in 10 minutes. We even had a bit of an audience, which I hate because I had become a bit ratty at that stage. Pitching in this ground was a real endurance, and when I removed the pegs (with great difficulty) I found even some of my rock pegs were bent which says alot in itself. We were staying four days and made the most of the Farmers market in Penkridge which is on on Wednesdays and Saturdays. There was also an excellent meal to be had in The Star, a little pub in Penkridge, but again the highlight was going to Drayton Manor theme park, we even saw an actress from Eastenders there! I don't know which one but she was always miserable and also I think married to Phil Mitchell. I suspect that doen't narrow it down much.

Apart from how difficult it is to peg a tent down in Pillaton, I'd say it's one of the best sites I've ever been to, and I've been to a lot. It's well appointed for amenities and I like the rectangles which ensure the tents are 10m apart (for fire reasons according to the propietor). They were created using one of those machines that makes white lines on a football field, with a bit of Roundup mixed in with the paint to burn the grass into lines. I've never come across the technique before, but if a site wants to have designated pitches it strikes me this is the way to do it.

View from the tent over Chase Pool at Pillaton Hall campsite

A 'thumbs up' Bank Holiday weekend

On this occasion I decided to travel to the Share Centre to set up, then return to our home town to pick the kids up from school. Then the idea was to go back to the Share Centre again, and we could properly start our holiday immediately! The reality was that the journey was tiring because the most direct road wasn't good and so I was being rattled to the teeth. In hindsight I think that hour long journey three times in one day was a bit too much.

When I first arrived at reception the bad news was that I wasn't allowed to take the car into the campsite because they've had issues in the past with the ground being churned up. So I was faced with lugging everything, on my own, over to the spot I wanted to pitch on. I didn't go too far, but between all the driving and the lugging and having to hitch myself over a chain repeatedly, the next day I felt as if I'd been beaten up!

I managed to get the tent up ok and I was pleased as I hadn't attempted it on my own before. I did have a moment of panic as the tent was quite saggy in the living area over head. I had a good headscratch and walk around. I could see that the ground wasn't completely even, and one corner was in a slight dip. But then when I tightened the bands in the corners at the bottom of the tent, the straps that you peg through, the tent magically went into it's proper shape. I put up the pup tent (which didn't get used anyway) and I put a small canopy over the door of my tent. The canopy had come with another tent, and is a bit like a tarp but it's got two straps with C clips on the end. I wasn't sure it would work out so this was an experiment. I had to get some more guy rope before the trip, and I already had the king poles. I was very glad of the extra canopy as it rained steadily all day Saturday. Had I not got it I would have had a very wet tent through the sloped doorway. So it meant I could keep the door open and sit inside watching the world go by. I had a camping neighbour in his Gelert Horizon 6 which is a very sturdy looking tent. He brought a rotary washing line which he put the TV aerial on. I've not come across many campers who bring a TV with them! I'm not sure I approve. It's my first time camping beside a TV and it was noisy, more noticeably so when it was approaching midnight. It didn't ruin my holiday but it was an annoyance. I got talking to my neighbour throughout our stay and discovered that they had a games console as well, he was quite pleased with his 'home from home'. I wasn't so delighted that he had pitched so close.

Unfortunatly the wine was flowing and I over indulged. So today, I packed up with a hangover. Probably the worst hangover I've had since I was a teenager. When I bent my head, I felt dizzy - the worst thing when you're packing bags and taking tents down and rolling airbeds and sleeping bags up! Everything is at floor level! My parents stayed in their Caravan so they weren't in the camping section which they said was a shame as the atmostphere is definately better in the camping area. She's not been well recently as she's been diagnosed with heart trouble and so we were careful not to stress her out with too much activity, but she did give the Archery a go. My kids went banana boating, joined by my nephew, and they also went out on the canoes. Today they went on the rock wall. The activities have gone up in price, so although there are two sessions a day for activities I limited them to one per day. The rain on Saturday is forgotten as the rest of the time it was pleasantly warm and dry too. It even dried up by saturday evening so we barbecued two nights. The first night we just got a chips and burgers from the takeaway. Today, my 9 year old nephew got into a strump when his parents made him leave. He wasn't speaking to anyone just stomped out of the reception and slammed the car door after climbing in. I said thats the sign of a good weekend, when they don't want to leave. For us all, it was a 'thumbs up' weekend!