So it's your first time or it's been a long time?
We noticed last year that quite alot of people paid a visit that had never camped before, or were returnees, often after decades of the soft life!
This page is for those people - with tips we hope you will find useful and which will make the camping experience a pleasure for you, to be repeated as often as possible. We welcome tips from experienced campers who come to this page too, just email them in ( gregrb41@hotmail.com ) - anything that you have found that works and you think beginners would appreciate.
1. Night Temperatures. It is always colder at night than you think it will be! Whatever time of year, always bring an extra blanket, and make sure that you have some form of insulation between you and the ground.
2. Sleeping Bags. Feel trapped inside a sleeping bag - use a duvet instead. Selk bags are good too - google it and get a surprise, they do work extremely well, I have one. It is worth noting that sleeping bag manufacturers at the cheaper end of the market lie. They say 3 season, a user would say oi, that isn't 3 season, more like a 2 season! And don't forget to buy the right size, if you are a six footer for instance, make sure there is going to be enough length for you.
3. Tents. There are so many tents of different types out there, what to buy? Well, you might want to make sure you actually like camping before investing £100's in kit. Try our Rent-A-Tents. All the kit is provided at a fraction of the cost, and whilst you are here you can also chat to other campers, everyone has a different set up and if there is one thing campers can spend hours talking about, it's kit! Campers are in our experience just about the friendliest and most helpful people out there and will I am certain be pleased to help you out. My advice? A Bell tent with stove. Cool.
4. Footwear - always bring wellies, you never can tell what the weather is going to do and really, you don't want to be squidging around in stilletoes. Those new fangled Jello shoes or whatever they are called are good too.
5. OMG it's raining. Yep, it does that unfortunately. If you don't have a large tent with plenty of space, then consider a tarp as an additional room for your small tent. A tarp will provide great satisfaction, set up correctly you can use it as an open air kitchen, to sit under whilst gazing into the camp fire, and it means you won't feel 'tent bound'.
6. Cookers. The first law of camping is that you must make every other camper on the site jealous of the fabulous aroma of your bacon cooking for brekkers. There is a theory that camping is only worth doing for this reason. To do this we recommend you don't bother with a single burner cooker, they fall over and constantly run out of gas. Get a two ring cooker, it will be inexpensive, a good deal more stable and you are able to use larger gas bottles, the type which you pay a deposit on and don't throw away! Disposable anything is an environmental crime so not only will you be doing your bit you will find outdoor cooking much less of a hazard than using a single burner.
7. Barbecues. Please please please don't use those dreadful disposable BBQ's! A couple of reasons for not using them are that first off they are rubbish for cooking on. They start mega hot and burn everything to a crisp, then cool too quickly. Secondly, yep, they are disposable which is of course a BAD thing. We do recommend the smaller transportable types that fold up for easy packing, and they work. Blackened burgers are a thing of the past with the proper kit.
8. Thermal Underwear. This is of course a subject touching on high fashion, of which I know nothing so I'll keep it short. Thermals are very useful for camping September - May. They work. Period.
9. First Aid Kit. Don't forget to bring one, you never know when it might be needed.
More to follow, this page is a work in progress.
