Stu : Glen shall we move to a tipi village, I don’t think they mind how bad you smell at a tipi village

Stu : you know my tent has been “flipping” awesome
Tig : I don’t think you could do it in a church but I am sure you could get a civil partnership with your tent Stu…

Tig : Glen hurry up
Glen : (while crouching over pretending to squeeze air our of roll mat) I am praying
Tig : well you are in the right direction for mecca

Stu : Tig can you do me a favour and put these “flip”off huge plasters back in the first aid kit?
Tig : I always wondered what the medical name for those was.

Glen saying nothing rummages through her bag at breakfast and pulls out 3 seperate multitools and knives
Tig : don’t think much of the cutlery then?

Stu : well I am packed
Glen : just throwing all your kit out the door of the tent does not mean it is packed.

Oh and for those of you wondering why Glen does not have more lines in these it is more that she is generally quiet but when she does speak it is frequently rampant filth and not suitable for a family blog

The whole of the front is like this.

The daft part was we didn’t have this problem in scotland…

The cafe on site is shite too. A luke warm breakfast of tremendously bad value.
£24 buys you:
1 pot of tea
1 Earl Grey tea (large cup not pot)
1 filter coffee (tepid)
4 rashers of bacon
6 mushrooms
4 hash browns
3 fried eggs
1 slice of black pudding (between two)
2 sausages
1 veggie sausage
3 spoons of beans
4 halves of tomato
3 slices of toast (cold) unsalted butter
3 glasses of orange juice that turn up after you have finished you breakfast

Wack breakfast. Served on big plates, more space on the plates than breakfast, never a good look.

Welcome to camping english style,
Where to wee you have to walk a mile.
Make sure you keep your dog on a lead
To their demands you must heed
If not poor rover would fall
No matter how much you call
The tent poles cannot be straight
Your breakfast slides off your plate
Don’t mention the shower fees,
And certainly not the hairdryer ones please
For us in another rant you will find
Their regulations driving us out of our mind
What a contrast the nevis site
This campsite is truely sh*te
No hugs from the owner here
Instead the eyes of an accusing peer.

You may well have read Tig’s words about this campsite. My feelings are along the same lines.
The owners are misguided in thinking that they are providing an excellent facility. Doubtless it is clean and immaculately maintained, however the facilities are in adequate and poorly designed. I have designed a toilet block or two in my time. Also a 200m walk to the bins is ridiculous. The other thing is that every where you look there are little signs saying don’t do this don’t do that. Welcome to the world of Rules and Regulations. The owners are not keen to allow groups to stay. If Glenys wasn’t with us and we were three blokes we would not be welcome, we had to plead our case to get on here as it is a “family” site. We are all in our 30′s and 40′s for Christ’s sake, professionals and there Glenys and I were asking cap in hand if we could stop.
The owners are obviously coining it in judging by the density we are packed on here. I am not adverse to them making money, quite the opposite. £17 per night for the three of us is a bit steep, we paid
£22 in Ft William, the facilities were excellent, the staff were professional and welcoming, they couldn’t do enough for us (booking taxis and the like), also the showers were free. Cueing for the shower last night, the first shower for a few days as we had been wild camping, I was angry to say the least when I got a cubicle to find you had to pay 50p for a shower. Further I was greeted with a little notice saying it was to conserve water as the site is on a private supply. Why not push button showers then. Please don’t insult my intelligence with trying to suggest the charge is made to conserve water, it is levied to extract more cash from the guests. All told £10 a night would be about right for this site.
The owners probably think they have provided camping Nirvana, they haven’t, we have been to camping Nirvana. Its on an island, on a Scottish loch with a small camp fire and only wallabies for neighbours. The only Rules and Regulations are that you act sensibly and that you leave the place tidy.
Rant over.

No idea how these will turn out but I have 3g here and not afraid to use it…

….there is probably an english campsite half way up that with signs saying “do not roll off your sleeping mat in the night” nailed to every tree.

Anyhoo the plan:
Get up, breakfast, strike camp, put in cosmic booting of a suggestion note to campsite. Then we are off on a pilgrimage to Tamerack (purveyors of bushcrafty kit) as Stu has spent billions of pounds there on kit and wants to pop in and say hello. Then we are back on the road and back to Stu’s house to seperate all the kit out then home!

Gps will be on when we are moving

So we are in keswick, no pareticular reason apart from we thought it would be a nice place to break the journey up. A nice full service campsite was the plan so we could wash and get clean and have a pleasant journey back.

What we got was the traditional english welcome….

Campsite 1 : sucked their teeth when we arrived and said that their might be room on the overflow field. Both fields were on a hill and rammed full in a haphazard manner, they obviously had not been organised and had basically taken the money and left people to fend for themselves. Needless to stay we did not fancy nailing the tent to the edge of a cliff face so we tried next door.

Campsite 2 : big sign saying we were not welcome. Three adults constituted a group but because Glen is female they let us on ( actually campsite 1 was the same). Anyway they let us on (suspiciously a couple of quid cheaper than next door). The field (both sites had fields, they didn’t have pitches) was only a slight incline. Anyway under threat of being shut in the outside world (gate to the whole site, not just the campsite was barred at 10pm) we dared leave the site to sneak into keswick.

Keswick was packed due to a “mountian festival” apparently which did not help matters but we made it back with tea before the dreaded lockout. After tea we dared to try to get a shower. When we hiked over to the “facilities” block we then found out the showers required 50p coins to operate (for 3 mins), now this may sound picky but for £17 odd quid a night for camping in a field I don’t expect to then be price gouged at every opertunity, 50p for 3 mins shower 20p for 2 mins hairdryer (I am high maintainance after all) it all adds up. More so it is massively inconvient as you then have to collectivly come back to camp and then scrabble around for change etc, it is also indicative to how the english treat customers, it is just bleed people dry with a thousand little paper cuts while piling on the rules and stipulations and treating customers as a burden rather than paying guests.

Apologies for the rant but at the end of a long day when we have had such a wonderful time in scotland and been treated so well it really has made it more apparent.

I think Stu put it the best : “Welcome to England, have a smack in the face”, but remember to say thank you.

Stu: We have to be back by 1030pm or we will be locked out. Its like camping in Nazi Germany.

Stu: Glen you nearly stood on my bad toe, at least I’m wearing Crocs so there are holes to let the blood out.

Tig: that is the problem with having germans camping next door, they spoil the traditional british sport of casual racism and dodgy accents…

Tig: are you the acceptable face of modern casual racism?
Stu: no iam the acceptable face of modern sexism
Tig: I am the acceptable face of modern agism, it must be Glen

Glen: that train was really nice colours.
Stu (having just woken up): That will be the Monster Ripper working then.

Tig: we have had a message from Gordy
Stu and Glen: hurrah!

Tig: Glen, do you need the wokbeena to cuddle tonight?

Tig: We could have a bar meal provided they allowed us to eat outside… They couldn’t smell us then.

Strange man looking at landy rammed full of stuff: Do you sleep in there?
Stewie: No
Stewie ten mins later: Do we sleep in there? What, did he think we could get in there by osmosis?