Had my first camping of the year just over a week ago. Nicola’s first one ever so we decided on a week at Shell Island. Well that was the plan.

Arrived nice and early on the Friday (well about 10.30am but we did travel through rush hour, no major problems luckily). Gorgeous day, warm, slight breeze, fairly quiet on site. Set up the pitch and had a lovely day generally (apart from big group of lads being noisy and singing a song about Scuba Diving at 2am next morning, oh well you get them everywhere). Saturday was a bit more cloudier, breezier and wetter so not as good but still enjoyed it. Sunday morning we were woken about (just after midnight by noisy lads singing that horrible Scuba Diver song again, at least I also heard a warden tell them off, and then woken again at) 4am with the walls of our Vango Venture 500 tent boinging about making sleeping uncomfortable.

Seeing as we were awake and the wind was getting stronger still we went and sat in the car. Looking round many other people were up, and some tents were really taking a battering. Some people were sleeping through it all I think. Eventually we made the decision to put our gear in the car for safe keeping, then disassemble the tent til it calmed down a bit. But a pole was snapped so we made the decision to come home. Tent might have been OK but not risking it if the winds remained up. By 7.30 we were leaving the site, and some 100 or so people had done so already I think I heard. Man on the gate said 60-70 mph winds were reported up the Welsh coast.

So although the trip was spoiled, Nicola was not put off and at least we got a little trip and will have to go back sometime. Here’s a pretty picture.

At least I have my other tent (Vango Omega 450) from last year, so I can use that until we can afford an Outwell Montana 6 or something equally roomy and stable.

I wanna be a scuba diver…