A New Forest Camping (Mis-)Adventure!

A few weekends ago, Andy & I and a couple of chums (hello Beccy & Dan) went camping. Working in the industry ourselves, we take our holidays, where and when we can, out of season and earlier in the year had made a plan to go to Beaulieu. We agreed this would ideally involve camping nearby if the weather proved conducive, but we were happy to make a final decision nearer the time. Well, nearer the time brought a mild October, so we said we would camp and offered our friends the chance to stay in one of our beautiful Bell Tents. Very excited to be going camping ourselves, (rather than just providing all the kit for others) I began a thorough search on-line for an ideal campsite. We are quite fussy when it comes to campsites. We like small, quiet, independent campsites, preferably with a pub nearby. We are not so fussed about facilities, but we know what we don't like, namely 'holiday park' style mega sites. Anyway, we whittled it down to a couple of farm sites, then remembered Beccy & Dan might actually like decent showers and toilets and so the decision was made for us and I settled on a small site in Minstead near  Lyndhurst. I emailed the owners and waited for a reply. Two weeks passed, nothing! I telephoned the owner and a rather brusque lady huffed and puffed whilst I got to the point (I'm sorry, I was just being friendly, I thought people liked those who were chatty on the phone, but no, she wanted me to get to the point ASAP and couldn't wait to get off the phone)! Anyway, the upshot, they did not take bookings, just turn up, cash payments only and make sure we arrive before it gets dark. Easy-peasy, we could do that no problem! All sorted.

Except then we picked up a last minute tent booking for that weekend and that somehow had to be fitted in with Andy finishing work on the Friday, packing up the car and setting off! It was all ok though, he arranged to finished early and I was off work anyway, so could get all the stuff together on the day! The booking was only for one tent so we could still take the others for ourselves too, perfect! Beccy and Dan would drive down separately and arrive just like when we have a booking, to find the tents all ready set up for them, and we'd be there brewing tea and starting on dinner! All good!

Or so we thought! Friday arrived and I busied myself filling the car with all the kit for the booking, then making a separate pile of all the kit for our own trip. We had packed our clothes & personal stuff the night before so it was just tent stuff piled up in the garage ready to go in after the booking. Andy got out of work and arrived home no problem, so we set off for Newton Mill Campsite to set up for our booking. Well, the set up went swimmingly and we would have been home ready to load up right on schedule were it not for the annoying Bath rush hour which on Fridays seems to start at 3pm and last until 7pm, so it took forever to get home, and delayed our leaving time. We raced around like mad things, packing up the car and we were on the road by 5.15pm. The light would be fading around 7pm and we knew we would be cutting it fine, but the campsite was only one and a half Google hours from home so we should have been fine. Except for traffic! Oh dear me, we got delayed heading out on the A36, we got delayed around Salisbury, we got delayed on the M27 and finally, coming onto the A31 we hit stand still traffic. We only had about 2 miles to go but we were going nowhere and the light was fading fast! I rang the campsite and apologised that we were going to be arriving after dark, tried to explain that we would be fine, we had put tents up in the dark before, but she was not happy at all. Ah well, we had tried our best to be on time.

When we finally arrived, it was about 7.30pm and properly dark. We texted Beccy & Dan and said ring when they are nearby to let us know, then I rang the doorbell and a lady answered. Oh my goodness, she was so rude. She virtually ignored everything I was saying, didn't return any pleasantries, and about the only things she said were to tell us off for being late, tell us how much the fee was and then thrust a bin bag at us and tell us we had better clean up after ourselves and use it. After we had paid up she dropped a massive bombshell. 'Now then' she said, 'we have 60 kids in the field so you'll have to go on the right by the gate.' I could not believe it, she had plenty of opportunities to tell us she had 60 kids in, when I first emailed (which she ignored), when I rang to enquire about booking, when I rang to say we'd be late, and even when we first arrived. Why had she waited until we'd paid? Oh yeah, because she knew we'd have no choice once we'd arrived and paid and she wanted our money! The campsite only had 2 toilets and showers which we four were expected to share with 60 kids who would be roaming about, making noise and generally ruining our nice quiet camping trip! When I said earlier we were fussy, that includes sharing a very tiny field with a whole bunch of over excited teenagers, running about, chattering, shrieking and screaming. This is exactly what they were doing when we pulled into the field round the back. We got out of the car as a threesome of arms linked teens giggled their way by us. Andy leant on the roof of the car. 'I don't want to camp here' he said. 'Neither do I' I replied, then I marched off in the direction of the farm house to get our money back. The good thing about being a bit older is that you're not scared to do things like demand your money back instead of going through with something you've changed your mind about and know you won't enjoy!

I knocked on the door. 'We can't stay here' I said, 'Can I have my money back please?' Without a word, off she shuffled, presumably to get it. When she came back, I was on the phone to Beccy 'Change of plan' I said and I'm afraid now it was my turn to be rude, as I took the money from the campsite owner, whilst on the phone, talking to Beccy, and this is something I would never normally do, but given the treatment we'd had earlier, I did't feel that bad about it either!

I thought we'd book a cheap B&B, we'd seen a well known budget chain just down the road, so thought we'd end up there, until Beccy said 'We could go stay at my parents, they said we could if something went wrong.' (although I think they were thinking more along the line of in case the weather turned bad rather than us getting our knickers in a twist after a late arrival, rude landlady and prospect of sharing a field with a whole bunch of noisy adolescents!)

So, we waited for Beccy & Dan to arrive then followed them to her Mum's house, just a few miles down the road, in Ringwood. Dinner that night was a pub meal, after a short walk to one of Beccy's old local haunts and her sister & hubby even came & met us for a drink. A very nice evening, and afterwards, we wandered back and kipped on the living room floor. They even treated us to bacon and eggs the next morning (ah, just like real camping)!

Seeing as the original plan was to go to Beaulieu, we set off after breakfast, deciding to drive towards Beaulieu and stop at the first campsite we came across, still intending to camp for one night. We got as far as Brockenhurst, having passed many campsites which were closed for the season. Oops, we started to get worried! We got to a junction, Beaulieu one way, Lyndhurst the other and made a snap decision that if there were going to be any more campsites, they would be more likely to be towards Lyndhurst, so that way we went. A couple of minutes down the road we saw a welcome sight: a sign for Long Meadow Campsite, and there were definitely caravans visible in the distance! It was open - Hooray!!

Long Meadow saves the day!

We were greeted by a very friendly couple. 'Do you think we could camp here, two pitches for one night, please? I asked. 'Ooh, I should think so' was the reply. We chatted and joked with the owners whilst they booked us in and they were really lovely. They gave us some tips for things to see at Beaulieu and let us get set up straight away, even though it was only 11am and they normally don't allow arrivals until 1pm. We had landed on our feet. We told them about our problems the night before and they asked who it was, when we told them, they were not surprised!!

Booze and Zombie Fluxx - the perfect Saturday night in?

The Bell Tents treat us to some glamping in the New Forest!

Needless to say, we pitched the tents as quick as you like, trundled off to Beaulieu and had a lovely time. When we returned, we cooked our dinner and spent a relaxing evening outside the tents until it turned too chilly then we moved inside our 5m Bell Tent where we chatted and played games with some drinkies until the small hours. This was the first time Andy & I had experienced camping in a Bell Tent where we actually got to enjoy being in the tent, hanging out with friends. It was so very spacious, and lovely to have somewhere to sit and relax instead of having to go to bed as soon as it gets too cold for sitting outside!

Our New Forest Misadventure had come out on top and we ended up having a wonderful time. It was a shame we could not have camped for two nights, but we thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless, oh, and a big thank you to Beccy's folks for rescuing us from certain disaster!

By the way, I'm not going to name names or point fingers but if you are curious, there are plenty of reviews on Trip Adviser which will leave you in no doubt as to who the unbelievably rude lady was and what campsite she is the owner of.