Well……what to say about this one?
In many ways (in fact every way) I’m glad that I went solo on this one. As much as I like the company on these little adventures, as it turned out I don’t think anyone else would have enjoyed this one.
I know I didn’t.
First off I arrived about half an hour before it started to get dark, so I had to find a pitch fairly quickly or face pitching in darkness. This wouldn’t normally be an issue except for the fact that the whole area seemed to be covered in heather. Heather sounds nice I hear you say. To look at yes, to smell it’s scent yes, but to pitch a tent on, definitely not. It’s stems are hard and woody and will perforate your tent in no time. So the search went on. However, I did get lucky and found a patch of clear ground just big enough to get my tent on. Phew!!
Darkness fell, I made myself a well deserved brew, I had some scoff, and then decided to just chill for the night. Unfortunately, because of the aforementioned timing issue I had to pitch only a short distance from where I had parked, about 400m as the crow flies.
But this meant that when another vehicle parked up in the car park with headlights beaming out and making lots of clunking noises that carried in the night, I immediately thought the worst and made surprisingly good time across the pitch black moorland, back to the scene of where the imagined car rape was taking place.
Thankfully though it turned out to be a radio ham in a van setting up their arial and getting ready for a night of chat with folks as far away as Canada. Apparently it’s a good spot for them. Well, after pretending to get something small from my van in an effort to innocently explain why I suddenly emerged from the undergrowth in a hurry, I had a nice chat with the folks there and learned something about their culture (radio hams) and chatted about mine (camping). I then headed back to my tent feeling a little foolish for my over reaction and my pathetic attempt to cover it.
However, a little later I could hear the sounds of motors going up and down the road at fairly regular intervals, but from the sound of them I could tell it was the rangers looking for the bastard that thought he could camp on their turf. You see the very nice radio ham people had informed me that there were a couple of particularly irritable rangers in their mini flatbed agricultural vehicles that took great delight in harassing anyone that dared to lurk around after dark.
The tent I was using that night blended very well into the surrounding foliage, and the descending mist covered me from view, and so I remained undetected. I eventually settled down for the night, had some more scoff, drank some very nice wine, and actually ended up having a very pleasant evening.
The real problems began the following morning. The mist had really closed in with total visibility down to a maximum of 30m.
After breakfast I packed up and headed back to my van and the scene of my embarrasment, only to find one of the rangers in his dinky little van waiting for the disrespectful little bastard to return from his illicit night out so that he could excoriate him fully.
After what was a lesson in why wildcamping is a bad thing I thought the best thing I could do was to head into town and get another breakfast, wait for a short while and then head back up.
The full english breakfast was good! I can honestly say it was really good!
After what I thought was a reasonable amount of time I headed back up to find another parking spot that I could head out from.
Unfortunately the universe had other plans. Part way up the very narrow single track road that leads to the upland, another driver decided not to wait and passed by me far too close and obliterated my wing mirror. After a bit of a discussion about the incident, the other driver accepted his fault and decided not to involve the insurance companies, and payed me in cash for the damage instead. That was something I guess.
So once again I set off up the hill to find a spot to park up, which thankfully I did. However, visibility had not improved one bit, and I was looking at about the same 30m of land in whichever direction I looked. Undeterred I was going through my kit when I heard the familiar sound from the night before, the sound of a tiny flatbed carrying what I have come to think of as a tiny tinpot Hitler with an ego complex. Without so much as a word he pulled up close by and just sat there watching me. Clearly I was not going to start out from there.
I got in my van and drove off under the watchful gaze of my new best friend.
After a short drive (the Long Mynd isn’t that big), I found somewhere else to park up and started again. At this point the mist was clearing in pockets giving some stunning views of the sharp hills in the distance, but only lasting a few minutes before it closed in again.
I did manage to take some pics in this time which I was glad of, but it also allowed my friend to make his way towards me and once again disrupt my plans.
Once again I boarded my chariot and headed out searching for the solitude of one.
I found another decent spot to park up, only this time I wasn’t hanging around. However, the familiar sound once again broke the silence as soon as I opened the back of the van, but it wasn’t my best friend, it was my best friends mate. They were working as a team and had started to tag team me.
It was at this point that I accepted I wasn’t going to win and decided that I had to ‘retire from the field of combat’.
My plans, like my van, were bruised and battered and lay in pieces all around me. There was only one thing I could do…..go home.