Walking with in-tent

Our weekend camp in dartmoor started of on friday. Me Ali, Chriss and Steve - flat mates made a list of what items we would need for the weekend, and after some packing went to the shops and brought food inlcuding a disposable bbq to have the same night.

Back in the kitchen we cooked up pasta salad- thinking ahead how good it would be to have with a bbq or with luncheon the following day.

Finally we were all ready and caught the bus from breaton side bus station in plymouth (me walking down with flip flops on - not ideal when it pouring with rain and i have heavy bags).

We arrived at our destiantion- Buckfastleigh, a small countryside town- perhaps only big enough to be a town by the fact it had a town centre; but with 3 pubs and a co-op what more do ya need!?.

A short ride up the road to the camp site from our friendly london cab driver and we errected the tent in the rain. Someone told me that rain will pass after 4 hours... If we learn nothing else from this weekend it is that "rain will pass in 4 hours" is complete bollox.

After getting sorted a bit of an explore was in order...making sure we kept Chriss away from the sheep we eventually made it to town... they have 3 pubs...would have been rude not to stop!.....a welcome break from the rain and a chance to chat to a couple of the locals. Over a pint of real ale we discussed issues such as beards, going to bristol, and the quaint counrty town of Buckfastleigh.

We headed back for some bbq. We discovered in the pouring rain disposable bbqs have the bad points...we proceeded to move the bbq, the meat and the beers into the tent and cook it there. Alas our efforts were in vain. We fried the meat and dried our self of after the short walk back from the town... after a couple of drinks we decided best to catch some sleep for the walk via hembury woods the next day.


A night of little/on and off sleep was had by all 4 of us. We made a move around 10/11 ish after some porrige and tea cooked up inside the tent on a gas burner. Steves soultion to soaking wet boots was to put tesco bags in his shoes; my boots were damp after the preveios day- however a coating of fat from the pan we had cooked the meat in helped the water proofness.

Alot of the first half of the walk was along roads, and Chriss who had rented a video camera for the weekend filmed various parts of it as we walked along...The weather had cleared up a little since the night before, with only light showers to start.

The hightlight for me at least was approaching a barn about half way- shelted from the wind and rain and lots of soft hay every where..."hmm...wonder if we could perhaps eat lunch there without the farmer noticing" we said....

We managed to get lost a few times, but all good fun really...the second half of the day was then fuelled by mars bars, bannanas, and 2 helpings of pasta salad- perfect!

The second half was far more scenic, and through woodland instead of roads. We eventually came to the town were we found a small pub for a beer...Maybe not as good beer or as good pub as the day before but refershing none the less.

The evening was one of pasta, beer, and wine...some good chat and some ok weather and a reasonable level of drunkeness we were thinking maybe we should go into town for some more booze...another camper suggested totness (apparently number one hippy town in england, with lots of sexy looking hippy type girls).

Out of randomness decided to rugby tackle ali, and from that all of us were keen to have mini wresling fights. No major injuries took place so we agreed on a game of british bulldog.

Bulldog in the dark when its slippery as can be, is the most fun i've had camping in a long while even with just the 4 of us...to wind down the night Chriss played some guitar, I hummed along out of tune, Steve attempted dry humping each of us and Ali repeatedly farted inside the tent for good measure.