4 ways to camp this weekend

There are many ways of spending a night in the outdoors, depending on what you’re taking, where you’re going, and how you want to get there. How do you do it?

1) Family camping

OAG publisher, Dickie, is a consummate camping expert, with a hardcore naval background. Things got even more hardcore once he had a family with three small girls to keep happy. Here’s his advice on loading up a car for a bank holiday weekend of camping with a group of families.

The trick with children is giving them an experience that they want to repeat. Often it’s the unplanned events that they talk about: meeting other families on the site, finding a family of frogs next to a stream or making a cycle race track and endlessly lapping it.

You can’t plan for that; what you can do is make the rest of the time disappear seamlessly into the background. If food is always ready, beds are comfortable and the right temperature, and their clothes are right for the conditions then they’ll make their own fun.

The trick for parents is making the stuff of life bearable and not an endless series of tasks.

2) Cycle touring

There are few better ways of sustainable touring than loading up a push-bike with camping gear. And OAG’s favourite source for tips and info on seeing the world on two wheels is the brilliant website www.cycletourer.co.uk, run by John Houseago and his wife Frank (Frances).

“My wife and I have enjoyed our cycle touring trips so much, we just thought it would be nice to give something back,” John tells us. “Back in 1998 we set up the website to encourage others to have a go at cycle touring.”

Here are their tips on packing your stead:

- We use front and rear panniers and so it’s important to pack with a 60/40 rear/front weight bias, or your steering will become light and can make the bike weave in bends.

- Don’t use a rucksack, it’s uncomfortable and can affect stability. If you need one, with panniers et al, you’re carrying too much.

- Pack gear with accessibility in mind – place waterproofs at the top of panniers, and the kit you’ll need first when you get to a campsite, like your tent.

- Pack everything in waterproof bags, as few panniers are truly waterproof (except the superb Ortlieb panniers (www.ortlieb.co.uk). We use a wet/dry system where kit that must stay dry, like clothes and bedding goes in the ‘dry’ panniers, and stuff that might get packed away damp, like shoes or dewy groundsheets, go in the ‘wet’ bag.

For a goldmine of cycle touring tips and info, see www.cycletourer.co.uk.

3) Train camping

Haven’t got a car? Want to go far? But not so far you can’t lug your camping gear there? Here’s ten campsites you can easily reach by train:

Noongallas, Cornwall

£6-7 taxi ride from Penzance station.Pitch price: £5 per adult, £2.50 per child. 01736 366698

Eweleaze Farm, Dorset.

Around £10 taxi ride from Weymouth station.Pitch price: £6 Sun-Thur, £12 Fri-Sat. 01305 833690

Stowford Manor Farm,

Wiltshire. £5 taxi ride from Trowbridge station.Pitch price: £8-15. 01225 752253 Graig Wen, North Wales

Fisherground, Cumbria.

Take the train to coastal Ravenglass from Barrow-in-Furness, then make the rest of your journey (40mins) by miniature steam train. Pitch price: £5.50, children £2.50. 01946 723349

By the Way, Stirlingshire

Located 50 yards from Tyndrum station, with arrivals from Glasgow and Oban three times daily. Pitch price: £6. 01838 400333

Fieldhead, Derbyshire.

Edale station is a 5 minute walk from the site. Pitch price: £4-5.50, children £2-4. > 01433 670386

Edisford Bridge Farm, Lancashire.

About £3 taxi ride from Clitheroe station. Pitch price: £10 per two-person tent. 01200 427868

4) Ultra Light camping

Publisher Dickie, grabs the bare minimum and heads off on his bike ride…

“I haven’t done this for years; this isn’t touring, it’s simply going for a longer ride than usual and staying out for a night. Packing is interesting. I’m prepared to get into my bag wet, along with wet gear, because that’s the best way of drying out overnight.

So the only extra clothing I’m carrying is wool leggings, a Lifa hooded baselayer, and a wool jumper. The bivvy bag is a synthetic Mountain Hardwear Lamina 20 with a –7 degree C rating. A Mammut inflatable alpine mat slips inside the bivvy bag so I don’t roll off it during the night, and the whole lot fits into an Osprey 35-litre pack.

With a bag of porridge, some raisins, two litres of water, a resealable tub of coffee, a Jetboil plus gas and some bike tools and spare tubes, the whole bag weighs in at 7kg.

The ride is great. Knowing you can just head out of the front door and not worry about when to turn back is surprisingly revitalising. I end up about 18 miles away on the outskirts of a village with an excellent pub.

Scouting around locates a suitable east-facing hedgerow, clear of the road and with enough grass to hide without it being too long. I don’t leave anything there, but scoot on to the pub and wolf down a game pie.

The longest part of setting up ‘camp’ is breaking down my bike and tucking it under the hedge, in case of unlikely midnight visitors. The bivvy bag flicks out, the mat is inflated and slid inside and the sleeping bag follows.

It’s quite cold and rain is in the air, according to foIk in the pub, so I change into leggings and baselayer, wedge the rest of my gear down the side of the bivvy and use the pack as a pillow. I am almost instantly warm. The bivvy can be closed almost over my face, but I like lying looking up at the fast-moving sky.

It’s when the first drops of rain land that I need to roll onto my side and let the water slip past my face onto the ground. With a hat on and the hood of the baselayer up I don’t feel the impact of the drops, and the noise soon sends me off again.

I wake fully after sunrise. Getting up is a delicate affair; it’s not raining but the ground and bag are wet so balancing into shoes without soaking the sleeping bag is partially successful.

The coffee is soon on; about ten minutes after waking I’m reassembling the bike and slurping it down as the porridge gets going. I’ll pick a route past the Kings Arms and call the family to meet me there for lunch…

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