Camp Diary - Page 3

Friday 2nd May 2003

THE CAMP SITE

The campsite is lovely; there is an onsite shop, poolroom, swimming pool, toilets, showers and a play area. But it’s best feature is its location, in a place called Llanfwrog, it is next too ‘Sandy Beach’; a beautiful cove which can only be accessed via the two campsites and one public access road. It is a popular place for sailors and jet skiers because you can drive straight onto the beach; I have spent many hours here sailing in the bay. The campsite is situated on the west point of the cove and is raised just enough to prevent it from being swamped by the sea but not enough to have high, dangerous cliffs. It is split up into three fields, one for static caravans and the other two for touring caravans and tents.

The site was actually really empty and apart from a few touring caravans and two other tents we were its only other occupants. (Very different from the previous weekend when I visited it to pay the deposit and to try the walk that we would be doing on the Saturday)

The rain had stopped and there was a lovely sunset over the sea, in the time it took Alex to get the remaining lads from the station myself, Rob, David, Leo, Luke, Tom and Tom manage to get the white frame tent up. This was to be the lad’s accommodation for the weekend and was by far the better of the two tents we had packed.

The light was starting to fade and once we had taken delivery if the remaining members of our party, plus the arrival of the elusive Dave and Louise we soon had the green frame tent up and all the kit inside. The patrol boxes (long wooden coffins with uncooperative slid on lids, used for packing kitchen equipment and kit in) very neatly rolled onto their sides and with the help of screw in legs they became work tops for cooking on and cupboards for storing food in, the temperamental lids when put on top of two cool boxes became very good tables.

9.00pm - Dave made everyone a warm drink and we sat around making plans for the next day. I was glad we all brought fold up seats as they were much more comfortable than sitting on ground sheets, although they did take up more room. The atmosphere in the green frame tent was cosy, but slightly cramped and there was an air of anticipation about the remainder of the weekend.

10.00pm - Everyone went on the last toilet run of the evening and then retired to their sleeping bags. The wind was picking up and the frame tents creaked most of the night as their box like sides tried to hold off the buffeting gusts. The leaders tried to compensate for a lack of pegging down points on the old green frame tent by using chairs and cool boxes to pin down the sides. They lay awake for most of the night listening to the clanging of the brass eyelets on the tent being blown against the cool boxes and chairs, trying not to imagine peg leg Jake wandering around the campsite looking for lost campers to gobble up. The lads on the other hand slept well.

(It must be noted at this point that Dave and Louise had spend the previous week on a college residential, this may sound very relaxing, but as they are both studying adventure sports at Reasheath College, you can image the sort of residential it must have been. Needless to say, they where both exhausted)