Vocal Voices

It is close to my heart and I have campaigned for wild camping for years.

This year farmers and landowners can allow pop up camps for 56 days as opposed to the old 28 day rule - it's good but not enough. We hardy types do not need hot showers, "restaurants", entertainment, swimming pools or community centres. Just give us a tap with clean drinking water and a pitch and let us wander off to explore - and spend.

It's a no-brainer.

There are fabulous places to see in the UK, but many of them are restricted to those who can afford to spend upwards of £70 pp / per night in a local hostelry. We campers have the cash and will spend it locally if you give us the chance, if not we will sod off to Europe and beyond. Sadly, that is what we tend to do to the benefit of France, Germany, Italy, Spain et al.

Covid, ironically, might change all that. Bring it on!

Yes, I was looking at an article in the Torygraph about that. One of the featured sites is quite close to us.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life ... n-uk-2021/

It's a good idea, as long as the basic facilities are available and the campers are responsible over things like waste disposal. Wayne and Waynetta can't survive in the bush like you can, WM!

We used to camp at Glen Doll and walk the mountains. The local farmer kept the camp site for walkers and the price was a pittance. Then again it had one toilet block with 2 stalls, one male, one female and one outdoor tap.

It was wonderful, in the summer, as the kids became older teenagers, we'd take the tend up at the weekend and leave it for 2 weeks, leaving the kids with food and essentials and leaving them to it.

Then it became known to the city types who suddenly realised they could book a 7 seater taxi turn up with music blasters and crates of booze and make a huge mess and a huge nuisance of themselves. Eventually the farmer closed the camp, much to the detriment of walkers. Mrs S and I spent many a wonderful weekend up there in the summer, on the mountains.

The more you give, in modern society, the more the urine is extracted by a growing minority.

A good article, Ossie, but they would not be for me. I am more a field and a woods type - middle of nowhere.

However, I do agree with this:

“The beauty of pop-up sites,” said Dan Yates, founder of the booking ­website Pitchup, “is that they tend to be in more rural areas away from honeypot destinations, so it’s an opportunity for people to explore lesser-known parts of the country and put money into rural economies.”

and it's a good point. We will spend. If you are doing minimal you cannot possibly take everything with you so you buy as you go.

As for Wayne and Waynetta and the litterbugs, nobody wants them. Those of us who do basic camping have rules, the main one being 'take out what you take in and leave nothing but footprints'.

Workingman wrote:Those of us who do basic camping have rules, the main one being 'take out what you take in and leave nothing but footprints'.

It is entirely infuriating to be half way up a mountain and realise you are following a trail of someone else's trash. If you can carry it up containing what you eat, you can carry it down empty. The sheep are not mountain cleaners. #1 son gets really infuriated with orange peel. If it is dumped in summer and dries, it can take a century to finally degrade.

I missed this:

Suff wrote:The more you give, in modern society, the more the urine is extracted by a growing minority.

hence the need for strong rules and Ts&Cs. It can be done.

And don't get me started about litter on trails.

Fortunately what is being spoken of are small pop-ups in out of the way places. We used to go to one in Dent Dale - a paddock with about 12 pitches behind a farmhouse and barn. You could get raw milk and freshest laid free range eggs from the Mrs Farmer in the morning and the nearest pub was a mile away in the village.

Far enough away from any place of any size that a chavmobile would not go there.