I felt like it has been forever since I got out camping. I was actually starting to grow nervous in myself and impatient at the weather. With the weather how it is at the moment, its a choice between strong wind or strong rain (or both) out on the hill. The choice of preference was strong wind, and out I headed on a lovely sunny evening with a big smile on my face. I scouted around for a bit of shelter to pitch next to – the wind force was up to Beaufort 8 – so there must be a place somewhere that isn’t too far away and lends a bit of shelter as well…. Ah ha! There are quarries only 15 minutes away that I pass through every time I go out. 15 more minutes and a dodgy-looking site was found, inside the quarry beside the boundary wall.
Its an old granite quarry, unique to the area because of its pinkish hue. I’m also told the pinkness in the rock gives off a higher amount of radiation than your standard granite. Behind this wall, the shelter is amazing…. until around 4am, but that’s for later.
There really wasn’t a good selection of ground to pitch on. First I tried a little higher up on a gravely area but – despite testing first – as soon as I went to plug the pegs, do you think I could get any into the ground past half way? Nope. So. Back down the hill in the pit, which is full of thick heather, moss and swamp. My site was on top of the heather, narrowly avoiding the moss, and far enough from the swamp to not get flooded. The only problem now is that because the heather is so deep, I can’t get the pegs into anything other than more heather, and a gale is coming in the morning. Alas, these things we must all try.
And the evening indeed was lovely. The quarry was like being inside a little tiny undisturbed world. I had my kitchen set up and looked out to sea as the alcohol stove boiled the water. Which took forever. I need to make a small tweak to this system as the wind guard doesn’t quite cut it. Something inspired by a Trangia I suppose, as opposed to a converted wood burning stove. I really like the stove otherwise, with the shorter evenings… I can boil my tea before bed then sip it by the fire watching the meths burn out. Serenity.
Crawling in to bed this evening was like getting into a king bed of a 5 star hotel. That’s how soft the heather combined with my mat was. I lay there. I listened to the sea, gentle breeze and contemplated the deep-seated satisfaction that grew in me from being outdoors. I really didn’t sleep that well because I didn’t want to miss this feeling! Then 4am came around and brought with it the gale (which was three hours ahead of schedule). Fantastic shelter from the quarry but there was something funny about the way it sent the wind after it, that it blew directly sideways onto my tent from the opposite direction! Sharp, strong random gusts of south-east wind slammed into the vulnerable alloy arch pole, nearly straightening it. I was kind of concerned because this is the worst angle for this tent to take the wind. I spent the next three hours propped up on the inside helping to support it. Luckily a lot of it was spent asleep.
Last time I camped in a gale the wind was also at the worst place on the tent! No damage was done, although I had visions of cracked aluminium poles in my mind. My tent is also very robust. Thick pegs and poles, none of which moved the entire time, even pegged questionably into the heather.
So it was another success. Except for the hike back. I was 1.5 minutes from the shelter of a wall when out of nowhere rain whipped and lashed as hard as hail all over me!
OUTDOORSY GIRL 
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