Two Thieves Test a Tent

We hope you all had a lovely Xmas and Boxing Day. 

Our Xmas was very lovely indeed.  Tania and Nick invited us to xmas dinner with them and they put a beautiful spread of turkey, ham, roast veges, cheeses, chocolates etc etc.  Thank you to both of them for making our xmas day very special.  Santa was kind to us both, he must have realised that we were trying to travel light and so he left us lots of nice outdoorsy/travel clothes.  Tania and Nick gave us a really cool backpacking dinner set that folds up like oragami and is reusable.  It took us abit of figuring out how to fold it but once it's done the first time it was surprisingly easy to re-fold.  They also gave us lots of goodies too so we were very spoilt.

Boxing day we jumped in our car and headed to The North (well, that's what it says on the motorway signs!).  We went up towards Newcastle and then veered west inland to a camping site near Hadrians Wall.  This ancient Wall was built in 122AD by the Romans to prevent military raids by the Scots.  Dotted every Roman Mile (about 1.45kms) they built forts to protect it.  Alot of the Wall has fallen down but a large proportion of it is still standing.  We found it very interesting to see.  It is actually also a walk now which stretches from east coast to west coast of England and has been repaired by the national trust so is all cemented now.  This did not stop these two thieves from claiming a piece of their own - which is now bubblewrapped and packed in our boxes to be one day smuggled back into Aussie and made into some sort of trophe/monument of us conquering Romans (or actually the British, since they were the ones who have cemented the wall and made it a mission for us to steal!).

When we rocked up at the campsite it was cold and windy but not too bad.  We spent abit of time trying to erect our new tent for the first time but now that it's up it can be erected very quickly as the fly and the tent can be put up as one.  A few people in caravans were watching us and eventually must have felt sorry for us and came out to our aid and offered us a hot cuppa coffee to warm up.  They were a lovely couple who used to camp in their younger years but have now converted to the luxury of a warm, dry, roomy caravan.  We had a bit of a mission trying to get meths for our campstove as all the shops had shut and ones that were open did not sell it.   We attempted to use lighter fluid and all this did was only half cook the bangers and nearly cause a bonfire.  Ed and Deb were not about to go hungry so Ed broke into the campsites new bungalow (which people pay shitloads to rent) and used their stove to cook the remainder of the sausages.  Boy they tasted mighty fine by the end of all this.  If you are wondering, NO He did not clean the stove afterwards!  We had a slight panic attack when as we were eating the evidence the smoke alarm in the bungalow went off but after a quick recce we realised that it was in fact an alarm from someones caravan (who obviously could not cook bangers as well as Ed).  Ed knew this was going to happen so he cooked with the doors open...ah not so stupid after all is he!  That man will do anything for food.  

Our first night was a very good test of the endurance of our new tent.  People keep telling us that you don't camp in December.  We now understand why!  No sooner had we closed the tent for the night, the rain and wind decided to cause havoc.  The rain was constant and the wind was howling up on the hills.  It was cold too, we predicted about 0 degrees but while we could have done with another duvet or two, we were relatively comfortable in our down sleeping bags and our little tent did us proud and did not leak or fall down once. 

Next morning it was still raining but we went back to have another look at Hadrians Wall and then made our way over to the Lakes District via a few towns.  Ambleside is one of the main villages here and is a beautiful town made of slate stone blocks that are a dark grey.  We both love this look and one day when are millionaires we will ship some of this stone home.  The town is a outdoor enthusiast mecca with dozens of outdoor shops all competing so the prices are very good.  We spent a couple of ours mosying around before driving another couple of miles inland to our campsite.  By the time we got their most of the campsite was underwater and as it was 3pm it was pitch black nighttime.  The rain was hammering down and it took us abit of time trying to find a half decent "dry" spot (ie somewhere that wouldn't flood overnight).  We were feeling abit sheepish at this point but luckily noticed other idiots were camping too so we didn't feel quite so stupid being the only ones.  In this weather it took us about 3mins to erect our tent and it stayed dry so we were very impressed.  Of course us two dickheads forgot our headtorches so we had to cook under the headlights of the car hoping and praying it wouldn't flatten the batteries.  It was sleepness night for us, the weather was wild.  The rain was pounding down and the wind was ferocious.  The wind gusts sounded like tornadoes coming straight at us. We would lie there listening to the thunder of the wind coming right to us and wondering if it would hit us or go over the top - if it hit us the tent would collapse in on us and pop back out when the gusts pasted.  If it blew over you'd sigh in relief and wait for a few minutes for the next one.  We felt like we on Everest.  But apart from a few pegs falling out because we couldn't get them in deep enough due to rock underground, the tent held up like a trooper and we stayed dry and warm.

The rain did not stop at all, so the next morning we decided to pull the pin and come home.  The tent testing was complete and since we plan on spending the next few months in it we decided to have a decent nights kip in a real bed.  We went back into Ambleside and met up with a workmate of Debs for breakfast then drove home.

Anyway we will try and upload some photos tomorrow before heading off. The next installment will be from Spain so see you all there. 

Adios!  Or..for those of you who prefer a more formal way,  Hasta la vista