Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
I started wild camping in the early 70s on Dartmoor.
DARTMOOR is unique in respect of the fact that it's a National Park but you are allowed to wild camp.
There are a few restricted places but they're not worth mentioning as you wouldn't know you were really there anyway because of the poor clarity of the exclusion map.
Camped all of them and mostly by mistake, On three occasions the farmer came along early in the morning on the quad or tractor on their mobile phone and couldn't really give a monkeys.
What my old trainer taught us was to take all our rubbish with us because animals might attempt to eat it.
Also if you don't pick all your pegs up you will have trouble later next time you camp, He had a handful of pegs.
If you are taught this sort of thing at school like I was it stays with you for life, quite often when I'm touring I have a bag with rubbish in and I whiz through villages and towns forgetting to unload it.
NA Thinks Just End 2 End Return + Bivvy - Some day Soon I hope
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Tangled Metal
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by Tangled Metal »

Ambleside we heaving yesterday afternoon apparently. My parents went there, live about 30-40 minutes away. They walked in the middle of the road to avoid the crowds and not many were wearing masks.
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
One of my partners friends went out for a walk at the weekend and decided to go home because there are so many people.
I went to the shops for the first time in several months wearing a mask, and it was obvious that some people don't even know that you have to wear a mask in a shop today in England.
I would've thought that all shops would approach People breaking the rules and advise them At a minimum?
But of course shops don't report/don't have to report how they're handling social distance in any way yet?
When social distancing started in food shops et cetera, all the big supermarkets have their own way of doing things neither was perfect but some just couldn't give a monkeys.
NA Thinks Just End 2 End Return + Bivvy - Some day Soon I hope
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mercalia
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by mercalia »

NATURAL ANKLING wrote:Hi,
One of my partners friends went out for a walk at the weekend and decided to go home because there are so many people.
I went to the shops for the first time in several months wearing a mask, and it was obvious that some people don't even know that you have to wear a mask in a shop today in England.
I would've thought that all shops would approach People breaking the rules and advise them At a minimum?
But of course shops don't report/don't have to report how they're handling social distance in any way yet?
When social distancing started in food shops et cetera, all the big supermarkets have their own way of doing things neither was perfect but some just couldn't give a monkeys.


I think you are wrong, atleast as far as my limited experience is concerned, they just dont care. arrogance. As for approaching them to tell them to mask-up - you want a fist in your face? thought not. The ones in lidl are mainly youngish virile men though with a few women wearing them but not using them, mainly with some one else and talking. I have seen people eating on trains ( one I saw recently discarding his left over containers on the seats spreading any infection) or using their phones on trains and they think thats an excuse to remove or drop the mask. One young couple came on the train talking not wearing masks and I noticed some people got up and sat some where else ( I was at the other end of the carriage); one young girl pair one had mask on the other didnt - she clearly thought the mask would conceal her good looks as she was dressed as such
whoof
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by whoof »

I stayed in a little copse next to the river Wye on Friday night. On Saturday in a wood in Wales. Both times using a small tarp.
Took all my rubbish with me, picked up any other rubbish that was in the area. On both mornings after packing up moved to small parks to have breakfast and again cleared up other people rubbish (including disposable BBQs) and carried them some way before finding a bin that had room, the ones near the parks were overflowing.
Wasn't taught this at school, if I had to rely on what I was taught at school I probably wouldn't in a fit state to leave the house, it just seems obvious.
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
I wasn't taught at school to pick up other peoples rubbish, but that's exactly what I do when I'm in the camper, I don't like looking at it, an animal might pick it up anyway or I might even stand on it myself and cut my foot.
I think it probably comes back to how are your parents brought you up, I wouldn't dare drop litter as a child you get a clip round the ear, My mate on the other hand always used to chuck rubbish every time we are out, I queried him once can't remember what he said that basically didn't change, until until he had children, then he was telling them to pick the rubbish up I wonder why that was, probably because he had to run around the house after them :lol:
his mother did everything for him, his dinner was waiting on the table already to be warmed up if you missed it, I used to return home to eat no food, that's nothing in the house, no carpet on the lino in my bedroom, no heating either, not even sheets on the mattress........
How the other half live.

I wasn't suggesting to approach people not wear a mask and yes people are arrogant et cetera et cetera, some blame has to be proportion even quite a lot of blame on the government for lack of clarity of course.
Its the shop owners and the staff at the shop to have to advise customers what they should and shouldn't do, they don't have to report at the moment but they might have to do one day on how they are handling all this.
They can send an NHS list of vulnerable people to the supermarkets but if the supermarkets don't bother contacting the customers then that's their problem and the government shoild pull them up on it.

Today on the radio I heard it mentioned that is possible that the second wave could be twice as bad as the first?
If it is then the government have got to have better clarity and they're going to have to hammer at home otherwise people are going to get even more frustrated when their friends family in laws are such a et cetera start to suffer/die off.
NA Thinks Just End 2 End Return + Bivvy - Some day Soon I hope
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whoof
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by whoof »

NATURAL ANKLING wrote:Hi,

I used to return home to eat no food, that's nothing in the house, no carpet on the lino in my bedroom, no heating either, not even sheets on the mattress........
How the other half live.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26ZDB9h7BLY
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
That made me laugh :)
that's what people normally do they laugh or they simply don't believe you............
NA Thinks Just End 2 End Return + Bivvy - Some day Soon I hope
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Please forgive the poor Grammar I blame it on my mobile and phat thinkers.
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Paulatic
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by Paulatic »

Tangled Metal wrote:Ambleside we heaving yesterday afternoon apparently. My parents went there, live about 30-40 minutes away. They walked in the middle of the road to avoid the crowds and not many were wearing masks.

Met with a niece and family yesterday. They’ve taken this week in the Lakes for the last few years in a holiday home near Keswick. They’ve noticed how much busier it is this year.
Everyone I’ve spoke to in the last weeks have said the Lakes are hotching so I suggested we meet up in the Eden valley. We did Lacy's cave and Long Meg and met a handful of people. A lovely day :)
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PaulaT
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by PaulaT »

I've got this vision of about 80 tents stuffed together on the only flat ground on the fell and inhabited by campers "soaking up the solitude" :D
jgurney
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by jgurney »

According to this BBC report, a commercial camping site operator in Borrowdale (Lake District) has decided to close due to the behaviour of many of their first-time customers: BBC News - Borrowdale's Stonethwaite Campsite shuts after 'Covid campers' litter
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-53804526
arnsider
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by arnsider »

The BBC are idiots frankly. The articles on wild camping just showed what London centric buffoons the BBC really are. Suggesting to inexperienced townies that they just set off into the wilds and plonk down anywhere is stupid. The BBC are arrogant and seem to think they can just jump on the bandwagon of instant expertise.There are plenty of experienced pundits around and anyway, the best place for anyone to learn to camp is the Scout association. I make no aplogys for that. I went to summer camp every year from the age of eleven, where we cooked on wood fires, learnt how to use knives and axes and to look after our selves in the outdoors. Later, I joined a mountaineering club and went away light weight camping and bivvying, learning from each other. The current "Glamping" craze is a downward path and could be a death nail for proper campers. Places like Wall End, Langdale are now no more than pop up towns , full of all manner of junk, dragged up the M6 in ever bigger 4x4s and "leisure vehicles" The over night fees will rocket and what was once a budget hoiliday for young people of limited means will be just another catch penny.
pwa
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by pwa »

I think it is possible to be too snooty about glamping. I remember about 15 years ago taking the kids to stay in a yurt in Limousin and they loved it. They still talk about that holiday as one of the best we ever did. We took two tandems with us and did some cycling, we did donkey treks and paddled an inflatable on a lake, and we panned for gold in a stream close to the yurt (found no gold but we still have a bowl full of colourful rocks / crystals from that). And we left no litter.

More than that, we put money into a local business, both by renting the yurt and by paying for additional services such as the donkey trek and free range eggs. If we had been wild camping our support for the local economy would have been negligible. It was a wholesome experience. We have done 2 man tent camping as well, so it isn't an either/or thing, you can do both at different times, just as you can stay in a hotel. Variety is good.

This is the place:
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Rev ... taine.html
It was a great place for a holiday with small kids.

The thing that ought to concern us, surely, is people visiting countryside and damaging it, regardless of whether they are "wild camping", glamping, staying in B&Bs or hotels, or just visiting for the day. People who do that can be in every sort of accommodation you can think of.
Last edited by pwa on 1 Dec 2020, 10:05am, edited 4 times in total.
PaulaT
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by PaulaT »

I'm sure glamping has it's place as another form of accommodation. There are plenty of cyclists Ive known over the years whose idea of camping is loading the bikes, a huge frame tent and associated furniture into the car. Not my thing but that doesn't make me a "better" cyclist than them. I don't see glamping being much different from such huge frame tents except that you don't need to lug it with you.
reohn2
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Re: Rise in wild camping hits beauty spots

Post by reohn2 »

Gawd save us from purists who think everyone else should be as puritanical as they are :?
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