Scary camping experiences

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Slowroad
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by Slowroad »

I was camping in France in the foothills of the Alps some years ago, I'd seen wild boar very briefly a couple of times and was woken in the night by grunting round my tent. I flapped the tent about and the boar(s) ran off, with lots of grunts and an odd sort of jangling noise. Next morning I couldn't find my rubbish bag for ages, eventually spotted it under a caravan the other side of the campsite. Must have got caught on their tusks!
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PH
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by PH »

I had a campsite try and charge me £25 once, is that scary enough?
irc
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by irc »

boblo wrote:A friend and I wildcamped in the backwoods of Idaho by the Frank Church River of no Return, specifically in Bear Valley. Riding that day we'd seen very fresh Timber Wolf tracks and a warm and still leaking, just shot, Black Bear. Though the food was up a tree, every creak and crack in the night had us bolt upright with the heart rates of a (scared) Olympic athlete...


+1

Coyotes don't bother me but camping in the woods in grizzly country is not relaxing. Despite the odds being very low if the rules are followed I just don't like not being top of the food chain.

Stories like this don't help.

At 1:30 AM I was awoken suddenly. I looked at my clock and wondered why I was wide awake. Squirrel was on alert. We soon heard a loud snort, an animal completely clearing it's lungs of air. I could tell it was at the top of the pit behind the tent, but I did not know what it was. I have heard deer make this sound before, just not this loud. Another loud snort and i could hear rocks falling down the pit and then the animal making its way down. I was still thinking this might be a moose until it was 10 feet from the tent, snorted, and gave two quick "woofs". Now I was scared! I gave my bear spray away to Stan and Sally thinking I would be OK the rest of the trip. The bear then charged the tent , came within a few feet and stopped. It continued to circle the tent and expel the air from its lungs. Eventually it wandered off, but I could still hear it snorting. Then it would run back and "woof". This went on for a good hour before it left. Needless to say Squirrel and I did not sleep the rest of the night.


http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?page_id=81399
whizzzz
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by whizzzz »

Les Reay wrote:I’d like to hear from other contributors about interesting or scary experiences they may have had while on the road, especially when camping.


I had a stampede of ponies around and one case ( gathered from the hoof prints on the ground ) over a small 2 man tent in North Wales, a scorpion in the tent in the Australian outback ( it took umbrage when attacked with a boarding pass and had a good go at stinging the document ( it made the ink run and everything )), a wild dog wormed himself under the fly sheet and warmed my sleeping bag nicely until I worried what was out there leaning on me that was warm, whilst in the Himalaya ( he then spent most of the day following us about ) and cows itching themselves against the tent in darkest Northamptonshire. We had hail stones the size of golf balls in the South of France ( damaging cars and windsurf boards around the campsite and making a significant noise when hailstone bounced off tent ridge poles ). I think we also had floods at this campsite and had to dig little ditches around the tent to help drain the water around the tent rather than under it.

I think thats it other than camping 200 yards from the beach during the Fastnet gale bending poles and causing a few issues to zips etc.

I wonder why I still camp, but most of the above were only scary afterwards and now just make me chuckle at the daftness of it all.
jk49
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by jk49 »

On a campsite next to one of the big lakes in Kenya, maybe Naivasha. Woken after dark by the sound of tearing grass, grazing style. Peered out, could just make out the shape of two hippos attracted out of the lake by the irrigated grass. Found out the next morning that a camper had been trampled and killed the year before when a car returned late and the headlights spooked the hippos, which took the most direct route back to the lake! Don't know if the last bit was true, but I was glad I wasn't aware of it that night! Interesting and frightening to see them so close though.
Slowroad
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by Slowroad »

PH wrote:I had a campsite try and charge me £25 once, is that scary enough?

That is scary - what did you do?
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Heltor Chasca
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Scary camping experiences

Post by Heltor Chasca »

jk49 wrote:On a campsite next to one of the big lakes in Kenya, maybe Naivasha. Woken after dark by the sound of tearing grass, grazing style. Peered out, could just make out the shape of two hippos attracted out of the lake by the irrigated grass. Found out the next morning that a camper had been trampled and killed the year before when a car returned late and the headlights spooked the hippos, which took the most direct route back to the lake! Don't know if the last bit was true, but I was glad I wasn't aware of it that night! Interesting and frightening to see them so close though.


Sadness. I was camped on the banks of the Zambezi under a large tree. I had a crate of (mainly empty) beer bottles right near the tent and in the night a scavenging hyaena stumbled into the crate, rattling the bottles. The noise spooked it and it leaped onto the side of my tent, before landing on my half-awake body against the fly-sheet. Utterly terrifying, but it ran off. The phycological 'protection' of a bit of thin material has a lot to be desired for..b
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foxyrider
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by foxyrider »

Let's see - there was the tree that fell onto the tent in Frankfurt, the Foxes on the same trip playing outside the tent, the night spent with the tent blown flat on top of me and last year a night spent trying to hold the tent on the ground whilst pitched on sand - yeah there have been one or two 'interesting' episodes over the years.

I wouldn't go looking for any of these but on the other hand - i'm still here and they are sometimes worth a pint!
Convention? what's that then?
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MrsHJ
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by MrsHJ »

Consistently find people a lot scarier than animals when camping- may be due to sticking mostly to Europe (I do remember terrified of bears in Yellowstone and the grand Tetons).

Very pushy pair of young French men on a campsite in La Rochelle- the emplacements were preallocated in a packed site and they didn't get back until my tent was up. After a lot of very determined intrusion I felt fairly threatened and spent most of one evening on a bench at the waterside reading whatever my book was under the street lights! Another occasion we were a group of 4 young women on the edge of the Pyrenees and there was a French rugby team also using the site who decided it was hilarious (for them) to run round and round our quiet it of the way pitch at midnight.

Most of the other experiences fortunately were more hilarious for me/us- like the quiet site in Brittany with a French metro driver that his family were determined to pair me up with and (non camping but in the same general area) when the Spanish army hung their underpants out of the camp Windows (fortunately at a bit of a distance) as the four of us cycled up the To St Pierre Martin.
Last edited by MrsHJ on 15 Mar 2016, 9:22pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Sweep
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by Sweep »

Had a slightly officious person pop round once in the morning to collect the fee in the middle of sex. Luckily kept them away from my/our zipper.
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Greyarete
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by Greyarete »

Whilst camping on the GR10 in a remote mountain area. Idyllic. During the following early morning we were awaked by the thunder of hooves. Turned out to be a herd of wild horses who kicked out at the tent and bit the MSR camp kettle. Still got he kettle with tooth marks.

Another occasion had the tent trashed by wild pigs whilst camping wild in the mountains of Corsica. We were scrambling on the ridge at the time.
profpointy
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by profpointy »

a friend of mine regailed us with a story of (wild) camping in Yugoslavia in the '60s on a caving expedition. They'd been warned about bears in the woods, presumably rare even then. Anyhow him and his mate are woken up by scratching at the tent - at the sides and even the top of the tent. Incresingly frightened the other guy eventually decided he can't stand it and is going out, bear notwithstanding. Turns out they've pitched the tend on a toad migration route. The toads are hopping along, climbing up one side of the tent, then sliding down the other side to continue on their way.

Another rather more serious story was a fried of a friend camping in Greendland and an actual bear sat on the tent with the guy in. he stayed very quiet and the bear went away. This would have been a polar bear so a very serious proposition.
bretonbikes
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by bretonbikes »

My nightmare is always lying in a tent as some pissed Frenchman (or Brit) in a campervan does three point turns in the dark right next to my tiny tent. When we took over the campsite (this week!) at Gouarec the first thing I did was allocate one section of field as a vehicle-free zone uniquely for lightweight campers...
38 years of cycletouring, 33 years of running cycling holidays, 8 years of running a campsite for cyclists - there's a pattern here...
Bigdummysteve
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by Bigdummysteve »

Sweep wrote:Had a slightly officious person pop round once in the morning to collect the fee in the middle of sex


I thought it was customary to pay before :lol:
in4time
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Re: Scary camping experiences

Post by in4time »

Not quite camping but will a bush camp in a campervan on Bruny Island Tas. do?
It was winter and I was the only one on this remote bush camp site.
I'd cooked myself a nice steak and leeks and washed it down with a few bottle of Boags. Deciding to turn in for the night I thought best have a wee. With the bush site empty I thought I'd just slide the camper van door back and, well, you know! Anyway, I was all set to go and slid the door back only to be frightened half to death by a brown wallaby with red eyes staring intently at me and my old man! Presumably attracted by the smell of cooking steak and not me it quickly made a judgement call to bounce off into the night leaving me to make a different call, very warily I might add! :lol:
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