Just one night …

Since I had today off and we were thinking of something to do, a ride was the order of the day.

Split between FNRttC or testing out our new tent and mats which was screaming use us, use us.

We then decided to ride for 17 odd miles into a beautiful sunset and found a campsite. We rode out through Richmond Park and saw the deer’s there and did talk about doing wild camping there. But decided that we would like to have a little ride out and also the risk of getting woken up in the middle of the night by the deer’s or the park warden.

We managed to arrive with enough light to pitch while fighting off mossies, oh the joy of camping.

We went to the pub next door to kill some time before bed time. The said pub took a bit of time to find since we couldn’t find our way out of the campsite. Because we where paying more attention to the beautiful full moon than the route to the pub.

We got woken up around an hour after we fell asleep to a very disturbing noise and Peli must have been deep in dreaming land. When I asked “what the heck is this noise?” she said it sounds like a cat shagging a duck. I didn’t inquire any further and went back to sleep :)

Then we woke around 5am, who ever coined the phrase “the countryside is quiet and peaceful” has clearly never been in the countryside. Though it was nice to hear the sound of birds we managed to get a few more hours in.

We got up and found the tent totally wet, not from the little rain we had overnight but from the condensation we had created. Overnight I managed to see that it was 10c outside but we were well boiling inside.

We then headed to the first and best fry-up we could find and tanked up for our ride back. It was drizzling/raining while we headed to the cafe but that didn’t matter, since we where high on our first camping success. The closer we got to the big smog the less it rained and had a nice gentle pootle tru’ along the river at Hampton Court Palace and Richmond Park looking at the deer and ducklings.

EDIT: Just learned that these are Egyptian Geese.

At one of the red lights coming out of the park, I nearly got fallen on by a fella who had a clipless moment. He even had jelly legs so when he nearly recovered the fall towards me, he was falling the other way and had trouble getting his leg over the saddle :) We tried to lessen his embarrassment by telling him that everyone has to have at least one clipless moment.

The Blacks Octane 3 tent and the Exped DownMat 7Pump DLX were a great success, and we had a great and comfy sleep, though we do need some small traveling pillows. We are for sure going to do more camping since we know we got this brilliant kit. We are just waiting for Alpkit to have some stock in so that we do not have to carry our duvet.