It rained. A lot.

As such, we have a new plan. A plan that involves a caravan (ooo, that rhymes).

A plan that involves hard-standings, less puddles, less mud, central heating and extra indoor space for the kids to sit that isn’t right next to us.

A plan that lets us go away when it’s sunny and dry but really cold at night. A plan that doesn’t involve 2 hours set up before we can relax.

First step: sell the current car and folding camper.

As you may have guessed by the tumbleweed blowing across this blog lately, we’ve been away – camping at a small campsite called Cei Bach Country Club, which is not far from New Quay on the West coast of Wales.

Previous camping trips have seen us being incredibly lucky with the weather – even the year of the floods, we managed to pick a week that gave us bright sunshine most days, with only a few showers and one truly wet day. This time, however, our luck deserted us and it was pretty much a wash out (photos for this review were taken on the only sunny day of the week).

However, I shall try very hard to not let my annoyance at the weather colour my thoughts on the site and surrounding area – after all, it’s hardly their fault that the clouds didn’t co-operate!

And Cei Bach is a very nicely run site. It’s greatest strength is its size (or rather lack thereof) and despite the rather intimidating list of rules given to you on arrival, the staff came across as overwhelmingly friendly, warm and helpful. While the site itself is small, the pitch sizes are generous – certainly the largest we’ve come across outside The Camping and Caravanning Club sites.

The wash-block facilities were average, but (most importantly) cleaned regularly. One of the big draws for us was the onsite pub, however it did have its drawbacks. Special entertainment events can be fun for families with older children, but I would recommend a pitch further away from it if you like an early night’s sleep. There were only a couple during our week’s stay though, so not too much of an inconvenience.

Home-cooked food is available at a reasonable price, but we did find that their descriptions of the dishes sounded rather grand on paper but a little uninspiring in reality! However, again the staff were cheerful and welcoming, which makes all the difference.

The one thing the kids had been really looking forward to with this camping trip was access to the sea.

The site plan available implied that the site was right next to the beach, but in reality the beach is much lower and only accessible by an off-site path that winds down to sea level. This only took about five minutes at a relaxed pace, but not quite as immediate as we’d hoped, and too far to be lulled to sleep by the lovely sounds of the ocean at night.

On the plus side, the beach was clean and didn’t seem to be too heavily populated (although the poor weather could well have been a factor in the latter).

Overall, Cei-Bach Country Club is a pleasant campsite on a very picturesque part of the Welsh coast. I just wish we could have visited it in more favourable meteorological circumstances!

When I was a kid, my dad was often unemployed so a budget family day out whatever the weather was to make up a packed lunch, jump in the car and go and explore all the tiny lanes in the area, generally as impassable as possible. Bonus points for an “unsuitable for motor vehicles” route.

In retrospect, this wasn’t the most environmentally friendly of activities but it was cheap, practical in the most typical of British summers and had a certain spirit of adventure going off the beaten track. It is probably telling that my father used to rally drive in his youth.

It occurred to me, while going down an ever narrowing track (which according to Tom Tom was the fastest route – the map manufacturer probably didn’t factor in the cow crossing) that these days we recapture that simple childhood joy with our sat nav devices.

While on holiday on the west coast of Wales, I don’t think we’ve been taken the same route twice and the sat nav has been taking perverse delight in sending us the most insane way possible. Our best so far has been a side-trip through a “ford” which after 3 days of solid rain more resembled a fast flowing river. The Almera coped, fortunately.

Still, it’s lots of fun and we’re finding some really pretty little places we’d never have known about if we were navigating sensibly with a proper map. We do need a “be f-ing serious, Tom Tom” button for when we’re towing, though!

As you may have guessed by my silence over the last few days, we’ve been away. More specifically, we have been back to Kingsbury Water Park, a Camping and Caravanning Club site up near Sutton Coldfield.

I have to say, that I think this is my favourite campsite out of all the ones we have visited (now we’ve sussed not to pitch too close to the playground!) and we were exceptionally lucky with the weather this year. Am really looking forward to some fantastic camping this season.

Don’t tell the folding camper though, but we’ve been sneakily coveting caravans… shh.

Well I say Buckinghamshire, but I don’t think a single trip out from the campsite was inBuckinghamshire – the nice thing about this county is that it is central to a lot of different areas so you have your pick of outings.

The other difference about this camping trip was that with the children being that bit older, we were able to spend a couple of days at the site chilling out while they played with other kids on the play area. While this made for a much more relaxing holiday, it makes for a shorter trip report!

Legoland, Windsor

Before we arrived at Legoland we were frightened a bit by reports of how busy it was in the summer holidays, how people had only managed to get on three rides each day and how expensive it all was. So, while the kids were really looking forward to going, I have to confess to not a small bit of trepidation.

Fortunately, some of the cost was covered as we had saved up Tesco vouchers to get free entry into the park. We did fork out for their virtual queueing system, Q-Bot, to the tune of £10 per person (including very small children) – a grand total of £40 which in the end didn’t end up being that useful.

The problem is that most of the rides suitable for younger children aren’t on the Q-Bot system. Also, you don’t appear to be able to queue up several rides in one go, only your next ride – this relies on you a) knowing the park well enough to work out where you are going next and b) sorting out something to do while you’re waiting (just not physically standing in the queue). It would probably work well if you have an annual pass so know the layout, have older children and press the button for the next ride just as it’s scanned on your current ride (so that you’re effectively “queueing” while on another ride and walking to the next one). However, that takes a more organised family than us.

That said, we did have a lot more fun than expected and the kids adored every minute. It wasn’t too crowded (the weather wasn’t brilliant and the predicted “good weather” day was the day after, so presumably more people put off their trip until then) although the traffic getting through Windsor was a nightmare – all queueing to get to Legoland, presumably. A lot of the models were showing their age – the plastic faded in the sun – and we didn’t end up spending much time in the model area as it just didn’t really grab the kids’ imagination as we thought it might (though the shop was another story!).

The rides, once you’d got on them, were pretty good – especially the rides for the younger children which were still interesting enough that a 7 year old was perfectly happy going on them. They had a nice level of interactivity which made them more compelling than a lot of fairground rides, and most of the queues in the morning at least were fairly short.

The food wasn’t particularly unreasonably priced, although not particularly inspiring. They do have healthier choices though with a selection of baguettes as well as the ubiquitous hot dogs/ice creams/doughnuts. Which was just as well as (for the first time in ages) we hadn’t been organised enough to get a packed lunch together before we went.

All in all a good day out, but I’m not sure we’d have been as happy if we’d paid full-price entrance fee!

Didcot Railway Centre, Oxfordshire

Living with a train buff and small boys, we can’t get through many holidays without a visit to the local steam railway. This trip was no exception. This time was the turn of Didcot Railway Centre.

This is a great little railway – there’s not much to it (only a very small line for short trips, unlike the Severn Valley Railway where you can go miles on the trains) and you do have to be careful to visit on a steam day, but it had such a friendly and hands-on atmosphere. You can have a good ramble around into the engine sheds, watch an engine being turned on a turntable, look around a little memorabilia museum and take short trips back and forth.

The facilities are good for such a small place – refreshments, a good sized picnic area with some under cover and a well-stocked shop. A very good value day out.

The Look Out Discovery Centre, Berkshire

We went to The Look Out as part of a mini-blog meet with Turquoise Lisa and Karen @ Rise and had a blast.

The Look Out is a hands on science and nature exhibition separated into different subject ‘areas’, eg. forces and movement, light and sound, water and nature. Basically the children and adults get to play, and accidentally learn stuff at the same time. By far the best room was the water and nature room (see the photo) which had a big plastic ‘canal’ that you could run boats down and control the flow of water with taps, barriers and tunnels – we spent ages there!

Outside the centre is great too with a large adventure playground suitable for a wide range of ages, although it did get rather busy and it was quite challenging to find a picnic table free for our lunch.

All in all, though, another great day out and it was fantastic to be able to see Lisa and her girls again, and meet Karen, Pete and Bernard for the first time.

We’re back from another camping trip – probably the last of our season, so things should get back to normal around here shortly. Well, once the kids start school of course (and I’ve been told that I’m not allowed to blog about my youngest’s first day at school because all the rest of the blogosphere have been churning out “my child is starting school, woe is me” posts and one of my readers will personally injure me if I do the same).

Anyway, before we get back onto a normal schedule, I need to do a wrap up post of where we’ve been recently.

The campsite we chose was Highclere Farm, specifically selected to be in easy distance of Legoland – a trip made possible by lots of nagging from Akra Jr and Tesco clubcard vouchers. More about that in a later post.

The facilities at this site were by far and away the best we’ve ever been to. Showers and toilets were immaculate and modern, the whole site was kept extremely tidy and attractive, staff were friendly and accommodating, and the playground area was large and well equipped. You had to pay for the showers (20p for the normal ones, 50p for the more luxurious ones in a separate block) which was a shame, but they lasted a long while, had decent power output and were kept spotlessly clean.

The only downside (you knew there had to be a downside, didn’t you?) was that the caravan electric pitches were SO close together. At a Camping and Caravanning Club campsite, for example, there is a 6m minimum distances between pitches – this is a fire safety requirement on their sites. However, at Highclere, the distance between our camper and next door’s awning was only around 3m at most.

This had two side effects: one was the safety worry, the other was simple lack of privacy/noise control. Next door had a barbeque at one point (something we didn’t dare do during our stay, because there really wasn’t the room) which completely smoked us out that evening and was very unpleasant. Later that night they were awake and chatting loudly until 2am, then awake at 6am puking from the excess of alcohol they’d drank. Fortunately they left later that day – but to be honest, even with considerate neighbours we really were too much in each other’s pockets.

However, that said, if you have a tent and aren’t interested in having an electric pitch, then there was plenty of space on site to spread yourselves out – with the standard of facilities available, I couldn’t recommend it enough. If you have a caravan though, it might be an idea to look elsewhere.

This is long overdue, considering we’ve been back a few weeks now, but I thought I’d provide my usual summary of places we visited while camping. You never know, they might be places you would want to visit if you’re ever down that way.

Bressingham Steam and Gardens

Bressingham Steam and Gardens is a lovely low-key tourist attraction, born out of the Bloom family’s two great loves: steam engines and gardening.

There are a total of four separate steam train routes – each with their own individual character, and each giving a different view of the grounds. There is also a steam museum and a beautifully restored Victorian steam carousel. Then, if you like what you saw in the grounds, there is a large and very well stocked garden centre – much of its stock being grown on the premises.

We experienced an unusual bout of extremely hot and muggy weather on the day we went, so didn’t really get to appreciate all the gardens, but what we saw really was impressive (and in the event, more striking than one of the National Trust properties we visited later in the week!). A big hit – especially with the kids – was Foggy Bottom. Just the name was enough to send both boys off into fits of giggles and they enjoyed dodging lawn sprinklers while exploring.

I’d definitely go again if we were ever down that way.

Blickling Hall

Blickling Hall is one of the nicest National Trust properties we’ve been to. The staff were lovely and friendly, particularly with our children (and let’s face it, if you’re responsible for preserving delicate artefacts of historical importance, then overly exuberant boys of 7 and 4 years of age aren’t your most longed for visitors, are they?!).

Externally, it’s an imposing and formal Jacobean house but they’ve managed to not let that standoffishness migrate to the interior. It feels lived in and welcoming, and the staff play a big part in that as they are very knowledgeable about the history, but also open to chatting to small boys about ‘secret passages’ and other such exciting things. They also helped us with some of the more tricky clues on the Children’s Quiz (something Akra Jr enjoyed immensely).

The grounds, however, were a bit of a disappointment. Having gone round the house, the boys really needed to run off some steam on a hot day, recharge and have something to eat and drink. The grounds are very formal and spread out with the shaded areas a fair way from the house. There is also a no picnicking rule, which is fair enough, but it would have been nicer to have notices about taking litter home and maybe having a defined picnic area in the less formal and shaded area of the lake with litter bins provided. As it was, we just sipped water out of our bottles surreptitiously and felt terribly guilty about doing so. The only unwelcoming part of an otherwise very friendly place.

Wroxham Barns

Wroxham Barns is another low-key attraction that was immensely fun and enjoyable. It’s mainly a group of little shops – arts and crafts, local foods, artisans’ wares – but also has a children’s farm and funfair on site.

The children’s farm is worth a quick ramble around and the boys enjoyed feeding the various animals, but the real show stopper for them was the funfair. All the rides were suitable for their age group (7 and 4 years old) and the ticket cost was fairly reasonable when bought in bulk. I think they had a go on just about everything: the caterpillar mini-rollercoaster, the inflatable slide, the train ride… excellent fun.

BeWILDerwood

BeWILDerwood is billed as ‘a curious treehouse adventure’ and has received rave reviews in the press. It’s also far more commercial and expensive than the other places we visited that week, so you tend to expect much more for your money.

Well, I was pretty impressed and so were the kids. It’s effectively one mahoosive adventure playground in a forest. It has a story built up around it and has lots of things around to spark the imagination – little hidden away model Twiggle houses, a treasure hunt with clues to find on your trip round, and a story book you can buy at the gift shop. Mostly though, the kids just wanted to climb, slide and whizz down the zip wires and weren’t that interested in the accompanying background colour.

There are downsides though. It is pretty pricey, the place was absolutely heaving, and we were plagued by wasps whenever we tried to eat anything. I also recommend going for a boat ride earlier rather than later as the queues can get pretty long.

We’re now into the main camping season for us, and I’m well overdue a campsite review.

Last week, we went to stay at Long Beach Tenting and Touring, which is right on the Norfolk Coast (East Anglia).

Due to the fortunate happenstance of booking in January, plus asking to be as near to the beach as possible, we seemed to have ended up with the only pitch with a sea view (yes, that’s our folding camper in the photo at the top of the hill). It really was a premium pitch – loads of space and privacy with loads of tall undergrowth and bushes surrounding us.

One thing did throw me though, when I booked they mentioned on the phone that the beach was “just over the sand dune”. I had visions of the sand dune being something small you could step over and fretted a little that if I didn’t keep a close eye on the children, that they’d run away to sea in just a few paces.

The reality was that the sand dune was a little larger and steeper than I envisioned! Yes, I know the scale is hard to work out in that photo, but bear in mind that we were sitting on top of that sand dune to take the previous picture and is roughly the same height as where our camper is situated!

Still, it kept us fit. Climbing up sand that slips as you plant your foot into it is a better work out than a step-machine, I’m sure.

The beach itself was very nice – mostly sand with some pebbles. Unfortunately rather a lot of litter, but as it’s a public beach and not owned by the campsite, this was hardly their fault. We also found a fair amount of dog poo in the valley between campsite and dune left by inconsiderate owners, so you had to be wary if you were wandering around in bare feet.

So what was the campsite like? Nice and small – it’s mainly a static caravan park with only a few touring and tent pitches, the main sister touring site being further away from the beach. There is a bar, laundrette, play area and a well-stocked shop on site. It was particularly lovely to be able to sit outside the bar with a drink while the kids played in the playground, and this is something we’d look for at future campsites!

The facilities were slightly odd. The toilet block and shower block were separate and a little walk away from each other and both were very basic. They needed a key (obtained with deposit on arrival) and the toilet block contained no soap.

Now, I can sort of see why there was a key needed (although this is the first site we’ve ever visited which locked their toilets) as it was near a public beach and they probably wanted it reserved for their paying customers, but surely if it was locked then they could spare a bit of soap!

Another downside was that the site seemed very noisy at night. Maybe this was a side-effect of the bar, or just that we were unlucky that there were a large number of teenagers on site that week who liked to congregate by the top steps of the hill (right by our pitch) late into the evening and early hours. It wasn’t every night, but fairly annoying all the same.

I also surprisingly missed seeing the sunset over the sea in the evening (the downsides of camping on the east coast!) – some of my favourite camping photographs have been taken in those last evening moments. Funnily enough, I never managed to get up at 5am to take a sunrise photograph! How disorganised of me.

Still, it was a nice friendly site and a good base to explore the local area. We found some fab places to visit with children, but I shall write all about that another day.

My apologies for the mini-hiatus.

What with going away and the half-term holiday it’s only really been now that I’ve had a chance to sit down and think “crap – I haven’t blogged”.

Not having learned from last year we went away camping on Whitsun bank holiday weekend again.

This time, we chose Kingsbury Water Park – a Camping and Caravanning Club site near Sutton Coldfield (it also welcomes non-members).

Despite dire weather predictions and the odd bit of drizzle, Friday was pretty dry and we arrived around 1pm and pitched without difficulties. As you arrive at the campsite, staff ask if you’ve been before then they escort you to the available pitches by hopping on a bike and going ahead. As a result, it feels really welcoming and stress-free.

I was also absolutely amazed at how level all the pitches were. While our folding camper can be adjusted to get it perfectly horizontal, obviously our awning area can’t – I think this was the first time we’ve ever camped when our picnic table in the awning didn’t wobble alarmingly due to uneven ground!

We pitched right by the playground, which was lovely and convenient for the children but in hindsight gave us much less privacy. As we had brought copious toys with us, we became a bit of a local hub for anyone under the age of 12. Next time I would be just a little further away – not far, just across the track, but far enough to render our toy collection less compelling.

The other slight disadvantage to Kingsbury Water Park is that it’s fairly close to the motorway and you are quite aware of the traffic noise. However, being a motorway, it’s a constant background white noise and you soon tune it out – if anything for me it aided sleep! If you’re looking for a near-silent country getaway, though, this may not be your first choice.

Saturday turned out to be a lovely day too, although a little on the windy side, so we set out to explore the Country Park next door.

You get to the park through very beautiful woodland pathways and through a tunnel under the motorway. There are apparently over 30 lakes and pools over the whole site, though I suspect we only got to see a fraction of them.

There are a couple of well-equipped playgrounds (one for under 8s the other for over 8s), a visitor’s centre and shop, a place to rent bicycles and trailers, a children’s farm (which we didn’t get around to visiting) and a miniature railway (guaranteed open only on Sundays and Bank Holidays, but fortunately they were open when we were there on the Saturday or I think the kids would have revolted).

All in all, you could easily spend a couple of days wandering around the village, Country Park and surrounding areas without ever needing to use your car, which makes it a pretty superb campsite in my book.

Sunday, we weren’t quite as lucky with the weather and it TIPPED it down. We spent the day hunting down camping shops, roaming the midlands for a decent family-friendly restaurant to eat and missing the closing time of the supermarket by THIS >< MUCH. Not our best day ever.

We also ran out of matches (bad preparation there on our part) and while the campsite didn’t have any replacements in stock, they did lend us a camping lighter which was very kind and yet another tick in the “this place is really friendly” checkbox.

Fortunately, Monday morning was overcast but not raining and the wind had dried the canvas nicely. We packed up the camper, drove off and the drizzle held off until we were on the motorway back home.

I realise that this post is slightly overdue, given that we’ve been back a week now. However, the start of term got in the way, and I’ve only just finished sorting through photographs and catching up with myself.

This was our last camping trip for the season. We lucked out with the weather again and had a fantastically warm and sunny week and most importantly, it didn’t rain.

This was our “fail safe” week – we booked the Forestry Commission site, Holmsley in the heart of the New Forest.

We’d been to Forestry Commission sites before (namely Christchurch and Bracelands) and knew that they were well run sites with good, clean facilities. The website described Holmsley as:

Ideally situated for your seaside break, Holmsley is just a short drive from the wonderful beaches at Bournemouth and Christchurch. Mainly grass and with loads of space for children to play, Holmsley is perfect for a family holiday.

Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the reality is somewhat different.

The first thing we noticed as we drove up is that the site doesn’t feel like “mainly grass”. It’s an old airfield converted into a camp site – loads and loads of cracked tarmac. It was also massive and (as a bank holiday week) extremely busy. The standard pitches seemed okay, especially if you could find a nook in some trees but we’d paid extra for “premium” pitches.

Whoever called them premium pitches needs educating about the Trade Description Act. The electric pitches are based all around the old runways – yes, they’re on the tarmac bits. You have a teeny tiny patch of sloping grass next to the road and that’s it. More like a “sub-standard” pitch with consolation electric.

We were lucky that we had a folding camper – parked the trailer on the tarmac and put the awning on the grass and just coped with the fact that every meal eaten in the awning slid off the table. God knows how those with tents who fancied electric hookup managed.

Yes, the facilities are immaculate. Yes, there’s a great little shop and takeaway on site. Everything was well maintained. But the site had no soul – it felt like camping in a carpark and having to pay for the privilege. And to add insult to injury it was on an irregular flightpath which started somewhere around 5am, and then if you managed to finally drop back off to sleep and the kids didn’t disturb you, then the very loud rubbish lorry did the rounds at 8am.

Fortunately, the kids didn’t seem to care much. They got on their bikes at the beginning of the stay and had to be dragged off occasionally to eat, sleep and reluctantly go sightseeing. They made lots of friends and were gutted to leave.

I also have to admit, that it was nice being able to leave them to it in the afternoon to play while we sat out with a book and a beer, as well as seeing ponies and rabbits just over the fence.

But we won’t be returning. And we’ll be reading the impartial site reviews on ukcampsite.co.uk much more carefully before booking anywhere in future.