We arrived at the Camping and Caravanning Club Dunstan Hill campsite at 13:20 after a blissfully trouble free 195-mile journey from Newark-on-Trent. We’ve got a so-called “jumbo grass pitch” with electric hook-up, which was all that was available when we booked it. The pitch is a bit worn and uneven in the middle but we could park Frodo over that. Then I discovered that my beloved spirit level to get Frodo settled is missing. What the hell have I done with that? I’m pretty religious about putting it away in one of his storage bins.
We had resorted to eye aided by a glass of water to level Frodo when Francine remembered that you could get spirit level phone apps. Great idea, except that one of them wanted me to calibrate it by placing it on a known level surface. Arghh! I haven’t got a level surface – that’s the whole point. At least the app had a default setting and it reckoned that Frodo was dead level in both axes. This, I doubt. When I get home to a level kitchen worksurface, I’ll check it.
There is a path, littered with dodgy tree roots, through the woodland beside the campsite which takes you down, ultimately via some safer ground, towards the beach on the north side of Dunstanburgh Castle. The view should be interesting because there are well known rather stereotyped (by now) photographs featuring blurred moving water flowing around the rocks in the foreground of the castle. An exploratory walk was required.
It’s about a 25-minute walk. When we hit the beach it was low tide and the rocks were all exposed. However, it was obvious that if I wanted to point a camera over the rocks towards the castle, I’d need a pair of Wellington boots, which I failed to pack. Nonetheless, I took a line-up phone snap just for the hell of it.
After spending a little time on the beach enjoying the views, we returned to our campsite, There is a unit on the campsite which, quite frankly, defies belief. There is a tent with … wait for it … A wood burner stove within, its flue sticking through a hole in the roof canvas. The hole has some sort of protective collar around it and there’s a flap to keep out rain (once you’ve removed the flue, presumably). We were utterly gobsmacked. There’s a sign declaring “only gas BBQs”, so no naked flame barbies, but these people have a bloody woodburner inside a tent. Admittedly the flames are (should be) contained in a box but …?
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