Friday 5th – Sunday 7th July 2019

A sunny, funny, water filled weekend camping quite literally in the Back of Beyond.

Friday

A fairly uneventful drive down on Friday evening, we headed off slightly later than planned due to Friday evening traffic, but did avoid the standard on / off junction manoeuvre just in time!

Very efficient set up in less than 2 hours which involved Vikki crawling into the tent before the poles went up and Steve crawling under the ground sheet after the tent was up!

Steve found the satellite signal in record time, we got a free, chilled drink from a random 72yr man and enjoyed a lovely sunset while watching celebrity gogglebox.

Steve has mastered how to get Vikki to enjoy camping by bringing the essentials of a comfy bed, Nespresso coffee and Bombay Sapphire gin. He brought the gin, the tonic, ice and limes, all Vikki needed to do was bring the glass…oh well a plastic beaker worked just as well!

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Saturday

An early and hot start to the day as the sun rose, turns out we set the tent up for optimal sun soaking up…mental notes for next time…pay attention to where the sun will be rising when pitching the tent and check Steve has switched off his alarm.

Lovely cooked breakfast, lazy morning and then the fun began with a trip to bingo in Poole. We brought down the average age as soon as we walked in the door, bought paper game booklets for the ‘main event’ and got our dabbers ready.

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2 hours, 2 G&T’s and 2 beers later and not even close to an opportunity to shout ‘Potato’ for a win. Although the excitement was a little too much for Steve as he ended up in the ladies toilet during the break!!!

After joining the older people of Poole in bingo, we headed to the New Forest Aqua Park to join the younger people on the giant water obstacle course – a lot of fun but not exactly the most elegant of activities!

1 hour of take your breath away cold lake water, catapulting cushions, trampolines, slides, a swing, monkey bars, jumping platforms and the hardest stepping stones ever. As if that wasn’t enough every time Vikki fell off (which may have been rather often) it was a team effort to haul her back on.

The trampoline on to the slide looked great when Steve did it…looked slightly more awkward when Vikki got stuck on the slide. Even in the children’s section Vikki failed at every attempt of a race but there was success when we both defeated the stepping stones at the 60th minute.

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Back to the campsite for fish and chips (well chicken and chips for Vikki) and what better way to kill time waiting for tea to be cooked than with a little bit of beer tasting from the local brewery. Several available for trying Including a brand new one, not released and ready for sale yet called Shy Giant.

Despite the loud (very bad) music blasting from miles away we enjoyed our tea, chocolate, gin and beer in the fresh air watching Andy Murray and Serena Williams smash their first round of mixed doubles at Wimbledon.

Oh and just as Vikki was wondering why tent manufacturers put a trip warning on a tent opening…it’s obviously a trip hazard…Steve tripped over the opening into the tent!!!

Sunday

An unexpected lie in until 8.40am got Sunday off to a rushed start given the 11am departure time.

However, clearly we are becoming pros at this as in just over two hours we had cooked and enjoyed sausage, bacon, tomatoes, eggs and potato scones for breakfast, dismantled everything and packed the car up.

We headed off to Splashdown Waterpark for a final bit of flume fun before heading home. Some unexpected super steep and fast slides, some more gentle and relaxing ones, a couple of head bangers and the most inelegant headfirst drop out of one just about sums up a fun hour.

Oh and we now know that £5 and £20 notes survive in pool water!!

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A very fun, active, successful camping weekend…ready to book the next one!