Well, it just is isn’t it?
Its more photogenic, it’s less busy. It is cooler but not particularly cold. The air feels fresher and there just seems something in the air. Camping in Autumn is just fantastic!
A lot of my camping experience has come during these winter months, specifically September, October and to be honest right up to December time. It was a family tradition for us all to travel away for the October half term and we spent many a week down at Cofton Holidays in Dawlish Warren. I would always book that week and a couple of days off before the nephews and family got there so I could do a couple of days undisturbed fishing. The fishing there by the way is absolutely fantastic and somewhere that if you get chance you should definitely try and go.
I find that there is something really therapeutic about the autumn, it feels like the closing of a chapter and the all the trials and tribulations of the current year and a reminder that there is soon to be a reset and a fresh start for everything.
Camping in Autumn ✨
Like I mentioned above a lot of my camping experience is in the autumn and that was mainly in my trailer tent. As I have mentioned plenty before I loved my trailer tent and when you think that a trailer tent is essentially a thick materialled tent and you are camping at the end of October/ Early November. To be fair I have camped in my trailer tent 365 days a year right through to a -6 freeze one time at Blakemere. This was long before there was the emphasis on how much electricity is getting used by the campsites residence.
I remember this particular weekend was being away for my sisters birthday which is in early December. It was really cold, and when I say really cold I mean absolutely bloody freezing. I always had the same strategy for keeping warm and it was 2 electric heaters pointing into opposing corners of the trailer tent, I did this thinking that it would circulate the warm air around. I have absolutely no idea whether that had any impact or made a difference but in my mind it did and that was enough for me.
I also always have an electric blanket as well and putting that on 15 minutes before I would go to bed meaning the inside of the bed would be warm for when I got in it. I would then leave the heaters on all night and it would get to the point through the night that I would be too hot and would have to turn one of them off, but I would always put it back on in the morning as I was getting my brew. I would always be dressed appropriately with things like big fluffy socks, a dressing gown and PJs and things like that. On this occasion like I said it got down to -6 degrees outside and Gemma and Dave, and every other leisure vehicle around had about 2 inches of frost on the roof. The only vehicle that didn’t was my trailer tent and the roof was dry as a bone and warm to the touch. We always joke about that morning and how the trailer tent was the only thing without frost on it.
One of the best things about camping in conditions like that is when you are really warm and snuggly and you can tell it is cold outside, or wet, or both as tends to be the case in the UK.
I always associate autumn camping with being away for Halloween, and I would always dress the outside of the trailer tent up in Halloween stuff, the onsite competition was always interesting and some people took it very very seriously. Having 2 young nephews you had to make the effort and always had to make sure that your pumpkins were out and you were competing. I remember one year gathering all of my groups children in my awning and telling them a ghost story and having a Halloween party.
From a photography point of view autumn is so photogenic. There is something about how the light reflects of the dew, the cobweb pictures and with the sun being so low in sky it makes for a truly brilliant picture. I think it helps that the sky always feels so clear and bright. Annoyingly I always struggle to take good pictures. I tried to take some nice misty pictures the other day and they turned out absolutely shite, but that is one of those things I guess.
This autumn will be a strange for us with having the baby and trying to keep him warm. That surprisingly is the one thing that has been the most stressful about having the “wee man” here is the worry of him being cold. We have Alde Wet Central heating in the van so it is as good as any housing central heating but in the back of your mind your thinking to yourself if he gets a cold or anything then it is our fault as we are away in the van. September as a month hasn’t been too bad, it has been quite mild but it has been a noticeable and relatively rapid changing of the seasons and as we enter October it wont be long until the clocks go back and we live almost in constant darkness. We were lucky that we were able to get a replacement 6kg and a new 6kg contract from Ninja Gas in Tarporley so I feel much better and more reassured not that we have plenty of gas. Just as I was getting more comfortable with the heating and gas the big gas heater in the awning ran out of Butane so that will need replacing.
Being In the van so far seems to be fine, we have had heavy rain and the sound of the rain on the caravan roof did not disturb him. The next test will be when it is really windy but I will make sure that we have all 4 storm straps down on our Camptech Atlantis DL awning.
It is all about waiting for that first frost now and the crunch under foot. The only way that autumn could be improved would be if you could stop it from raining. I don’t mind the cold, not one bit, the sharp air on your lungs as you inhale and then the condensation as you breath out always reminds of being a child and walking to school.
We are planning a road trip in the Campervan in November so hopefully catch the middle of autumn rather than Winter. We want to go and take the wee man to Scotland and meet Lisa’s side of the family and hopefully jump on a ferry over to Northern Ireland and do some stuff over there. Test out the diesel heater and see if it is any good and test the strength of our sleeping bag and our windscreen insulation cover.
Autumn seems to be when the more hardcore caravanners and Motorhomers come out as well and I really love that sense of “I’m camping no matter what the conditions are”. There is a real grit and determination and the British stiff upper lip and just getting away.
I just love Autumn!!
Rich
