Campfire magic at Embers campsite?

Just a couple of weeks after our US road trip, we were camping again, in a much more conventionally British manner, joining the hordes escaping London for the August Bank Holiday.

Unusually for me, I'd booked a campsite a few months before - Embers. I think I'd found the website while searching for New Forest campsites which allowed fires - because that exactly what it is. For anyone south of the river, the New Forest is pretty much the nearest National Park. It's also a lot easier a drive than heading southwest to Devon or Dorset. Our last journey to Eweleaze Farm on that same weekend was a brutal five hours of stop start tedium. 

The website was pretty slick. It not only promised us 'campfire magic' but also had a very easy to use booking system. So that was that 3 nights booked in a few clicks, courtesy of my long suffering credit card. And at £20/adult/night and £5/child/night it wasn't especially cheap - £150 all up.  By contrast, Eweleaze is £7.50/adult.

So what do you get for that?

For starters you get a call to your mobile on the Friday night to check that you're on your way and that you will be arriving. Well that's what we got anyway. Of course this may well be simply for the site's benefit to make sure that they have no empty pitches - but it made me feel like we mattered to them. Quite a difference to most campsites I think.

On arrival Zoie (? I think that's how she spelt her name), walked us up to the pitch - again a nice touch. The site is in a small orchard on the edge of a large field. It's not huge - 30 tent pitches in all and really quite close together, in slightly unimaginative rows. Each has a fixed fire pit, complete with a pot stand and cover. The ground is pretty flat and there was enough space to pitch even our huge tent. Also, because its next to a wood, it's quite sheltered from the wind. 

Fixed fire pit 

A row of terraced tents

When it comes to wood at campsites my general experience is that a bag is nearly always a fiver. What is always different is the size of the bag - with those irritating mesh sacks the worst value - rarely containing more that 5 logs. The bags at Embers are Morrisons bag for life shopping bags. And as well as being pretty large they also include a decent amount of kindling - so I thought it was fair value.

Cars had to be parked back down near the office after unloading, which was fine for us. Although the kids are much older now, I still don't like cars around campsites. So the only the chance of being knocked down was by one the carts provided for loading and unloading being used for racing purposes! Given the number of kids, this was not an unimaginable hazard. There's also a big flat open field perfect for frisbee, footie and kites etc. 

Cart without kids

The toilets, showers and washing up room are about 300 metres away. There are only 6 showers and 2 washing up basins, but to be fair I can't recall there being any queues. Everything was cleaned regularly. Importantly, there is a fresh water tap near the tents - so at least there was no ned to lug jerry cans of water any distance.   

The shop/office/reception down by the shower has all the usual leaflets etc as well as a small selection of essentials. We'd brought most stuff - but we did try a few things. Local sausages - pretty good. The bacon - pretty grim. If there's one thing I can't stand it's cheap, water-injected bacon. Sling a rasher of it on the griddle and watch as the water sweats out accompanied by some kind of white slime. Ugh. And given that there are a bunch of farm shops literally around the corner - how hard could it be to do a deal with one of them? They've obviously given food some thought,  the breakfast packs - all you need for a decent fry up for a tenner - are a great idea, particularly when they deliver them to your tent door.

Cute - apparently 

Another good thing is the farm tour that you could go on. This lasted about an hour and allows kids (or adults for that matter) to actually get up close and handle some of them. Aside from true farm animals like pigs and goats It also includes several more cute things - rabbits, chicks etc.

View of the Beaulieu

But of course for a campsite to be good, it also needs to be in a good location. Everybody has their own criteria - but a few things seem pretty universal: a decent pub nearby; a supermarket an easy drive away; interesting things to do nearby and walks that don't require you to drive anywhere. There's a large Tesco 10 minutes drive away - if you need to get in a big shop.

Embers is just outside Beaulieu, which has the requisite pub and in the form of a motor museum, at least one interesting thing to do, providing you like cars. I can't stand cars, but I really liked the walk recommended by Embers down to Bucklers Hard. This wanders along the banks of the Beaulieu along a well made path with some really great views. It's about 5 km or so, making it pretty doable for most people, and a great 10km run if you're a jogger at all.

Bucklers Hard is a rather amazing place where they used to make ship of the line during the Napoleonic wars. You can walk between the two rows of terraced cottages where the keel of the ship would have been laid. We didn't do the museum but we did check out the pub - the Master Builders. Nice staff, great views of the river and good beers. The food got mixed reviews. The chips and ploughmans were fine but kitchen please note - make sure the fat you fry fish fingers in is sufficiently hot. No one likes greasy fingers.

The New Forest proper is easy to get to from the campsite and we had a great day cycling from Brockenhurst, courtesy of Cyclexperience. I think we must have got the last few bikes they had. They also provided maps and routes, which made for quite a fun 12 or so miles, nearly all on cycle paths apart from a quite busy section round Lyndhurst. So that  covered the interesting things nearby for me.

So, will I go back to Embers? Possibly. It is pricey, but it's also small, friendly and has a great location - both itself and the surrounding area. Was there any campfire magic? Well yes there was. Apart from a bit of rain on the Friday night, the weather was pretty good and perfect for sitting around the fire. We cooked nearly everything on the fire: from the baked potatoes to the corn and the roast beast. We even managed a bit of a puppet show!

Obligatory food shot

How the time flew by

 And they clearly want to listen to their customers' views - a few days after the  trip I received an email from Murray McPherson there, saying thank you and asking for feedback. Like the call on the Friday, I think that's a first. So my advice to Murray is to sort out the bacon, go easy on the pricing and don't grow too big.

Grilling the American dream

You can tell a lot about a nation driving through it. You can tell even more camping and cooking through it. 

In July we took a road trip through some of the South Western states of America - Colorado,     Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California - in an RV. And what a trip it was. Much of the time, my prejudices were confirmed. 

Our RV was frankly pathetic compared to others...

At 25 feet, our RV from Cruise America seemed huge to us; power steering, air con, fridge freezer, shower, you name it, it had it. But at almost every place we parked up, ours was the smallest van...by a country mile. Most other RVs seemed to be the size of coaches, with multiple levels,flat screen TVs and rooms that expanded out to the side, pulled by huge pickups and possibly with a Harley Davidson strapped to the back. 

Short....but quite broad!

Food portions were similarly large. In most diners, the short stack of breakfast pancakes, was only small in comparison to the tall one.

My daughters like pancakes as much as the next person, but not once could they finish even three of those bad boys.






So far so obvious. But what I hadn't expected was how damn polite everyone was. Almost every person we met was attentive, helpful and considerate. The salesman at AT&T was helpful, polite and knowledgeable. The fact that I am still owed $60 by them, because my phone couldn't actually work with the SIM I bought, is more do with their truly terrible online customer services experience. But no matter.

The Rangers at all three Parks we stayed at, were uniformly (geddit) pleasant. Talking about what makes a good carnivore (eyes in front, kill and hunt - since you ask) or explaining what we should do in the event of a thunderstorm while on the trail down the Grand Canyon (squat down away from a tree and pray I think), all of them were a credit to Rangerdom (?).

Why can't we have these in the UK?

And the parks themselves were just fantastic. The ability to book a specific pitch in advances just amazing (but book early - the window is open 6 months in advance) at Recreation.gov was just amazing. You could even look at a photo of your pitch. And when you arrive, the label is already in place.

And what pitches. At just $20 or $30, they are incredibly good value. OK, there's no hook up or even line-in water. But there is a sturdy, ready made fire pit. And as for the views...

I think that Arches was our favourite. Right in the middle of the Park (in Devils Playground), just a few spaces (pull-through luckily given my driving skills). Just park and scramble up the nearest block of sandstone to reveal jaw-dropping views. Particularly at sunset or sunrise.

You don't get this in the New Forest.

As you might expect, cooking was quite a big part of the trip for me. And using the afore-mentioned fire pitsI applied myself to the task in hand. This being America ribs and burgers featured heavily. Bizarrely I couldn't seem to find ribs with any actual ribs in them anymore - they all seemed de-boned. But on the upside there were a number of rubs and sauces to try 

out.

We also managed to squeeze in a few vegetables on the journey.

Nothing too crazy - peppers, corn, that kind of stuff.

And mostly washed down with beer. Really delicious, properly crafted, beer. That was another surprise for me. My last recollection of US beer was the insipid and bland, mass produced stuff like Rolling Rock or Coors. But these days it seems that every town in every state, no matter how teeny has a micro-brewery, putting out small-run, highly-tasty brews. A particular fave was Fat Tire - not just the name, but also the taste. So often these brews are a little heavy on the hops - making them so floral that you'd think you'd been drinking the water from out of a vase.

It's quite easy to take the mickey out of America (or do I mean Americans?). But I can honestly say that when it comes to camping - friendly people, great value campsites and tasty beer, come high on my list of must haves.

And they aren't always that easy to find in the UK.


Just a thought...