Hello, I thought I would share my worst camping experience to date - please bear with my self indulgent tale of woe....
So, I have recently transferred office from Oxfordshire to County Durham and I was pretty chuffed when I found a great woodland bushcraft campsite within 3 miles of my new office. My first week at the new office and the weather forecast was great so I packed all of my camping gear and prepared for a week of bushcraft camping digs. The site is great, beautiful mixed woodland taken over by its current manager about 3 years ago, he is taking it from a totally unkempt state to (eventually) a managed coppiced wood and he is a very nice chap.
After finishing work on Monday I headed down to the wood and set up camp - cooked dinner on the honey stove and settled down for a bit of spoon carving. Same on Tuesday night, settled down in my sleeping bag and nodded off to sleep. Unfortunately I woke up at about 3 am with pretty bad stomach pains, after lying about groaning for a while I decided to get dressed and avail myself of the basic facilities, this brought little relief so after a sit down under the stars for a short while the nausea began...anyway after half an hour of being violently ill I decided that I had to get home - a 3 hour drive away but i needed to get there. I briefly toyed with the idea of packing up my camping gear but felt so weak I decided to leave it - I have never had anything stolen in 20 years of camping. Any way, I finally left the site at about 5 am (after an hour trying to find the key to the gate - another camper had moved it from the super secret hiding place but thats another story) and spent 5 hours driving home with occasional "rest" breaks on the hard shoulder.
After spending the rest of the day and following night in bed I felt much better so decided to return to work and the campsite afterwards. BUT, the campsite manager called while I was on my way up to let me know that by basha which I had hung up in case of rain had gone missing. After some conversation it appeared that more than that had gone from in my tent. So, I got back up the A1 as fast as I dared, when I got there I was absolutely gutted to discover that most of my gear had been stolen. I have tallied it up since and the total value of stuff taken is just over £1400 and it had been collected over many years, much of it as gifts. It is probably not insured because I am still in the process of moving from the midlands to North Yorkshire and do not have a home to have contents insurance on.
SO, i guess the warning is just to take care when out and about, at first I thought the theives must have been watching to know that my tent was unattended - then it dawned on me that they probably were't - they would have just come and taken my gear anyway and probably given me a good kicking as well if I had been there! I don't think that I will be camping on my own again unless it is on a more commercial type of campsite or in total wilderness. I will also be leaving my tent as empty as possible if I have to leave it overnight.
The request for help is just to ask the good members to keep an eye on ebay and other sites to see if any thing that might be mine turns up. Here is a list of what was stolen:
Tarpauline - Ex army DPM basha/tarp
Ruck Sack - Gregory Baltoro 75 - grey
Sleeping Bag - Moutnain Equipment Lightline
Bivvy Bag - Ex army green
Svord Peasant Knife - blue handle
Gransfors Bruks Wildlife Hatchet
Victorinox SAK - model no longer made, similar to current Outrider model
Water proof top - Paramo Velez Light Smock - red and grey
Waterproof trousers - Paramo Cascada
Bahco Laplander Saw
MSR Whisperlight stove
MSR 1 litre fuel bottle
Green Woodcarving Knives in British Army '58 webbing pouch:
Ben Orford Small Standard Spoon Knife
Ben Orford Medium Spoon knife with hybrid handle
Ben Orford Medium Flatter Spoon knife with hybrid handle
Ben Orford Indian Crook Knife
Bernie Garland Woodcarver
I am obviously pretty gutted about this, so any any help would be most appreciated.
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Originally Posted by Olly
