I’m not sure I ought to tell you about the new campsite we’ve found. It might get all trendy and popular and end up like Blackberry Wood, where you have to book 12 months in advance. However, it’s a very new site, and in fact only a pilot this year - we need to encourage the owners with some regular custom, so they set it up permanently.
It’s called Forge Wood, in Kent, just 10 minutes from Tunbridge Wells. There’s a meadow, pretty flat with soft grass, where you can pitch round the edge next to the woods. Then there’s the woods, which are still pretty undeveloped, and would benefit from larger clearings being made, but do offer that Ray Mears experience - you are positively encouraged to gather firewood and indulge in fancy wood craft.
There’s the possibility of a campfire - as the place has only been open two weeks you may have to lug stones from the heap by the firewood stack, to make your own firepit. But you get to choose where you put it. And you don’t have to chop your own logs, John the manager does a heap with his chainsaw in the afternoon.
There’s only one shower and toilet for each sex at the moment, but it’s properly plumbed in, immaculately clean, and I never had to queue. And there’s the Forge wood tearooms, open Wednesday to Sunday from 9-5, dispensing cappucinos, ginger beer, and the best cheese & onion toasty I ever tasted.
And then there’s the brambles - all the way around the edge of the site, and they have just started ripening. We picked a kilo of blackberries without really trying, and brought them home in one of the ziplock bags I optimistically persist in packing in my camp kitchen box, for just this sort of opportunity. I’ve just made them into bramble and apple jam, and it’s utterly delicious.
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