Were you here with us in 2022? Well this is a news roundup for those of you who were, and for the rest of you, come and see what you missed...
It was our very first time to start an eco-campsite, and, thanks to everyone that came and stayed, it was a really fun summer season.
We certainly had some luck with the weather; it was wall to wall sunshine with only a handful of rainy days.
When it did rain, we had a few social evenings sitting around playing cards and chatting in the polytunnel over a glass or two of our Moroccan Mwnt Tea.
So what's next at Mwnt Camping?
With the camping season finished, we are missing having a steady stream of fun and interesting people here, and thoughts have turned to how we can keep making our place an even better place to visit, so you’ll all have good reasons to come back and visit again.
Yes, we want to make a stone circle like this one...
We do have quite a few things planned. Some are things you have asked us for, and some from our own imagination. Read on to find out!
Please send us emails with more ideas, comments and suggestions, this would be really helpful and we’d love to hear from you…
Rainproof Camping?
We’ve just had the first autumnal storm here in Mwnt, after a long, dry, hot camping season.
Remember this? The pop-up fabric-compost-loo blew over and is now in tatters. Next year it’s out with the unpopular commode with its John Lewis curtain, and in with a double urinals facility, to be clad in climbing plants.
This storm has been a timely reminder that dry hot summers are not guaranteed in Wales, and nothing tests the spirit of camping as much as a few days of rain. Have you ever sat in a tent day after day with the rain pouring down outside? It’s only so long before cabin fever sets in, and, when your clothes and things get wet, it can start feeling like time to go home.
We had a great time hanging out with the campers in the polytunnel on the rainy days in 2022, but the polytunnel can get very hot, and is too easily damaged for it to be a long term solution for escaping the rain.
So, we are going to make a new indoor space for rainy days with comfy couches, coffee tables, a book exchange, board games, chargers and whatever else we can think of, to make it a nice place to be when you need a break from your tent.
Someone else's barn lounge I found online - ours will be way better than this!
Oh and we will be including a place to dry your wet clothes, as per a few requests from campers this year...
Tree Planting That YOU Paid For
As part of the Greener Camping Club, we will be planting one new tree at the campsite for everyone that joined last season. In fact we will be planting way more than that number, as we are trying to build up lots of shelter for your tents and to attract more biodiversity in the form of birds and insects to improve the land from its former life as a sheep grazing field.
The trees we planted last winter (like this Rowan) had a tough first year in the drought. They had to be hand watered during the hottest driest times. Most survived and enjoyed a wetter autumn and should be well placed to have a better time in 2023, unless we have another dry year...
Young trees tend to establish and grow best when planted in winter, which means lots of digging in the wind and rain for us. We are limited much more by the amount of time and energy it takes to do the planting, than by the cost of buying the trees, so if anyone wants to offer a hand with tree planting and landscaping this winter you’d be very welcome, just drop us an email.
Building a Stone Circle
Helen inspects some likely stones in Pembrokeshire, but how to move them?
We are planning to erect a stone circle at the campsite. I imagine many will ask why. In our case, I imagine that it will be a natural gathering and socialising spot, with a campfire at the centre.
By aligning the stones with compass points and celestial phenomenon such as equinoxes, midsummer and midwinter sunrises and sunsets, we will learn something about astronomy, and hopefully the circle will be a reflective space for people to feel their place in the universe
The owner of this field wants to get rid of these amazing rocks, as they are in the way of his cows!
All we have to do now is find the right stones and a way of getting them into place, completion date: unknown…
Creativity at Mwnt Camping
I hope this entry will be the first of many to come… I know we had many talented people visiting us from many fields in 2022; one of them John Diamond spent some time here and produced some pictures that he has allowed me to share here.
John's biro sketch from the camping meadow (johndiamond221@gmail.com)
John had this to say: “I spent a fantastic week at Mwnt camping in August with my family. A beautiful site with so many fantastic beaches nearby. It was also ideal for developing my interest in landscape painting, the ‘sunset’ was a 30 minute sketch using acrylic paint on canvas, and the drawing was biro on paper.”
John's sunset acrylic on canvas from Mwnt Camping field (johndiamond221@gmail.com)
summer vibes pic by me and my fave photo editor...
Memories and Pictures of 2022
I’m including here a few nice photos of our own as well as some that we have been allowed to share by some of this season’s campers. If you have some you’d like to share, please email them over to us and we will try to feature them next time, or on the website, with your permission.
the path from the campsite down to Mwnt beach (Ruth Nilsson)
ping pong on our old dining table - now serving duty as a seed tray table in the polytunnel
swingball before the grass turned totally yellow
Helen making the road sign from an old fence post
parched grass in the meadow at midsummer
our roadside mascot Greta became a bit of a local landmark
the baby seal that caused Mwnt beach to close for two weeks in September (seen through a phone pointed down the binoculars)
boots no longer required, Mwnt beach
we bought a very strange caravan to makeover for 2023
If you spot yourself in a picture on the website or in the newsletter and would prefer not to appear, please let us know and we will remove the picture in question – we do try to get permission when taking pics at the campsite, but we’re not perfect.
Next Time...
Well done for reading this far! Look out for more posts coming soon on the following cool topics:
The new caravan project, the yacht conversion, solar powered toy boats, pet chickens, Dylan’s fish obsession, how to eat your own kelp, the polytunnel, solar power mowing, the new pond, compost loos, should you move to Wales, AND the eco-campers from Hamburg, who came all the way to Mwnt by public transport.
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