Camping fun!

When I lived in the UK, I went camping a few times and I loved it! We visited Robin Hood’s bay with Granny Fiona and Grandpa, caravanning with the Anwyl bunch and we also took a trip to Shell Island with my friend Isaac. My experience of camping there was hiding from the rain in a two man tent or, more luxuriously, in my Granny and Grandpa’s motor home. Despite the odd rain shower and colder climate, camping was one of my favourite things to do! So when our friend’s Nicholas and Julie invited us over to camp at Blue Hill we jumped at the chance.

Camping is a big tradition on St Helena, especially on (usually very wet) Easter weekends, where families gather with their tents, sleeping bags and stoves up at the areas called Horse Pasture or Thompson’s Hill. During the weekend, they have bbq’s and a big fish fry with fish that they caught themselves on Maundy Thursday. At Easter, we went to visit the camping at Horse Pasture and we tried so many different fish that we had never tried before-bullseye, grouper and even conger eel! We were well and truly stuffed after that!

During our second experience of camping on St Helena, we arrived at the camp to welcoming, glorious sunshine and tea and cakes (including the St Helenian coconut cake and pumpkin pie. Yum!). As soon as I leapt out of the car, I was straight on the slides and swings with my new friends. I did stop for a little nibble of crackers and traditional St Helenian tomato paste too.

The camping at Blue Hill was different to the camping I’m used to as we were all staying in an old building which used to be Blue Hill school. There is still a blackboard up on the wall-we used this to write down our drink choices! As usual, our camping buddies were well prepared with blow up beds and sleeping bags on either side of the room. When the sun went down, it got darker and a little chillier, so after a game of catch and bouncing on the beds with my friend Kordell, I snuggled down into bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was asleep. Must be all that fresh air!

Some camp entertainment….

After a pretty loud night of snoring (I think daddy may have been the loudest), I woke up to eggs, bacon, beans and fried yam all cooked in the good old outdoors. Yum! The rest of the day was spent lazing in the sun, munching on snacks and generally having a pretty chilled out day! We were “breezing off” as the Saints would say. I could get used to camping on St Helena!